Inquiry hears of ‘anguish' over compensation for infected blood victims
People given infected blood and blood products in one of the worst treatment disasters in NHS history have described 'anguish' felt while waiting for compensation.
The Infected Blood Inquiry has heard that many victims fear they will not live to receive compensation, with people affected by the scandal saying they feel 'betrayed and disappointed'.
But campaigners insisted that they will 'have justice' as hearings reopened into the scandal.
Sir Brian Langstaff, chairman of the Infected Blood Inquiry, is holding two days of special hearings to examine the 'timeliness and adequacy of the Government's response to compensation'.
Opening the hearing, Sir Brian said: 'The decision to hold these further hearings was not taken lightly.
'It is no secret that the Inquiry has received letter after letter, email after email, call after call, expressing worries and concerns about how compensation is being delivered.
'The slowness and uncertainty about when someone might expect to receive compensation are central kernels. They are not, however, the only ones. These matters need to be explored in public.'
He added: 'The Inquiry will do everything in its power to identify action that can be taken by the Government and by the infected blood in compensation authority to improve the delivery of compensation and to ensure that justice is done.'
Groups representing people infected and affected by the scandal and people infected themselves gave evidence on Wednesday morning.
Andrew Evans, from the campaign group Tainted Blood, told the hearing: 'We have around 2,100 members, all of whom are in a desperate state at the moment since the announcement of the Government's compensation package and things that have unfolded since.'
Mr Evans, who was infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products during treatment for haemophilia as a child, shared a quote from one of the members of the Tainted Blood group.
'I'm utterly exhausted,' he read.
'The anguish is beyond words. I just want this over.'
He said that victims have been left feeling 'betrayed and disappointed' adding: 'People have given up on any expectation of receiving anything.
'They have lost all hope of ever getting justice.'
Mr Evans added: 'It's a long-held feeling that governments wish to drag the scandal out in order that the longer it goes on, the more people die and the less compensation will need to be paid.'
Gary Webster, who was infected with HIV and hepatitis C when he attend Lord Mayor's Treloar School in Hampshire (Treloar's) in the 1970s and 80s, said his experience with the compensation scheme had been a 'nightmare'.
The 60-year-old said: 'I've asked around the Trealor's boys that are amongst us now and their families about how they think the process is going, and the words they come back with were: 'Despicable, distraught, hoodwinked, betrayed, hurt, forgotten'.
'People will not get their compensation and a lot of claims will die with them.
'It's just too slow, and people won't get the justice they deserve.'
Campaigner Carolyn Challis was infected with hepatitis C when she received blood transfusions during chemotherapy treatment for lymphatic cancer between 1992 and 1993.
The mother-of-three from North Devon said: 'We feel gaslit, marginalised and abused by successive governments that purport to care, but evidently do not.
'We're suffering from sustained trauma. We should not still be fighting.'
Nigel Hamilton, chairman of Haemophilia Northern Ireland, added: 'We are entitled to justice and we will have justice.'
Alan Burgess, a campaigner who was co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C while receiving treatment for haemophilia, said: 'I can't believe we are back here today.'
When asked about the quality of engagement from the Cabinet Office and the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA), Mr Burgess said: 'I'd like to say that they engaged with us, but they didn't.
'They talked down to us. They were condescending. They had a scripted answer for everything we had.
'To be honest with you, it's almost a waste of time being there – they weren't going to take any notice of what we said.'
He also told the hearing victims were dying while the process was ongoing, with one of his friends dying just weeks ago.
Mary Grindley, who has been campaigning for 45 years, told the inquiry engagement from the Government has been a 'tick-box exercise', adding: 'In reality, the decisions have been made behind closed doors.'
The grandmother gave up teaching in 1991 to look after her husband, John, who contracted HIV and hepatitis C while receiving treatment for haemophilia who died from Aids in 1994 at the age of 41.
Mrs Grindley, now 76, said: 'There are widows who have died who will now get no compensation… I think this is disgraceful.'
