The abject failure to compensate victims of the infected blood scandal continues today, a scathing report has found.
Officials are still not transparent, with decision-making made ‘behind closed doors’, amid allegations of moving goalposts and delays exacerbating their grief.
Campaigners including those infected and affected by the worst treatment disaster in NHS history said they felt completely ignored after being excluded from the expert group set up to compensate them for receiving contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.
Yet only 460 payments have been paid to date, despite a damning report last year laying bare the extent of the scandal and the state’s responsibility for it.
A fresh report today by Sir Brian Langstaff, who led the Infected Blood Inquiry, again pointed the finger at the Government for dragging its feet.
He said: ‘For decades, people who suffered because of infected blood have not been listened to.
‘Once again, decisions have been made behind closed doors leading to obvious injustices.
‘The UK Government has known for years that compensation for thousands of people was inevitable and had identified many of those who should have it.
Campaigners have long been waiting for answers over the scandal
More than 30,000 people in the UK were infected with HIV and hepatitis C after they were given contaminated blood and blood products between the 1970s and early 1990s
‘It is not too late to get this right. We are calling for compensation to be faster, and more than that, fairer.’
The Infected Blood Compensation Authority (ICBA) was set up last May under then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a day after Sir Brian’s initial report.
But a general election meant progress stalled, with officials initially describing how the organisation consisted of two men, a laptop and a phone.
Today’s report describes how those affected have been further harmed due to the ordeal of attempting to get their compensation.
And Sir Brian said his conclusions from last year’s report regarding the Government’s ‘failure to act on compensation were, and remain, well-founded’.
He accused the IBCA of ‘not yet living up to its commitment to be transparent’, amid criticism the compensation body was ‘set up without any direct involvement of the people it most affected’ – victims and their families.
He said the guidance, advice, and instructions to claim managers processing bids for compensation have not been published, while the work undertaken by IBCA with the Cabinet Office to understand the policy intentions behind each regulation has not been shared.
None of IBCA’s policy papers have been published, he found, nor has information regarding its approach to important issues, within the regulations, nor the minutes of the meetings of IBCA’s board.
Sir Brian Langstaff has led the Infected Blood Inquiry
IBCA also missed an opportunity to have worked more closely with the recognised legal representatives of people infected and affected, in the drawing up of policies, procedures and guidance.
The report added: ‘An almost universal concern voiced to the inquiry is the slowness of the start made by IBCA in making and the likely delay before compensation is received.
‘The lack of clear timescales and the uncertainty as to when any individual might expect to receive compensation has been a source of considerable distress and anger.
‘Although it is fair to note that the numbers who have received compensation to date have increased significantly in recent weeks, they were profoundly unsatisfactory at the start of May, when the inquiry hearings began.’
Victims described ‘moving goalposts’, with compensation claims picked ‘at random’.
Carolyn Challis, who was infected with hepatitis between 1992 and 1993 after receiving three blood transfusions for pregnancy- and chemotherapy-related anaemia, said in a statement: ‘The impact of the delays on this community has been devastating.
‘We’re suffering from compounded trauma, anger, frustration, exhaustion and a loss of hope.
‘We’re experiencing an even further decline in our physical and mental health.
A woman holds a bouquet of flowers in the colours of the infected blood campaign
Chairman of the Infected Blood Inquiry Sir Brian Langstaff (left) with victims and campaigners outside Central Hall in Westminster in May last year
‘I have heard several reports of individuals who feel suicidal.
‘We don’t feel heard, and it’s as if there is contempt towards us. We have been left confused by conflicting and incorrect information and moving goalposts.’
And Sir Brian called on the removal of a restriction preventing those infected before 1982 from being eligible for compensation.
Andrew Evans, who was infected with HIV and Hepatitis C aged five and who chairs the Tainted Blood campaign group, said people ‘brought to tears by relief of the publication of the inquiry’s final report’ have felt ‘nothing but despair’ since.
‘They have lost all hope of ever getting justice,’ he said.
‘The scheme was effectively written in stone before we even laid eyes on it/ The way that this has been handled since the second interim report to date is, to my mind, the same line to take tactics, defensiveness and lack of candour that we’ve been fighting for the past four decades.’
Sir Brian’s report said Mr Evans’ comments were ‘fully justified’.
Sir Brian Langstaff’s latest report said victims had continued to be let down
The contaminated blood products were imported cheaply from the US where blood was being collected from paid donors such as prisoners, the homeless and drug addicts.
Most of those infected were people who received treatment for blood disorders such as haemophilia and those who had transfusions.
Some £11.8 billion has been allocated to compensate victims.
Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds denied the government was ‘dragging our heels’ over compensation payments to victims, and said he did not want to impose any further delays after ‘decades of injustice’.
