Bereaved families of infected blood scandal victims have been ordered to repay £10,000 Government compensation payments in a shock development from the NHS’s worst treatment disaster.
Since July, 12 people have received letters informing them that payments made as long as five years ago were issued in error, and they were in fact not eligible to receive the money.
According to the Telegraph, the Government had mistakenly paid the bereavement lump sum, and has apologised that the error had not been identified sooner.
More than 30,000 people were infected with HIV and hepatitis viruses between the 1970s and 1990s after receiving contaminated blood transfusions and blood-clotting products, where more than 3,000 people tragically died.
The Government has committed billions of pounds in compensation to victims and their families following an official inquiry, which described the scandal as a "major failure by the state".
Some bereaved partners and relatives were already receiving financial support through the England Infected Blood Support Scheme (EIBSS), established in 2017.
To assist, a £10,000 one-off bereavement payment was initially available to people whose spouse or partner had died before November 2017 - however the rules were changed in 2021, meaning only those whose partners died after November 2017 were eligible.
Caught up in the change, 12 people whose partners had died before the cut-off date were mistakenly sent the £10,000 payments - the same families now being asked to hand the healthy sum back to the state.
One widow, among those who received a repayment letter, described the decision as “callous”, and said the way the Government had handled the issue was "distressing".
“It just feels so callous,” she told the Telegraph, "To receive this letter out of the blue saying we’re going to deduct £10,000 – it’s so ill-judged and disappointing.”
Rachel Halford, chief executive of the Hepatitis C Trust, described the repayment demands as a “horrendous” way to treat people affected by the scandal.
She said the prospect of having compensation reclaimed defeated the purpose of the scheme, and risked leaving victims and their families fearful that money awarded to them could later be taken away.
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The administrative error is understood to have been discovered during checks, notably carried out before the original support scheme was remodeled to the new infected blood compensation system.
In May 2024, the Government announced plans for the new scheme, operated by the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA), with waves of new regulation introduced until as recent as June this year.
Another widow affected by the demand for repayment said the issue was about more than the money, and that her concern was seeded in "they way they did it".
"The Government says all these things about treating the infected blood community with empathy, and then you get this letter and you think, ‘do you really mean it?’", she said.
Amid the uproar, the repayment demands have since been suspended, after charities and The Telegraph newspaper raised concerns with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the Cabinet Office.
The Government are understood to now be considering what they describe as a “right and fair outcome” for those affected.
A spokesman said the Government’s thoughts remained with victims and families who had suffered “appalling injustice”, and said nobody should face further hardship or unfairness as a result of failings by the state.
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