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Victims of the UK infected blood scandal have been “harmed yet further” by the government’s response to the decades-long affair, the chair of the public inquiry has said, calling for “fairer” and “faster” compensation.
Just 460 people treated with blood that was contaminated with HIV and other diseases had received compensation since a damning report was published in May last year, Sir Brian Langstaff said on Wednesday.
Although ministers had set up a victim compensation scheme within 12 months of his report, Langstaff warned that trust in the government had been “further damaged” and victims “harmed yet further” by the way in which the programme was established.
More than 30,000 men, women and children were treated with blood that was contaminated with HIV and other diseases in the 1970s and 1980s. Over 3,000 have died.
“It is not too late to get this right. We are calling for compensation to be faster, and more than that, fairer,” Langstaff said in a follow-up report on Wednesday, describing the number of victims paid compensation so far as “profoundly unsatisfactory”.
This is a developing story
