Campaigners have urged the UK Government to reveal a compensation scheme for victims of the contaminated blood scandal in next week’s Budget. A group of protesters staged a demonstration in Westminster this week to demand urgent compensation for those affected by the scandal. The Infected Blood Inquiry submitted its final recommendations for compensation payments in April 2023.
Labour MP Dame Diana Johnson noted during Prime Minister’s Questions that nearly 80 victims of the scandal died in the nearly 11 months since. She challenged Rishi Sunak, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, to explain to the protesters outside why ministers had failed to implement any of the inquiry’s compensation recommendations.
The government has made interim payments of £100,000 each to about 4,000 victims and some bereaved partners. However, they have argued that they cannot make a final decision on further payouts, which potentially could reach billions, until they have seen the inquiry’s final findings. The public inquiry, chaired by retired judge Sir Brian Langstaff, is due to publish its final report in May.
Around 30,000 National Health Service patients are thought to have been infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s, with more than 3,000 dying. Sir Brian Langstaff called for a final compensation structure to be arranged by the end of 2023, including compensating the parents and children of those infected, acknowledging deaths that have so far gone unrecognised.
Victims and campaigners have accused the government of procrastinating over compensation, with the Prime Minister subjected to heckling when he appeared before the inquiry last year, promising that compensation would be paid “as swiftly as possible.” The government has accepted “the moral case for compensation.
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More