More than 30,000 people in the UK were infected with HIV and hepatitis C after they were given contaminated blood and blood products between the 1970s and early 1990s.
Some 3,000 people died as a result and survivors are living with lifelong health implications.
In her October budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves allocated £11.8 billion to compensate victims, administered by the IBCA.
As of April 24, some 475 people have been invited to make a claim and 77 payments have been made totalling more than £78 million, according to IBCA figures.
Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds has been called to give evidence on Wednesday afternoon while Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) officials will be quizzed by inquiry lawyers on Thursday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
28 minutes ago
- The Independent
King sharing his cancer diagnosis ‘has helped men open up', says BEM recipient
A woman who has been awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) for her work with the cancer charity she co-founded after her twin brother died of the illness has said the King being open about his diagnosis 'has been really good for men'. Jenna Speirs, and her parents Caroline and Duncan Speirs, have each been awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) for the work they have done with the charity they started after Jenna's twin brother Calum died of cancer aged 12. It is the first time three family members have been named in the same honours list. The trio, from the Isle of Bute, started the charity Calum's Cabin after Calum, who had an inoperable brain tumour, died. On being named in the King's Birthday Honours, Jenna, a therapeutic radiographer, said Charles sharing his cancer diagnosis has helped men open up. 'Him being so open about his cancer journey has been really good for men in particular,' Jenna said. 'You see a lot of men sitting alone in the waiting rooms, but now they are chatting more.' During his time in hospital before his death in 2007, Calum told his sister Jenna, now 30, he wanted to start something called 'Calum's Caravan' for children with cancer to spend time away with their families. 'We were very fortunate growing up going on holidays and living on the Isle of Bute, but lots of children in hospital never got to see the outdoors or the sea,' Jenna said. 'It was his idea. He wanted people to be able to take time away.' The Speirs family had planned to start the charity when he recovered from his illness. 'Unfortunately, that wasn't to be,' Jenna said. 'So we started fundraising at his funeral.' Two years later, Calum's Cabin had acquired its first holiday home for families of children being treated for cancer in Scotland to use. Since then, thousands of families have been helped by the charity, which now has several holiday homes as well as flats in Glasgow for hospital patients and their families to stay in if they live further afield. Caroline, 59, Duncan, 63, and Jenna said receiving the medals was 'very special' and dedicated them to Calum. Jenna paid tribute to her brother, saying: 'Calum was the funniest person you'd ever meet. He liked joking with the nurses and he was extremely caring. 'This is not for the three of us,' Caroline said. 'It's for the four of us.'
Daily Mail
39 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
'Disgusting' loos see pupils trying to skip school - as horrified children say they feel 'like they were stepping into a horror movie'
More than one in ten parents said their children have asked to miss school because the toilets are so disgusting, a survey has suggested. A poll, of 2,000 parents of school-aged children in the UK suggests around one in six (17 per cent) parents rated the toilets at their child's school as unclean. Nearly a third (31 per cent) of families said they have raised concerns about the toilets with school staff, according to a survey for charity Parentkind. One parent told the charity that the toilets were so dirty that their children 'felt like they were stepping into a horror movie', while another parent said their child had seen cockroaches in the school toilets. The Censuswide poll suggests that 11 per cent of parents said their child had missed school, or asked to stay at home, because of worries about the toilets at school. The charity is calling on the Government to prioritise funds to improve 'disgusting' school toilets as part of plans to improve the school estate. It comes after the Chancellor announced around £2.3 billion per year for fixing 'crumbling classrooms' and £2.4 billion per year to rebuild 500 schools. Some surveyed parents suggested their children had wet themselves at school, or suffered constipation, because of avoiding the toilets at their school. Jason Elsom, chief executive of Parentkind, called for government funds set out in the spending review to be used to make school toilets 'fit for use'. He said: 'With a million children facing humiliation because of the disgusting state of school toilets, we need to shine a light on the health and well-being of our children who are refusing to drink during the day to avoid going to the toilet and the millions of children suffering constipation because their school toilets are so dirty. 'Parents tell us that we need to set aside the cash to clean and upgrade school loos. 'Parents tell us their children have seen 'cockroaches coming out of the floors' and toilets 'covered in poo and urine'.' Pepe Di'Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: 'Schools understand the vital importance of toilets being clean and in good order, work hard to ensure this is the case, and will be dismayed at the findings of this research. 'Many schools are struggling with old and outdated buildings which require a great deal of maintenance because of years of government underfunding, and this may play a role in the perceptions reflected by respondents. 'We urgently need improved investment in upgrading and modernising school buildings.'
