Thousands of haemophiliacs in Britain are to get financial help from the government to help cope with a hepatitis infection they contracted from contaminated blood-clotting products 15 to 30 years ago.
The health secretary, John Reid, has moved to end one of the NHS's longest compensation battles by accepting in principle that approximately 2,800 people who are suffering hepatitis C as a result of their treatment should get ex-gratia payments.
Mr Reid, who took office in June, said: "I looked at the history of this issue and decided on compassionate grounds that this is the right thing to do in this situation."
A scheme to give financial aid in Scotland, already announced by the executive minister, Malcolm Chisholm, would result in about 320 patients receiving lump-sum payments of £20,000, and further payments of £25,000 if their illness advances to a more serious stage.
Details of the payments in England, and the amounts, have still to be worked out and it was not clear yesterday whether one settlement would apply right across the UK. The Scottish offer is considerably less than that demanded by the Haemophilia Society, which says relatives of people who have died after infection should also receive compensation. It is seeking a £522m package of help over 10 years.
The government has since 1995 rejected all pleas for aid to people who caught hepatitis C through infected blood products, although 1,240 patients who caught HIV in the same way have received aid through a special trust established in 1988. This has paid out £33.5m so far, but only some 400 patients still live.
Several people with hepatitis C were also infected with HIV. But hepatitis C tends to take far longer to develop into a serious disease, including liver damage and cancer. Patients receiving money for HIV infection had to agree in writing not to claim for hepatitis C infection as well.
The government has always insisted that it could not have known that people were being infected with hepatitis C in blood products, much of it imported from the US, since heat treatment to deal with the contamination was not available until the mid-1980s, and a test for hepatitis C was only introduced in 1991.
But pressure has been growing on ministers. British haemophiliacs are suing blood product manufacturers in the US. Many allege doctors tested them for hepatitis C without informing them, a claim that is being investigated by the General Medical Council.
Thousands of haemophiliacs in England have only just been promised they can receive synthetic blood products as an added guard against the theoretical risk of being exposed to the dormant variant CJD, the human form of BSE, from contaminated donations.
Lord Owen and Lord Morris, both Labour ministers in the 1970s, have been critical of successive governments over the issue, and patient activists have taken direct action, including treatment strikes, in protest.
Lord Morris, president of the Haemophilia Society, said: "This is a major breakthrough. It can never have been right to compensate people for HIV infection and not for hepatitis C infection if they were contaminated by the same route."
Carol Grayson, spokes woman for Haemophilia Action UK, said the ex-gratia amounts suggested for Scotland were "a pittance and insult", and compared badly with awards being made in Ireland to those infected there.
