Victims win a break in Britain’s bad blood scandal
HIGH COURT RULING IN THEIR FAVOUR
VICTIMS and their families have won a ruling allowing them to launch a High Court group action seeking damages over contaminated blood products.
A High Court official said it was “appropriate” to immediately issue a group litigation order allowing a potential of 500 claimants - surviving victims of contamination and the families of the deceased - to join together to claim compensation.
The official, Senior Master Fontaine, made the order despite opposition from lawyers acting for the Department of Health who argued the application was “premature”.
The case concerns imported bloodclotting products derived from blood plasma which caused haemophiliacs and others to be infected with HIV and hepatitis in the 1970s and 80s and has so far led to the deaths of at least 2,400 NHS patients.
The hearing followed an announcement by the Prime Minister in July that a public inquiry is to be held into what has been described as the worst scandal in the history of the NHS.
The news of the inquiry was cautiously welcomed by Carol Grayson, from Jesmond, Newcastle, whose haemophiliac husband Peter Longstaff died in 2005 after he contracted HIV and hepatitis C from infected NHS blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.
Carol was instrumental in bringing it to light after she traced a trail to infected donors from Arkansas prisons.
Steven Snowden QC, appearing for the claimants, told the court it had recently come to light that information and documents which could have helped the victims and families in cases brought earlier had not been disclosed.
In the light of that lack of disclosure, argued Mr Snowden, it would be “unconscionable” for the Health Department to rely on earlier settlement agreements and undertakings given by families to prevent them now pursuing further litigation.
The Department of Health is named as a defendant in the Factor 8 case.
Des Collins, of Watford-based law firm Collins Solicitors, which is representing Factor 8 Campaign, said: “The recent announcement of a public inquiry into these matters has at last indicated some willingness on the part of government to address the claimant’s concerns.
“Against this background it is regrettable that the secretary of state (for health) has not chosen to do so in these civil proceedings.
“We welcome this opportunity to present the claimant’s case to the court for the first time in over 25 years”.
Media reports say that newly discovered documents suggest DoH officials knew in 1980 that there was a high risk of contamination.
Factor VIII is a protein that helps the clotting of blood. Haemophiliacs cannot produce it themselves and need injections to stop bleeding.
In the 1970s they were offered “factor concentrates” by drug companies. These contained imported clotting factors extracted from blood plasma and freeze-dried into a powder.
In the US, prisoners and addicts were among those paid to give their blood.