Rishi Sunak will apologise to infected-blood victims, as a devastating report blames successive governments and the NHS for the scandal.
The Prime Minister will issue a formal apology on behalf of the Government for the handling of a scandal which has claimed more than 3,000 lives and continues to wreck countless others.
Plans for a major compensation programme that may end up costing taxpayers more than £10 billion will be unveiled by ministers.
According to insiders in Whitehall, NHS head Amanda Pritchard is expected to apologise for the greatest treatment scandal in the health service’s history.
The actions are being taken in response to the long-awaited publication of the public inquiry’s conclusions by retired High Court judge Sir Brian Langstaff, which were initiated in 2018. Since the inquiry’s inception, an estimated 710 more victims have passed away.
The National Health Service (NHS) and the Department of Health are likely to come under fire for allowing the use of imported blood products years after the initial alerts that they may be tainted with diseases including hepatitis C and HIV.
They will also be savaged for their evasive response to campaigners seeking the truth, in what victims believe to have been a concerted cover-up lasting decades.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the NHS supplied tainted blood products to around 30,000 patients in the UK, who subsequently contracted hepatitis C and HIV. The contaminated goods were inexpensively imported from the United States, where blood was procured from individuals who were paid to donate it, including drug addicts, prisoners, and the homeless.
Individuals receiving treatment for blood diseases like haemophilia and those receiving blood transfusions made up the majority of those affected.
Kate Burt, chief executive of the Haemophilia Society, said: ‘The contaminated blood scandal has been a stain on our nation for too long.
‘For the sake of the thousands of lives lost to this disaster, the Government must accept all the Infected Blood Inquiry’s recommendations and begin work immediately to rebuild trust in our public services. Only a commitment to deliver radical reform and to treat those it serves with compassion and respect will begin to end this shameful episode in our country’s history.’
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt yesterday described the episode as ‘the worst scandal of my lifetime’ and said the families ‘have got every right to be incredibly angry that generations of politicians, including me when I was health secretary, have not acted fast enough to address the scandal’.
The compensation plan has been approved by Mr Hunt, but the exact cost won’t be known until a new committee has created a payment structure.
Labour health spokesman Wes Streeting said he expected Sir Brian to criticise ‘successive governments’ over the issue.
Mr Streeting said an incoming Labour administration would honour any compensation deal agreed by the Government, adding: ‘Everyone has got their responsibility to bear in this appalling scandal and we have got a shared responsibility to put it right.’
Even if Rishi Sunak was not Prime Minister at the time, he is today, hence he should apologise for the wrongdoings of his predecessors! And he actively shares the same Tory ideology of treating ordinary people like dirt but it will be a farse as is every other word spoken by the Tories.
However, this isn’t the worst treatment disaster in NHS history. The damage caused by the COVID-19 jabs will massively eclipse this, so let’s see how this plays out over the next decade.
The taxpayer won’t object, in my opinion, to the victim’s recompense. But why should the taxpayer foot the bill for something they had nothing to do with? My sympathies are with the victims who have died without receiving justice, but no amount of money will make things right, and our government must bow down and acknowledge its wrongdoings.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 