The biggest treatment scandal in NHS history could have been largely prevented but the truth was hidden for decades by a Whitehall cover-up and a litany of other failures, a scathing report found on Monday.Political Editor for The Standard Nicholas Cecil reports.
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00:00So, after six years, the report by the Infected Blood Inquiry was finally published today
00:06and it makes absolutely damning reading.
00:09It tells in harrowing detail how more than 30,000 people were infected with contaminated
00:15blood products or transfusions from the 1970s to the early 1990s.
00:23The blood used for transfusions and to make blood products in the UK was from British
00:28donors who could and should have been better selected.
00:33More than 3,000 people have already died having contracted hepatitis or HIV in what is the
00:42biggest treatment scandal in the history of the NHS.
00:45Not only were these infections taking place, but the agony of the victims was then compounded
00:53by the government, successive governments, refusing to acknowledge the issue and actually
00:59covering it up for many decades.
01:02This has gone on for so long now that the people that were around at the time will be
01:06very hard to track down if they're even still alive and that's one of the testimonies of
01:11the cover-up and the delays in getting justice to this scandal is the time that it's taken
01:18has meant that justice delayed really is in this case justice denied.
01:23The report found that there is a culture within the government and within the NHS that needs
01:30to change.
01:32Rishi Sunak was expected to issue an apology for the scandal this afternoon and the compensation
01:39bill totalling £10bn will be announced with more details in coming days.
01:47Campaigners have welcomed the report saying that they believe finally truth has defeated
01:54power.
01:55They said it was an absolute relief that the findings have been so clear cut but they still
02:01doubt whether the culture change being demanded by the report will ever happen in Whitehall
02:08and in the NHS.