Infected blood scandal inquiry live: Final report to be published – BBC News

The British Red Cross has offered emotional support to the victims of the infected blood scandal.

The charity, which has been supporting victims and their families throughout the inquiry hearings, says a team of 13 will be on hand at the inquiry while a telephone support line will also be available “on the day and beyond”.

In a statement, Lisa Hollins, executive director of UK operations at the British Red Cross, said:

“Our thoughts are with everyone affected by this tragedy as the Infected Blood Inquiry publishes its report.”

“Our teams have been on hand throughout the Inquiry to offer people a safe, supportive space to talk about their feelings and experiences. This has made it possible for some people to voice things they haven’t been able to talk about anywhere else. Many had lived for years in secrecy and distress before calling us.

“The British Red Cross is there to support people in crisis and we will continue to be there for those affected as long as we are needed.”

Rajini Vaidynathan

Reporting from Methodist Central Hall in Westminster

Survivors of the infected blood scandal are arriving at the Methodist church in central London for a day of reckoning.

For decades they say they’ve been ignored and “gaslit”, for years they’ve sat through an extensive enquiry – and now they’re hoping to get some clarity and closure.

“This is a day of mixed emotions,” Steve Nicholls told me. He’s one of the former pupils of Trelloar school – who was treated for haemophilia there, and was infected with hepatitis C.

“I hope we are vindicated,” he said as he stood with other former students – wearing yellow, black and red – the colours which symbolise haemophilia.

The group headed into the hall, ready to find out whether they will be.

Bill Wright – who was infected with hepatitis C 38 years ago – is chair of Haemophilia Scotland which represents those impacted by the scandal.

Wright told the Good Morning Scotland programme he could not travel to London as he has liver cancer and must be ready for a transplant at all times.

He said: “Too many people have died. Too many lives have been broken and families have been broken. Too many livelihoods have been lost.

“We’ve known that we’ve been cheated for all these years and decades by successive governments, health services and indeed medical professionals and I think finally today when we see all the evidence brought together we will feel quietly vindicated and take some comfort in that.”

Ros Cooper – was 19 when she discovered she’d been infected with hepatitis C through treatment for a bleeding disorder as a child. “I was planning my funeral in my 20s,” she told the Today programme.

She’s campaigned for 30 years of her 50 years. It is “absolutely huge” that the truth might finally come out in the report today. “So huge you can barely get your head around it.”

What do you want to hear from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak? “Words don’t mean a lot. To a lot of people who’ve lost loved ones, what are words going to do? It’s not going to bring back the dead, it’s not going to wash away crimes that have been committed.

“Lives were effectively ruined because of those decisions. Any kind of apology, to be worth anything to the victims, needs to come from somebody who truly understands that.”

Ros says she has heard prime ministers apologise before. She only wants to hear it again if Sunak has read the report and truly understands the scale of the scandal.

Dani Holliday is a solicitor at a law firm that represents victims of the infected blood scandal. She says the report’s publication today is “incredibly important to our clients and to the community as a whole”.

It’s been “incredibly difficult” for her clients to “relive and revisit trauma” during the inquiry. But it’s also been “very cathartic” for many of them to feel they’ve been listened to, after being ignored and lied to for so many years.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast from Westminster earlier this morning, she said her clients won’t want the focus of today to be about compensation. The majority will want the focus to be on “the report and the story that the report is telling”.

Discussion of compensation can come in the following days, she says.

Copyright: Reuters

It has taken decades to get to this point – and that has been a big frustration for campaigners.

In other countries – from France to Japan – investigations into the medical disaster were completed many years ago. In some cases, criminal charges were brought against doctors, politicians and other officials.

There have been previous inquiries. One was led by Labour peer Lord Archer of Sandwell and was privately funded.

But it held no official status and was unable to compel witnesses to testify or require the disclosure of documents.

Meanwhile, the Penrose Inquiry, a seven-year investigation launched by the Scottish government, was criticised as a whitewash when it was published in 2015.

Greater Manchester Mayor and former health secretary Andy Burnham claimed in the House of Commons in 2017 that a “criminal cover-up on an industrial scale” had taken place.

The government only announced there would be an inquiry when it faced a possible defeat on an emergency motion to establish an inquiry.

The then-Prime Minister Theresa May ordered this UK-wide public inquiry in the summer of 2017.

Copyright: BBC

Politicians, campaigners, doctors, and victims are among those who gave evidence to the inquiry. Here are a few important moments:

• Sir John Major, prime minister from 1990 to 1997 drew gasps when he described the scandal as “incredibly bad luck”. Major later apologised, saying he expressed himself “injudiciously”.
• Lord Norman Fowler told the inquiry it was “regrettable” the government said in 1983 there was “no conclusive proof” aids could be transmitted by blood products.
• Lord Kenneth Clarke was quoted in a government press release as saying: “It has been suggested that aids may be transmitted in blood or blood products, there is no conclusive proof that this is so”. He told the inquiry this was “entirely accurate” at the time.
• Richard Warwick, a former pupil at Treloar College who was infected with HIV in 1978, said: “I often just think, why me? Why am I still here?”. At least 72 Treloar students died after being treated with contaminated blood from 1974 to 1987.

The inquiry’s report is thought to be more than 2,000 pages long across multiple volumes.

But most attention will focus on a number of key questions.

Was there a cover-up? Greater Manchester Mayor and former health secretary Andy Burnham thinks so – in 2017 he told the House of Commons there has been one on an “industrial scale”.

Among the inquiry’s terms of reference is a requirement to explore whether there were attempts to conceal what happened by the government or NHS.

Attention will also be paid to what the report says about the timeliness of government action.

Was it too slow to recognise the risks of infected blood? Should the UK have stopped using blood products imported from the US, where prisoners and drug-users were paid for blood, sooner?

And was enough done to subsequently identify those who were infected?

A BBC investigation suggests the UK government and the NHS failed to adequately trace those who were most at risk of having the virus.

Though campaigners’ search for answers began decades ago, the public inquiry only started in 2018. Here’s a look at the events which led to today’s final report:

• July 2017: A public inquiry into the infected blood scandal is announced by then-prime minister Theresa May
• February 2018: Sir Brian Langstaff is appointed as chair of the inquiry
• April – October 2019: The inquiry hears evidence from infected victims and affected families
• July 2021: Government witnesses, including former Health Secretary Lord Kenneth Clarke, give evidence to the inquiry. Further evidence is presented from July to September 2022
• Late 2022: The government makes interim payments of £100,000 each to around 4,000 surviving victims and some bereaved partners, on advice from the inquiry chair
• April 2023: Sir Brian says interim compensation should also be offered to the children, siblings and parents of those infected. The government did not act, though, saying it would wait until the end of the inquiry
• Autumn 2023: Initial report expected but Sir Brian says more time is needed to prepare “a report of this gravity”
• April 2024: Ministers support a Labour amendment to the Victims and Prisoners Bill – this means a final compensation scheme for those affected by the scandal must be set up within three months of the legislation becoming law
• Today: The inquiry’s final report is due

The final report on what’s been described as the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS is due to be published this lunchtime.

Tens of thousands of people were infected with HIV and hepatitis C after they were given contaminated blood products and transfusions in the 1970s and 1980s.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is expected to make an official apology later today.

So stay with us as we take your through the report’s findings and all the reaction.