How much compensation should contaminated blood victims get?

The Financial Times estimated on 10 May that the impending compensation relating to the UK haemophilia treatment misadventure around 1980 will reach £12 billion. The Times has suggested the figure is £8 billion. These are very large sums indeed, and they relate to previous UK government failures to engage with a problem that the press now refers to as a scandal. ‘Scandal’ implies gross maladministration and/or professional incompetence, and the current (third) inquiry into the matter, under Judge Langstaff, now needs to resolve the problem without any further delay. Judge Langstaff has undertaken to report by the autumn of this year, and he has already recommended interim awards of compensation.

The term haemophilia describes an inherited inability to coagulate blood. Mostly it takes the form of a lack of one of two plasma factors, eight and nine, which occurs only in boys. About two-thirds of those who have this deficiency are moderately to severely affected, and historically their way of life had to be very restricted in order to avoid injuries and consequent bleeds.