Government sets aside extra £1bn for victims of UK’s infected blood scandal

Compensation payments will rise for people affected by the infected blood scandal, including an extra £35,000 each for former pupils who were experimented on at school without their knowledge, the paymaster general has announced. The government has allocated £1bn for the payments.

The final report of the inquiry into what has been described as the biggest treatment disaster in NHS history was published in May 2024. The compensation scheme that followed has also been blighted by controversy.

People who were infected, and their relatives, had complained about delays, qualifying criteria, the size of payments and the complex application process.

Among those angry at the amount they were offered were former pupils at Treloar’s college, a specialist school in Hampshire for haemophiliacs, where they were infected in experimental trials.

On Tuesday, the paymaster general, Nick Thomas-Symonds, announced the government’s response to the public consultation on proposed changes to the infected blood compensation scheme. The compensation pot was set at £11.8bn in the 2024 autumn budget, with the announced changes estimated to cost £1bn.

Thomas-Symonds said: “While this government understands no amount of money will make up for the suffering endured by the infected blood community, I hope that these changes to the compensation scheme demonstrate our commitment in ensuring this community receives the compensation they rightly deserve.”

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Source: The Guardian, 14 April 2026