Des Collins, senior partner at Collins Solicitors, said he would be stepping up pressure on the Department for Health and Social Care on Monday.
30 July 2022
Victims and families affected by the infected blood scandal must be paid their £100,000 compensation packets “immediately”, their lawyer has said.
The chairman of the inquiry into the tragedy said the money should be paid to more than 2,000 surviving victims “without delay” and Des Collins, senior partner at Collins Solicitors, has demanded that it is paid within 14 days.
Mr Collins said he would be stepping up pressure on the Department for Health and Social Care on Monday.
He told BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight programme: “When I say immediately I don’t mean within three months, I mean immediately.
“It must be within days or weeks.
“I would have said 14 days is not an unreasonable time for the wheels to be put in motion and that’s what we will be asking for on Monday.”
In a letter to Paymaster General Michael Ellis on Friday, the inquiry chairman, Sir Brian Langstaff, said he made the compensation recommendation in light of the “profound physical and mental suffering” caused by the scandal.
The inquiry was established to examine how thousands of patients in the UK were infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.
About 2,400 people died in what has been labelled the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS.
There are 2,007 core participants in the inquiry who are infected or affected, but it is not known whether all of these people will be eligible for compensation.
Research is still ongoing to reach estimates for the total number of surviving infected blood victims.
The Government does not have to accept Sir Brian’s proposal, but in 2021 Matt Hancock said it would “of course” pay compensation if the inquiry recommended it.
The then-health secretary told the inquiry the Government had a “moral responsibility” to address the impact of the scandal.
A Government spokesperson said it would consider the former High Court judge’s report with “the utmost urgency” and “respond as soon as possible”.
The DHSC has been contacted for a response on Mr Collins’ comment.