BBC News
43 minutes ago
- BBC News
I'm an NHS leader - but my mum still suffered at hands of the health service
A senior NHS leader has criticised the health service, saying his mother received a "black service, not an NHS service" as she Victor Adebowale, chair of the NHS Confederation, which represents health managers, described his mother Grace's death as "undignified".The 92-year-old died in January of suspected lung cancer, although it was not detected until after her Adebowale said his mother's missed diagnosis, combined with the sub-standard care she received when admitted to hospital for the final time, had left his family upset and searching for peer, who was also on the board of NHS England for six years, believes his mother's experience illustrates wider problems. "My mum would have wanted me to tell her story because she is not the only one who will have faced these problems."Lord Adebowale said he would not call the NHS racist, but instead believed it was riven with inequalities, particularly racial inequalities."It's the inverse care law. The people most in need of health and care are the least likely to get it - if you are black, if you are poor, if you are elderly and poor, there are inequalities in the system and people like my mum suffer."The intervention by such a figure is significant. Lord Adebowale has held senior health roles for more than two decades and also helped establish the NHS Race and Health Observatory in 2021 to try to tackle inequalities experienced by black and minority ethnic patients in England said it was working to improve access to services and tackle inequalities, which would form an "important part" of the 10-year health plan, expected to be published next month.A spokesperson added: "Everyone - no matter their background - should receive the best NHS care possible. But we know there is much more to do."A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care echoed those comments, adding: "Our deepest sympathies are with Lord Adebowale for the loss of his mother." A committed, caring nurse Lord Adebowale's mother, who had three other children, emigrated to the UK in the 1950s from Nigeria and went on to work as a nurse in hospitals, the community and mental health describes her as a caring, compassionate and intensely committed nurse. "She believed in the health service. It's people like her who help build the NHS, but, when she needed it, it wasn't there as it should have been."She had dementia and in the final five or six years was in regular contact with the health service. We cannot understand why she did not get a [cancer] diagnosis. She was in discomfort and pain – and had been for some time. "She never got any treatment for cancer – it was only after she died we learnt she had lung cancer."That was found during a post-mortem and subsequent tests have suggested that was the likely cause of her death, he Adebowale added that when his mother was taken to hospital the final time it was not easy to find her a bed. "The hospital was under intense pressure. She did not want to die in hospital in that sort of situation." Symbolic of wider problem Lord Adebowale is not naming the NHS service involved in her care, saying he does not want to apportion individual blame, as his mother's experience was symbolic of a wider problem."I just think there are too many situations where people that look like me and shades of me don't get the service they deserve. It was not the dignified death that we would have wanted for her. It wasn't the death she deserved."I think she got a black service, not an NHS service."Lord Adebowale, who for nearly 20 years was chief executive of Turning Point, a care organisation that supports people with substance misuse and mental health problems alongside those with learning disabilities, before becoming chair of the NHS Confederation in 2019, said there were multiple examples of inequalities in the health highlighted research showing younger black people waited 20 minutes longer on average in A&E than white also showed people from the poorest backgrounds were more likely to face year-long waits for routine studies have suggested people from deprived communities are 50% more likely to have cancer diagnosed after a visit to A&E – such diagnoses are more likely to be at a later stage when chances of survival are said while the promise of extra money for the health service made in this week's spending review was welcome, that alone would not tackle the inequalities."It a systematic problem – I don't want to blame any particular individual or my mum's local NHS. "What happened to her could happen anywhere. We need to address inequalities in the health service and that requires leadership – not just money."
