Westminster parties unite to demand compensation for infected blood victims throughout UK
Diana Johnson MP
18/05/19, 00:00
The Westminster Leaders of seven political parties have written to the Prime Minister asking for full compensation for those infected in the NHS Infected Blood scandal without further delay. The NHS Infected Blood Public Inquiry, chaired by Sir Brian Langstaff, is currently looking at the contamination of blood supplies in the NHS in the 1970s and 1980s. It is the largest public inquiry in British history, with over 1,700 core participants, and is not expected to report for two to three years. With one infected blood victim dying on average every four days, many will not survive to see justice done in the form of full compensation if this only happens at the Inquiry's conclusion. Other countries, including the Republic of Ireland in the 1990s, have compensated their victims before liability was admitted by the state. The letter to Theresa May was co-ordinated by Diana Johnson, Labour MP for Hull North and Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Haemophilia and Contaminated Blood. Diana Johnson MP said: "The Leaders of seven parties at Westminster are uniting across the political spectrum to tell the Government that justice delayed even further would be justice denied for many of the surviving victims of the NHS Infected Blood scandal. "The effects of contaminated blood have been known for decades and we have already heard enough harrowing testimonies at the Public Inquiry to know the damage to individuals and families caused by the state. Those infected and affected, throughout the United Kingdom, should not be made to wait for full compensation any longer just because the current Public Inquiry is happening so much later than it should have."