A compensation payment of no less than £100,000 should be paid to all infected blood victims and bereaved partners across Britain, the chairman of the inquiry into the issue has said.
The inquiry was established to examine how thousands of patients in the UK were infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.
There are believed to be more than 4,000 surviving victims from what has been labelled the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS.
In an interim report published today, Sir Brian Langstaff said that the money should be paid “without delay” to those affected.
In a letter to Paymaster General Michael Ellis accompanying the report, Sir Brian said: “As you will read, it was the force of Sir Robert Francis QC’s recommendation of an interim payment, as amplified by him in the course of his oral evidence to the inquiry, that caused me to reflect on whether I should exercise my powers to make such a report.
“I believed that elementary justice required that I consider this question. No submission made to me argued that I should not make a recommendation.
“Having considered the submissions and reflected on the evidence this inquiry has heard of profound physical and mental suffering across a wide range of backgrounds, from a diversity of places and in a variety of personal circumstances, I considered it right that I should make this report.
“I recommend that: (1) An interim payment should be paid, without delay, to all those infected and all bereaved partners currently registered on UK infected blood support schemes, and those who register between now and the inception of any future scheme; (2) The amount should be no less than £100,000, as recommended by Sir Robert Francis QC.”
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