A victim of the infected blood scandal who contracted HIV after being experimented on at a specialist school has described a £15,000 payout as a “kick in the teeth”.
Campaigners welcomed changes announced on Friday to give tens of thousands of victims better access to compensation after being infected with HIV and Hepatitis C in what is considered the worst treatment disaster in the NHS’s history. But Richard Warwick, who was infected during experimental trials in a particularly egregious case at Treloar’s school, said surviving pupils are considering taking legal advice over the £15,000 payment they’ve been offered.
“The surviving pupils had a chat,” he said. “I don’t know where they’ve plucked the figure from but we all think it is derisory and insulting. It is unbelievable and unfathomable where they got this figure from.”
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Mr Warwick was infected with HIV and hepatitis B after receiving blood products at the school as part of medical treatment for haemophilia, which he was diagnosed with at three years old. A review into the compensation scheme recommended that victims who were used for research without their knowledge receive an extra £10,000, with a higher award of £15,000 for those who underwent treatment at Treloar’s College. The Government has accepted the suggestions from Sir Robert Francis, the Interim Chair of the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA).
Paymaster General Nick Thomas-Symonds said: “I’ve heard Richard Warwick speak very, very movingly about his experience at Treloar’s in the late 1970s and early 1980s. There was a particularly egregious breach of trust and respect at that school where parents sent children with haemophilia for personalised care who then were subject to the most horrific medical experimentation.
“That amount of money is obviously not the totality, anywhere near the totality of the amount of money that somebody who had haemophilia, who was infected with HIV and hepatitis C, would receive. But look, firstly, no amount of money can make up for the suffering of people, but that figure is one that Sir Robert Francis asked us to consider.” He added: “We are listening to what’s been said and making those substantial changes.”
Mr Thomas-Symonds confirmed 69 of the 74 recommendations made in a review of the compensation scheme have been accepted by the Government. Jason Evans, Director of Factor 8 campaign group, said the announcement was “a welcome step as we move closer to final compensation payments beginning to be made”.
“Compensation for those impacted by the infected blood scandal has taken far too long and too many have died waiting,” he said when the announcement was first made. “Today, the picture of what compensation might look like has become clearer, and now it must be delivered.”