Politicians, doctors and institutions were all named in the report concluding the inquiry into how tens of thousands of people came to be infected by contaminated blood.
An inquiry into the infected blood scandal has pointed the finger at several people and organisations after more than 30,000 patients were “knowingly” infected with HIV or Hepatitis C.
Inquiry chair Sir Brian Langstaff said the “disaster was not an accident” and there was a “catalogue of failures” and a “pervasive” cover-up by the NHS and successive governments.
More than 30,000 Britons were infected with HIV and Hepatitis C after being given contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.
About 3,000 people died as a result, while many more still live under the shadow of health problems, debilitating treatments and stigma.
In Sir Brian’s report, he named specific people and institutions in his criticism.
They included:
Lord Clarke
Kenneth Clarke, now a lord, was heavily criticised by Sir Brian.
Lord Clarke was accused of being “somewhat blasé” when he gave evidence to the inquiry about the collection of blood from prisoners as late as 1983.
His manner was described as “argumentative”, “unfairly dismissive” and “disparaging” towards those who have suffered, with Sir Brian saying he played “some part” in that suffering.
The report said it was “regrettable that he could not moderate his natural combative style in expressing views”.
Sky News has approached Lord Clarke for comment.
The Thatcher government
Margaret Thatcher, as well as subsequent governments and health secretaries, continually said infections were “inadvertent” and patients were given “the best treatment available on the then current medical advice”.
The inquiry report concluded that was not true and said the factual basis for the claim was unclear.
“In short, adopting the line amounted to blindness,” the report said.
“Adopting it without realising it needed to have a proper evidential base, and they did not know what it was, was unacceptable.
“The line, which was wrong from the very outset, then became entrenched for around 20 years: a dogma became a mantra.
“It was enshrined. It was never questioned.”
Sir Brian added that the Thatcher government “did not respond appropriately, urgently and proactively” to the risks of Hepatitis C and HIV transmissions through blood.
He said the government knew there was a much higher incidence of Hepatitis in prisoners, yet “no action” was taken to stop blood donations from them, which “increased the risk of transmission”.
The failure lied “principally at the door” of the health departments in Westminster and Scotland, he said.
He said the Thatcher government signed up to recommendations in 1983 from the Council of Europe to inform clinicians and patients about the risks of treatment – yet failed to follow those recommendations.
Sir Brian described the failure to provide any guidance to doctors about the risk of transmission of AIDS as “inexcusable”.
On compensation, he also said the Thatcher government “plainly formed the view, at an early stage, that nothing had been done wrong, and that no financial assistance would be provided to people with bleeding disorders who had been infected with HIV”.
He added: “It did so without any proper investigation either into what had caused the infections or into the appalling plight of those infected.”
Treloar School
Haemophiliac children were sent to the Hampshire school with an on-site NHS clinic so they could live as near a normal childhood as possible.
Instead, 75 boys died of AIDs and Hepatitis – and 58 were infected but survived – as they were included in secret trials to test a blood product called Factor 8, which was made with blood farmed from prisoners, sex workers and drug addicts in America.
The report said there “is no doubt” the risks of virus transmission were well known to doctors at Treloar School, yet doctors “played down the risks”.