The victims of the tainted blood scandal have been denied justice for too long

Editorial: The decades-long delay in setting up an inquiry – or even considering compensation – is a stain on the reputation of this country

As many as 3,000 people died as a direct result of receiving contaminated blood (PA)

Of all the scandals that have emerged to blacken this country’s reputation for justice and sound governance, the contaminated blood scandal can claim at once to be the longest running, to have affected the greatest number of people, and to have been the most grievously neglected. Some of that will finally change when the report of the public inquiry – set up, it should be noted, only in 2018 – is published on Monday.

At the same time, it has to be recognised that much – perhaps most – of the immense hurt caused and the damage done by what has been described as the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS can never be remedied, and that whatever financial compensation is recommended will be far too little, far too late. Official apologies and recognition of fault are one thing – and long overdue – but money remains the only currency in which recognition of fault can be paid.

As many as 3,000 people died as a direct result of receiving contaminated blood. Parents were deprived of their children. Children were left without parents. Hundreds were infected with HIV (Aids), and tens of thousands – perhaps hundreds of thousands – were infected with hepatitis C. The precise number is hard to establish, as the effects of hepatitis C may manifest themselves only after many years. As if the damage to health was not enough, individuals and whole families found themselves ostracised because of the stigma of blood-borne diseases such as Aids and HIV, for which there was then no treatment.