Professor Aiden McCormick:

We have thought about this. We can forecast numbers but we want to find as many people as possible and treat them as quickly as possible. We are telling centres that they do not have a number they have to treat - they should treat as many as they can. If they run into a roadblock, we will give them more resources to treat them. Spending a lot of time on detailed plans is not the right thing to do. These patients are difficult to find and we do not know the exact numbers.

A study was done recently by the Safetynet group into 700 people who were homeless or in hostels. They agreed to be tested for hepatitis C and only 2% tested positive. There is a suggestion that one third of homeless people are positive but it is not fully based on fact. There are a lot but not as many as that.