UK Infected Blood Inquiry-An Historical Appraisal

This appraisal considers the 2018 UK Infected Blood Inquiry and its Report (2024) in the context of the history of haemophilia treatment developments over the past fifty-five years, and the tragic impacts of the AIDS pandemic.

The paper appraises the conduct and findings of the IBI and its Report in relation to HIV and AIDS.

This appraisal represents a personal perspective informed by the author's experience from 1969 of treating people with haemophilia and allied blood disorders, and by contemporaneous scientific publications.

The Report is commended for recommending compensation for infected patients and their families and for recognising developments that enhanced blood safety in the past 50 years. Nevertheless, this appraisal observes that a UK government-backed system of no fault compensation is long-overdue. Failure in the late 1980s to offer one for HIV has prolonged and accentuated the trauma of AIDS for all involved. This perspective hypothesises that in the circumstances under which the IBI was commissioned any belated compensatory award depended on finding culpable responsibility in haemophilia treatment services. The Report's significant omissions, oversights, and judgements with hindsight, were thus deemed necessary to support recommendations for government offers of compensation.

The Report disappoints in not delivering to patients and their families a more complete, evidence-based history of HIV infection in the context of haemophilia and its treatment. The Report thereby omits acknowledgement of the dedication and professionalism with which members of treatment services collaborated to combat the threats of blood-borne infections.