Infected blood victims ‘harmed further’ by compensation delays

Thousands of victims of the infected blood scandal are “more injured” by long expectations, said the president of the public inquiry into the disaster.

In a striking report, Sir Brian Langstaff said that there were “obvious injustices” in the way the program had been designed.

It is believed that 30,000 people were infected with HIV and hepatitis B or C in the 1970s, 80s and in the early 90s after receiving contaminated blood products on the NHS.

The government has reserved 11.8 billion pounds sterling to pay compensation and said it reduced administrative formalities to accelerate payments to victims.

The main report of the investigation into the scandal, published last year, revealed that the disaster could have been largely avoided if different decisions had been taken by the health authorities at the time.

He said that too little was done to stop the importation of contaminated blood products from abroad in the 1970s and 80s, and there was evidence that elements of the scandal had been covered.

In May this year, Sir Brian took the unusual measure to order two additional hearings after receiving “letter after letter, email after e-mail” expressing concerns concerning the management of the government’s compensation regime for the victims.

His 200 -page additional report, published on Wednesday, was based on this evidence and found that the victims had been “more injured” by the way they had been treated in the last 12 months.

The latest figures from the Infect Blood Compensation Authority, which was set up by the government to administer payments, show that 2,043 people have been invited to start their complaints so far and 460 have received complete compensation.

The program is open to those who have been infected as well as family members, including parents, children and brothers and sisters, who can request compensation in its own right as a person affected by the scandal.

Sir Brian said: “The British government had known for years that compensation for thousands of people was inevitable and had identified many of those who should have it.

“But only 460 have received compensation so far and many, many others have not even been allowed to start the process.”

The new investigation report makes a series of recommendations, in particular:

• The victims should be authorized to request compensation, rather than waiting to be invited
• Victims and family members who are seriously sick, older or who have never received a priority should obtain priority
• A series of “injustices” was to be treated by, for example, by permission of certain victims infected by HIV before 1982 to request compensation
• NHS patients who have been victims of medical experimentation should receive additional payments
• The system as a whole must be more transparent with greater involvement of infected people and their families

Speaking to Westminster Chapel in central London to survivors and their families after the publication of his report, Sir Brian said that an important cause of the blood scandal was the conviction that the authorities knew best and that people did not need to be consulted.

He said: “Decisions were made behind closed doors and when things went wrong, people did not listen.

“This has happened in the design of the remuneration program. It will be a parody of continuing to repeat these errors. People should not be maintained at the length of weapons.”

Kate Burt, director general of Haemophilia Society, said: “The government’s inability to listen to people at the heart of the contaminated blood scandal was once again exposed by the infected blood survey.

“This failure is exhausting, damaging and eliminates this community from its dignity.”

Richard Angell, director general of Terrence Higgins Trust, said: “We are working with a family whose young son died three decades ago due to diseases linked to AIDS caused by infected blood.

“His father now has dementia. It should not be too much for him to receive compensation when he can still remember his son.”

Rachel Halford, director general of hepatitis C Trust, said that the government had “delayed each action and regularly ignored the voice of the community; consequently, we have a poorly designed remuneration system that does not reflect thousands of affected people”.

Earlier, the Minister of the Cabinet, Nick Thomas-Symonds, denied that the government “dragged its heels” on remuneration.

He told the BBC Radio 4 Teday program that he did not want to impose other delays after “decades of injustice”.

“We have paid more than 488 million pounds sterling,” he said, adding that it had been “very open that there are areas that I am ready to look at, listening to the voice of the victims”.

Mr. Thomas-Symonds later added that the government would quickly resolve the recommendations to understand the implications of any change in the program.

“My intention is to provide a new update from the house [of Commons] Before summer recess, “he said.