Infected blood scheme will make first payouts by end of year

The government has announced it will push ahead with compensation payments to infected blood victims.

The previous government had announced the scheme in May following publication of the public inquiry report into the scandal.

Campaigners had feared the payouts might be delayed because of the election being called shortly after that announcement.

But ministers said they wanted to press ahead as quickly as possible.

The infected blood scandal has been called the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS.

More than 30,000 people were infected with HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated blood products and transfusions between 1970 and 1991.

About 3,000 of them have since died – many of them haemophiliacs given infected blood products as part of their treatment.

The size of the payouts will depend on individual circumstances but could top £2m.

The compensation due is being judged under five criteria – harm caused, social impact from stigma and isolation, impact on autonomy and private life, care costs and financial loss.

The first payments will be made to those who were infected. Family members and loved ones of those infected will also be entitled to compensation but that scheme will not be available until next year.

The government announcement comes after Sir Robert Francis, the interim chair of the new Infected Blood Compensation Authority, reviewed the recommendations put forward for the scheme by the public inquiry.

He suggested a number of changes which have been accepted by ministers.

These include additional payments for those subjected to “unethical research”.

This includes an extra £15,000 for those who went to Treloar’s boarding school in Hampshire where children were given higher-risk treatments in order to further medical research.

Richard Warwick, who has haemophilia and went on to develop hepatitis B and C and HIV after he was given blood products to treat his clotting disorder while he was at the school for disabled children between 1976 and 1982, described the sum as “derogatory and insulting”.

"I don't know where they have got [the amount] from - they seem to have plucked it out of the air," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"It is insulting... not only to the children who managed to live through what was done to them at school but also to the parents of children who died and their wider families.

"How they have come up with this figure is beyond comprehension."

Sir Robert also suggested the existing support scheme that is currently in place should continue. Originally it had been proposed this would end.

Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said: “This is an important milestone for victims and campaigners who have waited too long for justice.

"We’re going to do everything possible to deliver compensation quickly."

Mr Thomas-Symonds explained that the £15,000 was "an additional part" to the compensation figure and had been recommended to the government by the interim chair of the infected blood inquiry.

Jason Evans, of the campaign group Factor 8, whose father died in the infected blood scandal, has said the announcement of support scheme payments for life for victims is a "welcome step".

But he told the Today programme documentation provided by the government had caused some confusion.

"Some of it's very detailed, and there's not one document which places all of the information in a single place where people can look at it and say 'this is how much I might get'," he said.

"There is some confusion but I think once you get past all of that - which I think will take some time - it has to be a welcome step, that the fighting for trying to get to this point is coming to an end and the challenge turns to actually delivering it."