In recent weeks, we have become all too familiar with the damage that large-scale public disasters can cause. We saw this with the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower, where the true number of victims is still not known, and with the announcement last month of prosecutions of some for offences arising from the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy.
Injustice takes many forms, and the measures needed to secure justice for victims of different disasters will vary greatly. But in every disaster, all victims have a fundamental right to one thing above all: answers about what went wrong, and why.
For the majority of public disasters over the past 30 years, this right has thankfully been granted – from the Bradford stadium fire in 1985, to the Grenfell inquiry more recently.
Yet for many years, the victims of the NHS contaminated blood scandal have been denied this same right. This is the worst treatment catastrophe in the history of our health service; and one of the worst peacetime disasters that has ever happened in our country.
Innocent people were infected over the course of 20 years, from the 1970s to the early 1990s, when they were given blood from the NHS through transfusions, blood factor concentrates or other methods. But because of the way many of these products were sourced by our NHS, they were contaminated with a range of viruses – particularly hepatitis C and, by the early 1980s, HIV. Neither the victims, nor their families, were ever told of the risks.
It is hard to understate the scale of the disaster that then unfolded. People without bleeding disorders were infected through blood transfusions and other hospital care, and the entire community of people with haemophilia in the UK was devastated – a close-knit, tightly connected group of close friends and family members. Over 2,400 people have since been killed by the viruses they contracted.
As I set out in the House of Commons earlier today, if these deaths had happened over the course of a day or even a year, it would have been inconceivable for any government to ignore the calls for answers. Yet this happened slowly over 30 years, and the victims were silenced by the stigma of having contracted these viruses, by being forced to sign legal waivers forgoing the right to prosecute the government, and because they were never even made aware of what happened to them, as part of what may have been a criminal cover-up on an industrial scale. Our NHS’s worst treatment disaster is also its most secretive and opaque.
Successive governments of all colours have long ignored calls for a public inquiry. The two meagre efforts at investigation we have seen so far have rightly not satisfied the victims, as neither had the power to compel witnesses from Westminster to provide evidence. In France the US and Japan similar tragedies resulted in fines, prosecutions and jail sentences – nothing of the sort has happened in the UK.
When the leaders of all non-government parties wrote to the prime minister to ask for an inquiry last Friday, it finally looked like we might make progress. There was the prospect that all parties might join together in giving victims the right to answers that they had so long been denied.
Theresa May’s announcement of a public inquiry today has earned her a place in the history books. She chose to listen to the calls that her predecessors had ignored, and for this she deserves widespread thanks from all parties. But to ensure that it brings true justice, she needs to give further assurances.
First, she must promise full public disclosure of all documents about the scandal, through a process managed by its victims. Those responsible need to be compelled to give written and oral evidence. Second, she must ensure the inquiry is as wide-ranging and broad as the scandal itself – investigating not just the run-up to the infections, but the aftermath. It must look into allegations of criminal conduct that Andy Burnham and others have so rightly set out; why the government didn’t act to protect blood supplies once the risks became known; why these risks were hidden from victims; and an alleged cover-up. The role of American private companies in supplying blood products to British haemophilia patients must also be investigated. Finally and most importantly, just as with Hillsborough, the inquiry must put “families first”. They must have a role in deciding the panel and the terms of reference.
Whenever MPs raise this scandal, they always get moving and heart-warming messages from those affected. One such message has always stuck in my mind, from a woman infected through this scandal: “You can’t give us back our health. But you can give us back our dignity. This tortured road has been too long for many of us, but for the rest of us, please let it be the final road to closure.”
Perhaps for the first time in her life, she and others can take the first steps down this road.
