Victims of the infected blood scandal will get £210,000 as an interim compensation payment from as early as this summer, the government has announced.
Cabinet minister John Glen told parliament the initial payment will be given to people living with the effects of contaminated blood “within 90 days, starting in the summer”.
Infected people who die between now and the payments being made will get the money sent to their estates, he added.
His announcement came the day after a report into the scandal was published following a seven-year inquiry.
More than 30,000 Britons were infected with HIV and Hepatitis C from contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s. More than 3,000 people died.
Follow live:
Reaction to government’s response
Mr Glen also announced:
• The Infected Blood Compensation Authority – an “arm’s length body” – has been established to administer compensation
• Anyone directly or indirectly infected by NHS blood, blood products or tissue contaminated with HIV or Hepatitis C, or developed a chronic infection from blood contaminated with Hepatitis B is eligible for compensation
• If someone would have been eligible but has died, compensation will be paid to their estate
• When a victim has been accepted onto the scheme, their affected partners, parents, siblings, children, friends and family who acted as carers of them can claim in their own right
• People who are registered with an existing infected blood support scheme will be automatically eligible for compensation to minimise the distress of proving they should be
• There will be five types of compensation: an injury impact award, social impact award (to acknowledge the stigma or social isolation from being infected), autonomy award (for disrupted family/private life), care award (for past and future care needs), and financial loss award (for past and future financial losses caused by being infected)
• Compensation will be offered in a lump sum or periodic payments
• The family of anyone who has died will get a single lump sum
• Any payments will be exempt from income, capital gains and inheritance tax
• Payments will not count towards means tested benefit assessments.
Sir Brian Langstaff, chair of the inquiry, found the scandal was “not an accident” and its failures lie with “successive governments, the NHS, and blood services”.
He said the response from governments of different stripes and the NHS “compounded” victims’ suffering.
This included the “deliberate destruction of some documents” by Department of Health workers, in what Sir Brian described as a “pervasive cover-up” and “downright deception”.
“It could largely, though not entirely, have been avoided. And I report that it should have been,” he said, adding the “scale of what happened is horrifying” for victims and their families.
Victims and their families welcomed the report following decades of not being believed.
Rishi Sunak offered a “wholehearted and unequivocal” apology to the victims following the report’s publication, saying it was a “day of shame for the British state”.
He promised compensation would be given to victims and those affected, adding: “Whatever it costs to deliver this scheme, we will pay it.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Be the first to get Breaking News
Install the Sky News app for free
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app. You can also follow @SkyNews on X or subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.
