Refusing Scottish help a 'grave error' in blood scandal, letter says
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Version 0 of 1. Taking supplies from Scotland could have saved hundreds from infection, papers suggest Hundreds of people with haemophilia in England and Wales could have avoided infection from HIV and hepatitis if officials had accepted help from Scotland, newly released documents suggest. A letter dated January 1990 said Scotland’s blood transfusion service could have supplied the NHS in England and Wales with the blood product factor VIII, but officials rejected the offer repeatedly. Large volumes of factor VIII were imported from the US instead, but it was far more contaminated with the HIV and hepatitis C viruses because US supplies often came from infected prison inmates, sex workers and drug addicts who were paid to give blood but not screened. The death of scores of people with haemophilia and blood transfusion patients and the infection of thousands of others across the UK in the contaminated blood scandal has been described as the worst health disaster to hit the NHS. Scotland’s factor VIII supplies were also contaminated, but to a far lesser degree than those from the US. Sixty people with haemophilia and 18 given transfusions were infected with HIV in Scotland, but the rate of infection in England and Wales was far higher, where 1,243 HIV infection cases ccame to light. A January 1990 letter from the then director of the Scottish Blood Transfusion Service, Prof John Cash, said the service had tested its production facilities in 1980-81 and had found it had “very substantial” spare capacity. Cash said the first offer was made to the NHS in England in the late 1960s, and then reaffirmed after its production tests in 1980-81. Those offers were rejected by civil servants in the Scottish Office in Edinburgh and in the Department of Health and Social Services in London. Cash’s letter, released under freedom of information legislation to a blood contamination campaigner, Jason Evans, whose father died of HIV and hepatitis C contamination, said that was “a grave error of judgment”. Cash wrote: “It was assumed by those of us on the shop floor that this experiment [in 1980-81] would expedite arrangements to give England and Wales assistance – but nothing materialised.” Scotland’s blood transfusion services were entirely separate from those in England and Wales, and there were “serious defects in the operational liaison” between the Scottish department and the DHSS, which oversaw health policy in England, Cash said. Cash said he had attempted to persuade senior officials in both services to cooperate on numerous occasions, but without success. “I sense the ineptitudes of the past – 1970s and 1980s – are about to catch up with us,” he concluded. The Penrose inquiry into Scotland’s blood contamination scandal reported in 2015, and called for the mass screening of blood transfusion recipients. The ongoing English public inquiry, which has taken evidence from affected patients and their families, is expected to hear from experts including Cash this summer. Evans, the founder of the Factor 8 campaign group, said Cash’s letter was a very significant piece of evidence. “We have testimony in black and white here, from a very senior source, which effectively shows hundreds of HIV infections within the haemophilia community could and should have been prevented,” he said. “It fills me with a distinct sense of horror that so many of these people would still be alive if it were not for the total negligence that took place.” Des Collins, a senior partner with Collins Solicitors, which represents 1,400 victims and families, said self-sufficiency in factor VIII was one of the main issues the English inquiry was investigating. “It is obvious that had the UK produced more of its own factor VIII products, which this evidence makes clear was entirely possible, there would have been far fewer HIV infections,” Collins said. A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “The infected blood tragedy should never have happened. We are committed to being open and transparent with the inquiry and have waived the usual legal privileges to assist the process.” |