Revealed: Key files were shredded as UK government panic grows over Infected Blood Death trial

Disastrous failures that caused the tainted blood scandal were denied by ministers for decades after officials destroyed, lost and blocked access to key documents, memos submitted to the official inquiry show.

Several batches of files relating to the work of a blood safety advisory committee were shredded as the government faced the threat of legal action, documents show. Patients who received infected blood as children have also said this examine infected blood how their hospital’s medical records were destroyed or initially withheld.

About 3,000 people died from contaminated blood from commercial concentrated products for hemophiliacs and blood transfusions.

Dame Diana Johnson, the Labor MP who has campaigned for adequate compensation and justice for victims, said ministers were able to resist calls for a public inquiry because no documents had been made public revealing the failures . She said: “Successive governments maintained until 2017 that there was no need for a public inquiry and that everything had been done properly.”

Beatrice Morgan, a senior lawyer at law firm Leigh Day, which represents around 300 people affected by the scandal, said: “At the very least, there was total mismanagement of documents and many of our clients believe there was of a cover. and they were deliberately deceived.”

In 1987, David Owen, a former health secretary, asked for his ministerial papers because he was concerned that officials had not heeded his advice in the 1970s to make Britain self-sufficient in concentrated blood products, which caused many deaths would have prevented. Owen’s office was wrongly told that his papers had been destroyed. The Department of Health and Social Care admitted to the inquiry that his “ministerial papers should have been available at this time” and has since apologized to him.

In late 2004, Lord Jenkin, a former health secretary, contacted the department about access to contaminated blood files. A briefing note prepared for a meeting with him said: “Many important papers from the 1970s and 1980s have been destroyed… We understand that the papers were not adequately archived and were unfortunately destroyed in the early 1990s.”

The inquiry has also heard how several batches of minutes and background documents on the work of the Advisory Committee on the Virological Safety of Blood were shredded between 1994 and 1998. The files were destroyed at a time when officials were told there was “significant potential for litigation” over contaminated blood and after ministers in France were indicted over the scandal surrounding the poisoning of hemophiliacs.

The government has acknowledged that the destruction of files was “clearly wrong and should not have happened”. An internal audit concluded that “an arbitrary and unjustified decision most likely made by an inexperienced staff member” was the most likely explanation.

A Ministry of Health lawyer told the inquiry that the advisory committee documents had been largely “reconstructed” and that many other documents previously believed to be missing have since been located. Campaigners say the failure to make the files public for several years meant the extent of the failings that led to the scandal were hidden for years.

Jason Evans, founder of the Factor 8 campaign group, whose father Jonathan died in October 1993 after becoming infected with HIV and hepatitis C from a contaminated blood product, said: “What has happened is a mixture of deliberate concealment and incompetence. By claiming documents had been destroyed, it also deterred campaigners from searching for them. These files would have shown that all risks were thoroughly known and that what happened could have been prevented.”

Many of those affected have also fought to obtain medical records on the deaths of family members. Evans was told by the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust that his father’s medical records no longer existed after he made a request in February 2016.

When a BBC producer contacted the trust a year later with Evans’ permission, the medical records were found within two days. In February 2021, the Parliamentary and Health Ombudsman found there had been maladministration by the trust.

Lawyers representing victims of the scandal say many of their clients never had access to their files or received files with missing pages. Others were wrongly told their data had been destroyed.

Jonathan Colam-French, 53, from Lincolnshire, who was infected with hepatitis C from a commercial blood product, has tried unsuccessfully to obtain medical records relating to his treatment in Lincoln in the early 1980s. He has since discovered that he was given the clotting product for a bruised finger as a child. “I think it’s suspicious that they were removed,” he said. “It would not be medically appropriate to give this for a bruised finger, and I believe there is strong evidence that I was given factor 8 as part of a study.”

Phil Hayes, 51, from Doncaster, has also been unable to access important medical records after being infected with hepatitis C from contaminated blood products in his youth. In about 2005 he was told he had been issued commercial factor 8, but when he later asked for the relevant documents he was told they had been destroyed. He said: “I believe there are records that the doctors have been given access to but that I have not been allowed to see.”

Andy Evans, chairman of the Tainted Blood campaign, said widespread destruction and withholding of records meant many people were unable to prove their claims. “Any compensation scheme in the future must take into account that the balance of probabilities is in favor of the victim and not the state,” he said. “The burden should not be on the injured party to prove that their harm was caused by the state, but on the state to prove that he was not to blame.”

Sir Brian Langstaff, the chairman of the Infected Blood Survey, will report later this month on what is being described as the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS. He has already concluded that mistakes have been made at a ‘systemic’ level.

A government spokesman said the scandal was “a horrible tragedy that should never have happened” and that compensation for the victims was being worked on.

In response to Evans’ request for his father’s details, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust said: “Initial searches in 2016 of our patient management system revealed no historical information about Mr Evans’ father. After further insight emerged, the documents were located. The trust apologizes for any distress and inconvenience caused.”