Blood scandal compensation 'must be extended'
The chairman of the Infected Blood Inquiry wants victim's families to be entitled to compensation
Last updated 5th Apr 2023
The compensation given to victims of the contaminated blood scandal, labelled the “biggest treatment disaster in the NHS”, must be widened according to the chairman of the Infected Blood Inquiry.
In July last year, the inquiry recommended that victims of the contaminated blood scandal should receive interim compensation of £100,000.
Now the inquiry chairman has said more people who lost loved ones should be entitled to compensation.
Sir Brian Langstaff, a former High Court judge, said that some family members – including parents who lost children and children orphaned when their parents died – remain “unrecognised” when it comes to compensation.
He has recommended that the Government should make further interim compensation payments to those affected by the scandal.
It has been estimated that thousands of people were infected with HIV and hepatitis by contaminated blood between 1970 and 1991.
Announcement made to prevent further delays
Sir Brian said that he was taking the unusual step of publishing the recommendation ahead of the publication of the full report into the scandal so that victims would not face any more delays.
“I could not in conscience add to the decades-long delays many of you have already experienced due to failures to recognise the depth of your losses,” he said in his statement.
He said that “wrongs were done at individual, collective and systemic levels”.
Sir Brian said that “not only do the infections themselves and their consequences merit compensation, but so too do the wrongs done by authority, whose response served to compound people’s suffering”.
He said: “This has been described as the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS, and we have much to learn as a nation to help ensure that people never suffer in a similar way again. I will be setting that out in my full report.”
On further compensation payments, he added: “I am also recommending further interim compensation payments to recognise the deaths of people who have so far gone unrecognised, as I believe this is necessary to alleviate immediate suffering.
“It is a fact that around 380 children with bleeding disorders were infected with HIV. Some of them died in childhood.
“But their parents have never received compensation.
“Children who were orphaned as a result of infections transmitted by blood transfusions and blood products have never had their losses recognised.”
In October 2022, the Government said thousands of victims of the infected blood scandal would receive interim compensation payments of £100,000 – and it has already made interim payments of around £400 million to people infected and to bereaved partners.