Infected blood scandal was ‘no accident’, says report

The Infected Blood Inquiry has finally concluded after a five-year investigation. This lunchtime, the inquiry’s chair Sir Brian Langstaff said thousands of deaths could have been prevented and the ‘worst ever’ NHS scandal, which saw thousands of Britons between 1970 and 1998 become infected by contaminated blood, could ‘largely, though not entirely, have been avoided’.

The 2,527-page report finds that the ‘life shattering’ scandal was made worse by a ‘subtle, pervasive and chilling’ cover-up extending to both the government and NHS: ‘The response of those in authority served to compound people’s suffering.’ Langstaff – a former High Court judge – found that the ‘scale of what happened is horrifying’ with patients ‘betrayed’ by doctors. Almost 3,000 people so far are known to have died after contracting HIV or hepatitis from faulty blood transfusions while 30,000 in total were given contaminated blood.