Jeremy Hunt says £10bn infected blood scandal compensation will fulfil vow to constituent a decade ago
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Compensation for the victims of the infected blood fiasco, expected to top £10 billion, will fulfil a promise Jeremy Hunt made to a constituent a decade ago, he has declared.
The chancellor also called the scandal the worst of his lifetime as he indicated he would be open to a memorial to the victims.
Ministers are set to outline payments to tens of thousands of people who were given contaminated blood or blood products between the 1970s and the early 1990s.
The parents, children and siblings of those infected will also receive money.
On Monday an inquiry is due to unveil its damning findings on the scandal, one of the worst in NHS history.
On Sunday the defence secretary Grant Shapps agreed the cases were one of the most shameful failures of government he had seen.
He told Sky News: “Yes, I think it has been too slow, of course I do.”
It had been a “massive injustice which needs to be put right” and ministers would act on the report, he added.
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said Labour government would honour Mr Hunt’s commitment on compensation.
He also accepted that his party would be criticised in Monday’s report and said Labour would have to “take that on the chin”.
Mr Hunt said he had promised to “sort” a settlement during a meeting with campaigner Mike Dorricott in 2014, in an interview with The Sunday Times.
Mr Dorricott, who was just 46 years old when they met, had learned weeks earlier that he had terminal liver cancer – a disease linked to the hepatitis C he contracted as a teenager from contaminated Factor 8 blood products.
After he told his family that he had only months to live, he visited Mr Hunt, then the health secretary.
During their meeting he expressed his anger that infected patients and their families had not received a full and fair settlement.
Towards the end of the meeting, Mr Hunt shook his hand and said: “Don’t worry about this, we’ll sort it.”
Mr Hunt told The Sunday Times that a new compensation package of at least £10 billion for those affected by the scandal will be “thanks to Mike more than anyone else”.
He added: And it’s one of the saddest things that he’s not around to see it.”
The chancellor described Mr Dorricott as “so gentle, so decent”.
“I imagine after that meeting that Mike thought that he’d been fobbed off by yet another politician giving him the runaround,” he said, adding: “But what Mike didn’t know was that he really had made a huge impression on me.”
The money will be funded through Government borrowing, Mr Hunt said.
Mr Hunt has told of how he promised to ‘sort’ a fair and full settlement during a meeting with campaigner Mike Dorricott in 2014 (PA) (PA Wire)
It could be officially announced as soon as Tuesday, the day after the final report of the inquiry is published.
Mr Hunt also said ministers would look “very sympathetically” on any request from victims or their families for a national memorial.
“What we want to do after Monday is very close engagement with all the families who’ve been through such hell and understand from them what the next steps need to be,” he said.
Mr Dorricott’s widow, Ann, 57, told the paper that the announcement “brings me solace”.
“It brings me solace to know that even in death, Mike continues to make a difference,” she said.
“He was a pillar of strength, fighting for justice until his last breath and his absence is deeply felt every day.
“I know that Mike always held Jeremy Hunt in high regard, and even though it has taken 10 years, he would be pleased that justice is finally being delivered to the victims.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-hunt-infected-blood-compensation-billion-b2547482.html