Infected blood scandal report – dwell updates

Victims of the contaminated blood scandal said they felt ‘validated and vindicated’ by the inquiry’s final report into the scandal.

Andy Evans, chairman of the Tainted Blood campaign group, told a press conference that it was a “momentous day”.

Sometimes we felt like we were shouting into the wind during the last 40 years…

Today proves that it can happen in the UK and I just feel validated and vindicated by Sir Brian and his report today.

Watch the moment the Infected Blood Inquiry chairman said the contaminated blood disaster is ‘no accident’ and that people who put their trust in doctors and the government were ‘betrayed’.

See the video below:

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is widely expected to issue an apology in Parliament later today.

Whitehall sources expect NHS chief Amanda Pritchard to issue her own apology for the worst treatment disgrace in the history of the health service.

Tomorrow ministers will set out plans for a massive compensation scheme, which could cost taxpayers more than £10 billion.

Campaigners believe those infected with hepatitis C and HIV could receive payments of around £1.4million.

Interim compensation payments of £100,000 have been made to around 4,000 infected people or bereaved partners.

Ministers recently announced that these interim payments would be extended to the ‘estates of the deceased’.

Campaigners have hailed the publication of the report as the ‘end of a 40-year fight’.

The infected blood scandal was ‘not an accident’ but the result of a series of shocking failures over many years, the report concluded today.

The report, running to more than 2,500 pages, lists ‘a catalogue of failures,’ all of which Sir Brian deemed ‘serious’, though ‘taken together they are a calamity’.

They include:

• A severe lack of blood screening and a lax attitude to who was donating – despite the fact the government was importing products which had an increased likelihood of being unsafe
• Children were treated as ‘objects for research’ after being given ‘riskier’ products made from multiple sources while staying at Treloar’s, a boarding school for the sick
• Delays in informing people about their infections, sometimes for years. Some were also told in ‘insensitive’ and ‘inappropriate’ ways
• Too many transfusions were also given when they were not necessarily needed

Before we explore the reaction to let’s just look back at the infected blood scandal and how we got to today’s report

• More than 30,000 people in the UK are thought to have been infected with HIV and hepatitis C at the hands of the NHS after being given contaminated blood products.
• The scandal began in the early 1970s when new blood clotting products were developed to be used in treatments for people with bleeding disorders.
• A shortage of blood in the UK led ministers to source cheap batches from the US where supplies relied on high-risk paid donors, many in prisons and including drug addicts.
• Most of those infected in the UK were people who received treatment for blood disorders such as haemophilia and those who had blood transfusions.
• The inquiry was first announced by former prime minister Theresa May in 2017, with the first official hearing held on April 20 2019.
• It is one of the largest UK public inquiries and has been led by former High Court judge Sir Brian Langstaff, who was appointed to chair in February 2018.

Some 374 people have given oral evidence, and the inquiry has received more than 5,000 witness statements and reviewed more than 100,000 documents

Inquiry chairman Sir Brian Langstaff said that the contaminated blood disaster is “no accident” and that people who put their trust in doctors and the government were “betrayed”.

He told broadcasters:

What I have been looking at are people from families across the UK who have gone into hospital for treatment and over 30,000 have come out with infections which were life-shattering.

And 3,000 of those have died and deaths keep on happening week-by-week. What I have found is that disaster was no accident. People put their trust in doctors and the government to keep them safe and that trust was betrayed.

Then the government compounded that agony by telling them that nothing wrong had been done, that they’d had the best available treatment and that as soon as tests were available they were introduced and both of those statements were untrue.

That’s why what I’m recommending is that compensation must be paid now and I have made various other recommendations to help make the future of the NHS better and treatment safer.

The final report of the Infected Blood Inquiry was published this afternoon which has concluded the scandal could and should have been largely avoided.

Inquiry chairman Sir Brian Langstaff (pictured above, left) said that the contaminated blood disaster is “still happening” because patients who suffered “life-shattering” infections continue to die every week.

The scale speaks for itself, if you have over 30,000 people who go into hospital and come out with infections which were life-shattering that in itself is huge and the suffering for them and others is huge.

When you add that the fact that over 3,000 have died and deaths keep on happening week after week, you not only have a disaster that has happened over years but is still happening.

What that brings with it is suffering which is very difficult to put into words, you really have to listen to people who have lived with it to hear and understand.

MailOnline will provide live updates on the latest reaction to the infected blood scandal.

A report released by the Infected Blood Inquiry has found the NHS treatment disaster is the ‘worst ever’ and should have been avoided as a series of shocking failures were followed by a pervasive cover-up.

More than 3,000 victims have died and tens of thousands more continue to suffer after vulnerable patients were infected with HIV and hepatitis from contaminated blood products during the 1970s and early 1990s.

Follow our blog for the latest reaction.