Compensation minister visits the Haemophilia Society

Written by Jessica Bomford, June 11, 2025

Today we have been talking about our work with Nick Thomas-Symonds MP, the minister with responsibility for implementing the Infected Blood Inquiry’s recommendations.  

We invited Mr Thomas-Symonds for an informal visit to our office in London on 11 June so that we could pass on our members’ experiences of compensation and discuss concerns about the scheme in more detail.

We also wanted to tell the minister about the range of work the Haemophilia Society is involved in and discuss how engagement with our charity and the infected blood community could be improved. This, we believe, is essential if current problems with the compensation scheme are to be overcome.

Mr Thomas-Symonds and his team of three advisers met Kate Burt, our Chief Executive and three of our trustees, Rayaz Chel, Gordon Dixon and Simon Blackwell. Also present were Debra Morgan and Jessica Bomford from our Public Inquiry Team. The meeting lasted for 75 minutes.

Trustees with a personal link to the infected blood scandal briefly told the minister about their experiences before we moved on to discussing issues of concern.

These included:

  • Lack of recognition of the damage caused by interferon treatment for hepatitis C
  • The need to incorporate the ‘special category mechanism’ (an extra payment recognised by all UK infected blood support schemes) into the compensation scheme
  • The need to fast-track compensation payments, particularly where people are already known to the system, such as those registered on support schemes
  • Lack of recognition in the compensation scheme of the psychological impact of infection
  • The need for more constructive conversations with the infected blood community, whilst mindful that there are a range of views which do not always agree
  • The need to learn from the confusion around some interim compensation (estates) payments
  • The need for the Infected Blood Compensation Authority, which delivers compensation payments, to have a degree of discretion in exceptional cases.

We also talked about a range of issues which are contained in our submissions to the Infected Blood Inquiry which you can read here and here.

The minister asked questions about how the compensation payment scheme was working in practice and asked how engagement with the community could be improved.

He was told that a good example of effective collaboration was in the formation of the Infected Blood Psychological Service for England, which launched on 10 June. People using the service as well as clinicians, professional bodies and charities, including the Haemophilia Society, had been involved in shaping the service.

We also raised the urgent issue of government funding for our charity, which was recommended by the Infected Blood Inquiry in its report on 20 May 2024. Negotiations are currently underway with the Department of Health but have not been finalised.

Kate said: ‘The meeting was open and positive. We appreciated the opportunity to talk informally and in more detail about some of the issues that are of most concern to our members. We hope this dialogue can be maintained so that we can work towards finding solutions to some serious outstanding problems with the government’s compensation scheme.’