Vein hopes
Infected blood scandal , Issue 1648 NOBODY has sounded more committed to seeing compensation paid to victims of the infected blood scandal than the Cabinet Office minister responsible, Nick Thomas-Symonds.

Six months ago, Thomas-Symonds told parliament he would do "everything in my power to ensure that all those who are entitled to compensation receive it as soon as possible". A few weeks later he reassured parliament that the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) "is working in a way that will allow it to scale up as quickly as it possibly can", recognising that "the need for speed in delivering compensation payments is paramount".

His statements mirrored his position as a shadow minister when the chairman of the infected blood inquiry, Sir Brian Langstaff, produced his report almost a year ago. Back then Thomas-Symonds had demanded that "there will be no undue delay in those final payments reaching victims", with time being "of the essence".

Such are the delays in the compensation scheme, however, that Sir Brian has called further hearings for next week.

Slow progress
In a briefing note, inquiry counsel Jenni Richards KC reported that by this March just 255 people have been asked by the IBCA to begin their claims and 63 offers of compensation have been made. With more than 100,000 claims possible, mainly from relatives of those who received infected blood, progress is painfully slow.

The lumbering IBCA, led by former Cabinet Office mandarin David Foley, is now writing to victims in stark – and to many offensive – terms.

"We are starting to prioritise claims for those people nearing the end of life," he tells them. This means "that you have been told by your doctor or a medical professional that you might have 12 months or less to live". The recipient is then invited to provide information to back this up.

Repeated warnings
Such grim prioritisation might not have been needed had successive governments got their act together. In April 2023, Langstaff wrote an interim report to ensure a compensation scheme could be set up "as soon as possible, and before the final report of the inquiry". But this was far from the first recognition of the need.

As Richards puts it: "The question of compensation was not new in 2023. It was not new in 2020, when the (then) Paymaster General, Penny Mordaunt, wrote to the (then) Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, that 'I believe we should begin preparing for this now'." His government didn't.

Langstaff's final report found that the "awareness that compensation might be recommended" was "a central factor in the unwillingness of successive governments to establish a public inquiry earlier than 2017", when the May government finally agreed to one.

The present government needs to shape up if it isn't to look equally hopeless.