Compensation for victims of the infected blood scandal, the biggest treatment disaster in the history of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), could cost billions of pounds after a government-commissioned report suggested thousands of people should receive minimum payments of £100,000 each.
Sir Robert Francis QC was asked to make recommendations for a framework for compensation and redress for people infected after being given factor VIII blood products that were contaminated with HIV and hepatitis C imported from the US in the 1970s and 1980s, or after being exposed to tainted blood through transfusions or after childbirth.
The Guardian reports that in his study, published last week, Francis said there was a compelling case for awarding interim payments as soon as possible to those previously accepted as eligible for support.
"… such a payment should be made now, reflecting the minimum any infected person could be expected to receive under the scheme. I have suggested this is unlikely to be less than £100,000 in any case.”
While he said it was not currently possible to know how many people might be eligible for compensation were a scheme to be set up, it has previously been suggested that as many as 30,000 people became severely ill as a result of the scandal, with about 3,000 having died to date. If tens of thousands of people received £100,000 each it would take the total compensation into the billions.
However, the Factor 8 campaign group (a non-profit organisation comprising victims and families affected by the scandal) has disputed that such a high number of people was infected and noted that some believe it was invented to “make the scandal appear to be ‘too expensive to compensate’”. It said that as of 2015, 5,500 people had accessed financial support, which would have included widows, children, infected partners and other estate beneficiaries as well as those infected.
The report recommends that victims should be compensated, among other things, for physical and social injury, stigma and social isolation, the cost of care and loss of income. It also recommends that partners, children, siblings and parents of infected people as well as other family members or very close friends who suffered mental or physical consequences should be admitted to the compensation scheme.
Kate Burt, chief executive of the Haemophilia Society, said: “Thousands have died waiting for the government to do the right thing – now the time has come to act.”
The government said analysis of Francis’s findings “cannot be completed hurriedly”.
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The Guardian article – Infected blood scandal payments could run into billions, report suggests (Open access)
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