Today, Sir Robert Francis’s study to The Cabinet Office – ‘Compensation and Redress for the Victims of Infected Blood: Recommendations for a Framework’ – has been published ahead of his evidence at the Infected Blood Inquiry in July.

We welcome this U-turn from the Government, having called for Sir Robert’s work to be decoupled from the Cabinet Office’s response. This gives those infected and affected by contaminated blood products time to consider its contents and share feedback before the Government outlines its proposals.

We strongly call on the Government to do two things urgently:

Firstly, make a public commitment that it believes that this community is owed compensation and that it is the Government’s responsibility – this will reduce the anxiety of those impacted. Remarkably, this has still not happened.

Secondly, they take this opportunity to consult the impacted community. We are on standby to help with this in any way we can.

Terrence Higgins Trust, having worked in partnership with those with lived experience of this scandal, developed the Principles for Fair Compensation. These were submitted as part of Sir Robert’s study and have been generously quoted in his final report. We will analyse what is contained in Sir Robert’s framework study against these 10 principles.

On Tuesday next week, we will be hosting a ‘Macfarlane Conversation’ meeting devoted to listening to the views of those infected and affected by contaminated blood products. If you are eligible to attend this meeting and have not heard directly from us about this meeting already please email us macfarlane@tht.org.uk.