Contaminated blood scandal: many medical records disappeared, inquiry hears

Evidence of medical cover-ups in the NHS’s contaminated blood scandal must be investigated and those responsible encouraged to apologise, the infected blood inquiry has been told.

The inquiry, which opened on Monday, will investigate how thousands of people with the blood-clotting disorder haemophilia were given blood by people who were infected with the HIV virus and hepatitis C. At least 4,689 British haemophiliacs are thought to have been treated with contaminated blood in the 1970s and 80s. So far, half have died.
The inquiry will try to figure out the exact number of people who have been infected, examine the impact the infection had on people’s lives, investigate whether there was any attempts to conceal details of what happened, and identify any individual responsibilities as well as systemic failures. Theresa May announced the inquiry last year, following years of intense pressure from MPs and campaign groups.

On its second day, Aidan O’Neill QC, representing nearly 250 victims and relatives, told the inquiry that the medical treatment records of many patients had either disappeared or, in some cases, had “false information” added.

“The injury and deaths which have been suffered have resulted from wrongful acts on the part of those responsible for supplying blood and blood projects,” O’Neill said. “This inquiry is about bringing past and ongoing injustices to light.

“We want the inquiry to provide the opportunity for those responsible to acknowledge and accept responsibility for those wrongs. We want the inquiry to be the space in which they can apologise fully and unreservedly for the harms which were suffered.

“Everyone placed their trust in the hands of health professionals when they were at their most vulnerable. They trusted they would get the best help and care available.”

Patients have been left with their faith in the NHS shattered, he said. “What they have been faced with is stonewalling, secrecy and evasion – a lack of candour. People have been left fearful, their lives dogged by depression.”

Many victims believed their experiences amounted to evidence of a cover-up, O’Neill said. “A number of people who have spoken to me independently have come with such similar strands of medical records disappeared, of medical records filleted so that record of treatment is gone.

“It’s happened in so many cases and we want to know why. How has this happened?” In some cases, he said, “false information had been added”, for example, suggesting that they had other conditions such as alcoholism which had caused liver damage.

“The risks were known about the possibility of blood-borne infection well before the experience and knowledge of HIV … We have heard from so many that people were not advised about the risks of the blood products. Their consent was not even sought.

“Many were not told they had become infected even when the transmission pathways were already known. There has been a need to tackle medical complacency. Why did doctors know so little when it was common knowledge among transfusion [staff]?”

The attitude of some doctors had been defensive and insensitive, O’Neill said. Some medical staff viewed those complaining about treatment as motivated only by obtaining money through compensation claims.

In one case, a doctor referred to twins as “young pups”. The boys thought that meant the doctor liked them, O’Neill explained. “They didn’t know it was an acronym for Previously Uninfected Patients.”

Two police investigations have been launched in Scotland into blood transfusion cases, O’Neill said, but few details have emerged about their inquiries.

Theresa May announced in July last year that an inquiry would be held into events in the 1970s and 80s, when thousands of people with haemophilia and other patients were given infected blood products.

David Lock QC, who represents around 240 victims and their relatives, said patients had not only been infected with HIV and hepatitis C but a wide range of other pathogens, potentially including new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

He said few people in the general population sustained brain damage from that virus after the scandal over contaminated beef, but “the real risk of developing NV CJD is something which my clients have to live through every day”.

He added that key “incriminating” documents in the Department of Health may have been destroyed by civil servants in order to draw a line under the scandal. “We understand that that these may have included the private papers of [the former health secretary] David Owen.”

If copies of those documents existed in other government files, they should be found, he said. “Whatever the financial cost, the time for secrecy is over.”

There has been an assumption that the infected blood came from abroad. “It will be for this inquiry to determine whether this was a correct picture or a convenient myth.”