ANOTHER hepatitis C alert has been sparked at Hereford County Hospital involving 250 former patients.

It is linked to a similar scare two years ago when 560 women treated in the maternity and gynaecology units were told they could have been exposed to the disease through a doctor who was later diagnosed with hepatitis C.

All the women were patients between 1988 and 1990 and in February 2005, the hospital started an urgent screening process, calling them in for precautionary blood testing.

But now, two years later and 17 years after the doctor left to work elsewhere, the County Hospital, with others across the country where he has been on the staff, have been told to widen the net and call in more patients with whom he had contact.

On Tuesday this week, 250 women received letters offering them blood tests, giving them a special emergency phone number and asking them to book in to special clinics starting from today (Thursday).

The results of blood tests should be known within 10 days and it is believed the chances of any of them being positive for hepatitis C is remote.

The doctor at the centre of the scare moved to several other hospitals after leaving Hereford and was diagnosed with the disease in 2002.

As a result, nearly 2,500 women in England and Scotland were offered blood tests, with the numbers limited to those most at risk through major surgery on the advice of the UK Advisory Panel for health care workers for blood borne diseases.

It is understood the panel, in a national review, has now found some weak links in the evidence base for transmission of hepatitis C.

As a result it has asked all the hospitals, including the County, to look at lists of patients who underwent minor operational procedures from the obstetrician-gynaecologist and to offer them screening, too.

At the County Hospital this involves another 250 former patients from 1988-90 and medical director Dr Peter Harper said their names were already on the list of patients which was researched in 2005.

Dr Harper also revealed that during the first scare in 2005 up to 150 former patients at the County Hospital who were offered blood tests, failed to respond, despite having three reminder letters.

All these patients will now be offered another opportunity to undergo the precautionary test.

It has not been proved that the infected doctor was suffering from hepatitis C at the time he was working at the County Hospital.

And it is understood that of the 2,500 women tested for the disease, just three had positive results. It has not been revealed whether any of these were former County Hospital patients.