Blood scandal families’ legal advice funded
Political Editor VICTIMS caught up in Britain’s contaminated blood scandal are to receive Government funding for legal advice.
The Commons announcement by Cabinet Office minister Chloe Smith is a further victory for families demanding answers about how patients with the blood-clotting disorder haemophilia were given blood donated by HIV and hepatitis C sufferers in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The scandal is believed to have contributed to the deaths of 2,400 people.
Ms Smith said funds would be provided for families seeking legal advice on the terms of reference of a public inquiry. She also apologised for a letter sent to victims which initially refused them legal funding.
We have been campaigning for an inquiry since it highlighted the case of haemophiliac Peter Longstaff, of Jesmond in Newcastle, who died in 2005 after being treated with infected NHS blood products.
A number of North East MPs have also taken up the cause. They include Washington and Sunderland West MP Sharon Hodgson, who has said the full truth must be revealed following what she called “the murky covering up of this scandal” in the past.
Theresa May announced last year that a “full statutory inquiry” would be carried out into the scandal. Ms Smith said: “This Government will ensure that the inquiry has the resources it needs to complete its work as quickly as a thorough examination of the facts allows. We are committed to making sure that all those who have suffered so terribly can have the answers they have spent decades waiting for and that lessons can be learnt so that a tragedy of this scale can never happen again.”
She added: “I can confirm that ministers have decided that reasonable expense properly incurred in respect of legal representation for the purpose of responding to the consultation of the infected blood inquiry on the terms of reference prior to the setting update will be awarded.”
The decision to launch the inquiry was made after victims and families expressed strong views over the involvement of the Department of Health. About 7,500 people, many with an inherited bleeding disorder called haemophilia, were given blood products infected with hepatitis C and HIV in the 1970s and 80s.
The UK imported supplies of the clotting agent Factor VIII from the US, some of which turned out to be infected. Carol Grayson, from Newcastle, has spent more than two decades campaigning for justice after losing her haemophiliac husband Peter to HIV and hepatitis C.