Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has apologised to the victims of the infected blood scandal, saying it was a “day of shame for the British state”.

Mr Sunak said the scandal should have been avoided as he gave a statement in the Commons after the publication of the Infected Blood Inquiry’s final report.

The report blamed “successive governments, the NHS, and blood services” for failures that led to 30,000 people being “knowingly” infected with either HIV or Hepatitis C through blood products – around 3,000 of whom have now died.

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Mr Sunak said: “Today’s report shows a decades-long moral failure at the heart of our national life, from the National Health Service to the Civil Service, to ministers in successive governments, at every level that people and institutions in which we place our trust failed in the most harrowing and devastating way.”

The prime minister said those people “failed this country”, and the “calamity” should “shake our nation to its core”.

He said it was “known that these treatments were contaminated” and warnings were “ignored repeatedly”.

“Time and again, people in positions of power and trust had the chance to stop the transmission of those infections,” he added.

“Time and again, they failed to do so.

“I want to make a whole-hearted and unequivocal apology for this terrible injustice.”

Image:
Victims and campaigners outside Central Hall in Westminster.
Pic. PA

The chair of the public inquiry, Sir Brian Langstaff, said the response of both the NHS and the government had “compounded” the suffering of the victims, and there had been a “pervasive cover-up” inside the health service.

He issued 12 recommendations in his report – including an immediate compensation scheme and ensuring anyone who received a blood transfusion before 1996 was urgently tested for Hepatitis C.

Sir Brian said any government apology must be “meaningful” and “accompanied by action”.

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Infected blood victims ‘betrayed’ by NHS

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