Infected blood scandal findings ‘shocking’ – Bucks, Berks and Oxfordshire NHS chief

Wednesday, 22 May 2024 07:00

By Charlie Smith - Local Democracy Reporter

A public inquiry’s findings that the infected blood scandal was ‘covered-up’ are ‘shocking’, the Bucks and Berks NHS chief has said.

Dr Nick Broughton said there were lessons to learn from the scandal, which saw 30,000 people in the UK contract HIV and hepatitis C after they were given contaminated blood during the 1970s and 1980s.

“This is an important moment for the NHS,” the chief executive of the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care Board said in Aylesbury on Tuesday.

Speaking during a meeting of the board, he addressed the scathing findings of the newly published 2,527-page report by former judge Brian Langstaff, who chaired the inquiry into the scandal.

In his report, Mr Langstaff said he had found a ‘chilling’ and ‘pervasive’ cover-up of the scandal by the government and NHS which ‘hid much of the truth’ to try and ‘save face and to save expense’.

Dr Nick said: “It is fair to say that the report’s findings were shocking, sobering and undoubtedly will have a profound impact on the wider NHS.”

The health chief noted that the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and NHS England chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, had both apologised over the findings of the report.

He added: “The reported is complicated, it is long, there are important findings for us. It is fair to say that we have not yet been able to fully take stock of what this will mean for the ICB and indeed the system that we lead.”