Rare government generosity over the infected blood scandal
We’re about to see some rare government generossity over the infected blood scandal, with as many as 140,000 bereaved parents, children and siblings of victims allowed to claim compensation.
New laws mean the relatives of those infected may claim full compensation in their own right for the impact on their lives.
This Site has covered the scandal in depth, so for those of you who haven’t read this before,
Around 30,000 people became severely ill after being given factor VIII blood products contaminated with HIV and Hepatitis C imported from the US in the 1970s and 80s. Others were exposed to tainted blood through transfusions or after childbirth.
On average one person dies every four days, with approximately 3,000 haemophiliacs having died to date.
In 2021, then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock promised that the government would pay compensation to people infected by contaminated blood products – and their families – if a public inquiry into the scandal demanded it.
This Writer didn’t believe him – after nearly 50 years, it becomes hard to believe any government will do anything other than delay compensation to people it has wronged.
But in November 2022, made the first interim payments of £100,000 each to around 4,000 surviving victims and bereaved partners.
That was five or six months before the chair of the ongoing public inquiry into the scandal, Sir Brian Langstaff, called for a full compensation scheme to be set up immediately (April 2023). He also recommended that interim payments should be extended to some of the children and parents of those who had died.
That was written in May 2024, when I warned that any claim that a compensation scheme would start soon might be a bit premature – and I was right.
But it might also be worth the wait if all those whose lives were blighted by what happened are able to claim, because the amounts are worth having in these very hard times. According to the BBC,
Draft documents published last year, external suggest a parent who lost a child to hepatitis C can expect to receive about £85,000, while a sibling can expect about £30,000.
The £11.8bn total set aside by ministers is meant to cover the period until the next general election is due in 2029, but could increase if large numbers come forward.
£11.8 billion has been set aside for this! That’s almost four times the £3 billion the government is hoping to save by cutting disabled people off from the benefits they deserve – over the full five years of the current Parliament.
Just think: if previous – Labour and Conservative – governments (under Harold Wilson, James Callaghan and Margaret Thatcher) had not outsourced the supply of blood to the UK, this scandal would not have happened and that money could be used for other things.
But we are still told that health privatisation is a good thing.
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yes but will they posture put it of for more to die by the time payouts given how many have died our say but not do for a long time