Hundreds of victims in contaminated blood scandal to sue British Health Minister

Hundreds of people in Britain infected with contaminated blood and relatives of those infected are pressing ahead with plans to sue the health secretary for damages after remaining unhappy with the government’s announcement on compensation.

A class action by around 500 people against the government, alleging a breach of the duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid personal injury or loss, amounting to malfeasance in public office, began in 2017 but was stayed pending of the investigation into the scandal, which published its final publication. report on Monday.

Des Collins of Collins Solicitors explained the reason why we want to resume the trial despite the Government’s announcement of a compensation framework: “The reason we have done that is because we have started the week well with the (Sir Brian) report from Langstaff says pretty much everything we’ve said for the past seven years.

“We then moved on to Rishi (Sunak) and his abject apology in the House of Commons on Monday afternoon, the announcement of a compensation framework on Tuesday, but it wasn’t until we got the first draft of paperwork on that compensation recovery program that we realized there were gaps and holes worry.”

He said key figures in the government scheme, which suggested some people could receive more than £2.5 million in compensation, were not all they seemed and his clients felt “settled out”.

The death toll, already at 3,000, is rising every week among the approximately 30,000 people infected with hepatitis C, HIV or both between the 1970s and the early 1990s, either by receiving transfusions during surgery or by blood plasma products imported from the US to treat hemophiliacs.

One of the issues on people’s minds about the compensation framework is the end of support schemes where people have been receiving monthly payments but will be replaced by the announced plans.

Collins said the government should have spoken to those affected before announcing its compensation scheme.

In addition, survivors and relatives of people killed in the contaminated blood scandal are suing a school where they contracted hepatitis and HIV after receiving experimental treatment without informed consent.

Langstaff’s report found that children at Treloar College – a specialist school in Hampshire for haemophiliacs – had been used as “subjects of research” while the risks of infection were ignored. He said only 30 students remain of the 122 who attended the school, calling it “unconscionable.”

Richard Warwick, 58, who was infected with HIV and hepatitis C at Treloar’s and is part of the class action, said: “We’re not looking to put the school into bankruptcy or anything like that, it’s just a matter of getting some kind of recognition theirs.

“They just seem to be sitting on their hands and denying any responsibility for what we know actually happened at the school. If you read the second half of part two (of the investigation report), Sir Brian is so critical of what happened there, what happened there and the way the children were treated. Things that happened there should not have happened.”

The proceedings against Treloar were filed in 2022 but, like the claim against the Minister of Health, were suspended pending the conclusion of the investigation.

The former pupils are also calling on the college’s then principal, Alexander MacPherson, to hand back his OBE. “There’s nothing he did there that was honorable as far as we were concerned, especially with the hemophiliacs,” Warwick said. “I think this is the right thing for him to do.”

The Guardian attempted to reach Treloar for comment. In a statement released Thursdaythe school said: “We sincerely apologize to our former students and their families who were so devastatingly infected and affected by the contaminated blood scandal.

“We also apologize for the criticism in the report. Doctors’ treatment of students at Treloar in the 1970s and 1980s was unethical and wrong.

“The way the diagnosis of infection was communicated was insensitive and wrong. In other cases, failure to communicate positive tests for HIV at all was unconscionable and wrong.”

The government said it did not comment on lawsuits while they were ongoing.