The disastrous failures that sparked the contaminated blood scandal have been denied by ministers for decades after authorities destroyed, lost or cut off access to key documents, a memo submitted to an official inquiry has revealed. .
Several batches of files related to the Blood Safety Advisory Committee's work were shredded, documents show, as the government faced threats of legal action. Patients who were given contaminated blood as children have also told the Infected Blood Inquiry how their hospital medical files were destroyed or initially withheld.
Approximately 3,000 people died from contaminated blood from hemophiliacs and commercially available concentrated products for transfusion.
Labor MP Dame Diana Johnson, who has campaigned for adequate compensation and justice for victims, said ministers were able to resist calls for a public inquiry because documents exposing failures had not been disclosed. . She said: “Successive governments took the position until 2017 that there was no reason for a public inquiry and that everything had been done properly.”
Beatrice Morgan, a senior associate at law firm Leigh Day, which represents around 300 people affected by the scandal, said: “There was at least a complete mismanagement of documents and many of our clients believe there was a cover-up.'' “There is,” he said. They were deliberately misled. ”
In 1987, former health secretary David Owen called for a ministerial document, concerned that the authorities had not heeded his advice to make Britain self-sufficient in concentrated blood products in the 1970s. . That could have prevented many deaths. Owen's office was incorrectly told that his documents had been destroyed. The Department of Health and Social Care acknowledged in an investigation that his “ministerial papers should have been available at this time” and subsequently apologized to him.
At the end of 2004, former Health Secretary Lord Jenkin approached the department about access to files on contaminated blood. A report prepared for the meeting with Mr. I understand that it was scrapped at the beginning.”
The inquiry also heard how several batches of minutes and background documents relating to the work of the Advisory Committee on Blood Virological Safety were shredded between 1994 and 1998. Served. The files were destroyed when authorities were told there was “significant potential”. The lawsuit comes after ministers were indicted in France over cases involving infected blood and the poisoning of hemophilia patients scandal.
The government acknowledged that the destruction of the files was “clearly wrong and should not have happened.” Internal audit concluded that the most likely explanation was “arbitrary and unreasonable decisions, most likely made by inexperienced staff.”
A lawyer for the Ministry of Health told the inquiry that the advisory committee's documents had largely been “reconstituted” and that many other documents previously thought to have been lost had since been traced. Campaigners argue that years of withholding the files means failures of the scale that led to the scandal were covered up for years.
After newsletter promotion
Jason Evans, founder of the Factor 8 campaign, said his father Jonathan died in October 1993 after contracting HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated blood products. It's a mixture of deliberate cover-up and incompetence.By claiming the documents were destroyed, they also stopped campaigners from looking for them. would have shown that it could have been avoided.”
Many of those affected are struggling to obtain medical records of their relatives' deaths. Ms Evans was told by Coventry University Hospital and Warwickshire NHS Trust that her father's medical file no longer existed after submitting a request in February 2016.
A year later, a BBC producer contacted the trust with Evans' consent and the medical records were discovered within two days. In February 2021, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman found there had been maladministration by the trust.
Lawyers representing people affected by the scandal say many of their clients have never had access to their records or been provided with files with missing pages. Some were falsely told that their records had been destroyed.
Jonathan Coram-French, 53, from Lincolnshire, who contracted hepatitis C from an over-the-counter blood product, unsuccessfully tried to obtain medical records about his treatment in Lincoln in the early 1980s. Later, he discovered that as a child he was given a coagulant for a bruise on his finger. “I think it's suspicious that it was removed,” he said. “There is no medical justification for administering this for finger bruises. I believe there is strong evidence that they were given Factor 8 as part of the study.”
Phil Hayes, 51, from Doncaster, also lost access to key medical files after contracting hepatitis C from contaminated blood products as a child. He was told he had been given a commercial factor of 8 around 2005, but when he later asked for the relevant records he was told they had been destroyed. “I believe there are files that the doctors have access to that I am not authorized to see,” he said.
Andy Evans, chair of the Tainted Blood Campaign, said widespread destruction and withholding of files meant many people were unable to prove their claims. “Any compensation system must now ensure that the balance of probabilities favors victims over states,” he said. “It is not the victims who have to prove that their harm was caused by the state; it is their responsibility to prove that the state is not the culprit.”
Sir Brian Langstaff, chairman of the Infectious Blood Investigation Committee, is due to report later this month on what has been described as the worst treatment disaster in NHS history. He has already concluded that the fraud took place at a “systemic” level.
A government spokesperson said the scandal was a “horrible tragedy that should never have happened” and that the government was working to compensate the victims.
In relation to Mr Evans' request for his father's records, Coventry University Hospitals and Warwickshire NHS Trust said: “An initial search of the patient management system in 2016 did not return any historical information regarding Mr Evans' father. The records were identified after further insight was uncovered. We apologize for the upset and pain caused.”
