Revealed: key files shredded as UK government panic grew over infected blood deaths lawsuit

Disastrous failures that caused the contaminated blood scandal were denied by ministers for decades after officials destroyed, lost and blocked access to key documents, memos submitted to the official inquiry reveal.

Several batches of files involving the work of a blood safety advisory committee were shredded as the government faced the threat of legal action, documents show. Patients who were given contaminated blood when they were children have also told the infected blood inquiry how their hospital medical files were destroyed or initially withheld.

About 3,000 people died from contaminated blood from commercial concentrated products for haemophiliacs and blood transfusions.

Dame Diana Johnson, the Labour MP who has campaigned for proper compensation and justice for the victims, said ministers were able to resist calls for a public inquiry because documents had not been disclosed exposing the failures. She said: “Successive governments took the line up until 2017 that there was no reason for a public inquiry and everything was done properly.”

Beatrice Morgan, a senior associate solicitor for the legal firm Leigh Day, which represents about 300 people affected by the scandal, said: “There was at the very least a total mismanagement of documents and many of our clients believe that there was a cover-up and they were purposely misled.”

In 1987 David Owen, a former health minister, asked for his ministerial papers because he was concerned officials had not heeded his advice in the 1970s for the UK to become self-sufficient in concentrated blood products, which would have prevented many deaths. Owen’s office was wrongly told his papers had been destroyed. The Department of Health and Social Care has conceded at the inquiry that his “ministerial papers should have been available at this time” and has since apologised to him.

In late 2004, Lord Jenkin, a former health secretary, contacted the department about access to files concerning contaminated blood. A briefing note drawn up for a meeting with him stated: “Many key papers from the 1970s and 1980s have been destroyed … We understand that papers were not adequately archived and were unfortunately destroyed in the early 1990s.”

The inquiry has also heard how several batches of minutes and background papers involving the work of the Advisory Committee on the Virological Safety of Blood were shredded between 1994 and 1998. The files were destroyed at a time when officials were told there was “considerable potential for litigation” over infected blood and after ministers were charged in France over the scandal in poisoning haemophiliacs.

The government has acknowledged the destruction of files “was clearly wrong and should not have occurred”. An internal audit concluded “an arbitrary and unjustified decision most likely taken by an inexperienced member of staff” was the most likely explanation.

A lawyer for the health department told the inquiry that the advisory committee documents had been largely “reconstituted” and many other documents previously believed to be missing have since been traced. Campaigners say the failure to disclose the files over several years meant the scale of the failings which led to the scandal were covered up for years.

Jason Evans, founder of the Factor 8 campaign group, whose father Jonathan died in October 1993 after being infected with HIV and hepatitis C from a contaminated blood product, said: “What has happened has been a mixture of deliberate concealment and incompetence. By claiming documents had been destroyed, it also stopped campaigners looking for them. These files would have shown that all the risks were known all the way through and what happened could have been avoided.”

Many of those affected have also fought to get medical records involving the deaths of relatives. Evans was told by the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS trust that the medical files of his father no longer existed after he submitted a request in February 2016.

When a BBC producer contacted the trust with Evans’s consent a year later, the medical records were found within two days. In February 2021, the parliamentary and health service ombudsman found there had been maladministration by the trust.

Lawyers representing those affected by the scandal say many of their clients have never been able to access their records or have been provided with files with missing pages. Others were wrongly told their records had been destroyed.

Jonathan Colam-French, 53, from Lincolnshire, who was infected with hepatitis C from a commercial blood product, has sought unsuccessfully to obtain medical records concerning his treatment in Lincoln in the early 1980s. He has since discovered he was given the clotting product for a bruised finger when was a child. “I think it is suspicious they were deleted,” he said. “It would not be medically justified to give this for a bruised finger, and I consider there is strong evidence I was given factor 8 as part of a study.”

Phil Hayes, 51, from Doncaster, has also been unable to get access to key medical files after he was infected with hepatitis C in childhood with contaminated blood products. He was informed in about 2005 that he had been given commercial factor 8, but when he later asked for the relevant records he was told they had been destroyed. He said: “I believe there are files which the doctors have been able to get access to, but which I’ve not been allowed to see.”

Andy Evans, chair of the Tainted Blood campaign, said the widespread destruction and withholding of files meant many people were unable to prove their claims. “Any compensation scheme must, moving forward, allow the balance of probability to favour the victim rather than the state,” he said. “It should not be upon the harmed to prove their harm was caused by the state, but for the state to prove it was not the culprit.”

Sir Brian Langstaff, the infected blood inquiry chair, will report later this month on what has been described as the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS. He has already concluded wrongs were done at a “systemic” level.

A government spokesperson said the scandal was “an appalling tragedy that never should have happened” and it was working to deliver compensation to the victims.

In connection with the request by Evans for his father’s records, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS trust said: “Initial searches in 2016 of our Patient Management System failed to return any historical information relating to Mr Evans’s father. After further insight came to light, the records were located. The trust apologises for any upset and distress caused.”