Correspondence

IBCA Community Update, 01 October 2025

Published 1 October 2025

Introduction

Hello and welcome to your community update. 

In this newsletter we cover:

• registering if you intend to claim compensation
• our latest compensation figures
• IBCA becoming an independent employer
• recruiting an IBCA community advisory panel 
• your feedback about future IBCA drop-in sessions across the UK

We’re also sharing two updates from other organisations as they may be of interest to you:

• interim estate payments update from Cabinet Office
• a request from the Inquiry about sharing witness statements with IBCA.

Thank you as always for your feedback and questions which we use to improve this update. Please do get in touch by email ibcaenquiries@ibca.org.uk or on Facebook or X (formerly Twitter).

Registering if you intend to claim

Based on community feedback and as recommended by the Infected Blood Inquiry, we’re opening a registration service where people can register their intent to claim compensation. 

This is not the start of your claim, but means we’ll have your details for when we are able to start your claim. For example, we’ll ask for your date of birth and other details that may help us prioritise (as recommended by the Infected Blood Inquiry) while we’re still building the claim service. Once the service is fully built, we’ll process all claims in parallel.

Thank you to everyone who’s given feedback on our registration service so far. Our aim was to launch registration by the end of September. However, we are now planning for it to be available from early October. 

We need this extra time to make sure the service will work for everyone. We’ve also been working through the views we’ve received from community representatives and individuals on how it could work. While we may not be able to build everyone’s suggestions into registration, we want to make sure we’ve considered all views. 

When registration opens, we’ll contact everyone who receives this update. We’ll send you an email or letter (whichever you’ve told us you prefer) asking you to register if you intend to make a claim. We’ll also share details of how to register on our website and social media channels. 

We are designing registration to be as simple as possible. If you’re unable to register online or need additional support, you’ll be able to call us on a dedicated phone line and our team will support you. 

Please only call us if you can’t register online, so we can keep the phone lines free for those who need extra support. 

We are recruiting more people to answer these calls so claim managers can continue focusing on supporting people with their claims, and if phone lines are busy we may need to take your details and call you back. 

Our latest compensation figures

We’ve published the latest figures on our website, and these are accurate as of 23 September 2025. 

More than £1 billion in compensation payments have been paid to living infected people who are registered with a support scheme so far. 

We’ve now asked every living infected person who is registered with a support scheme to come forward and start their claim. We know there are a small number of people waiting to hear from us because, for example, they are waiting for a decision from a scheme or their details need to be confirmed. If you are an infected person registered with a support scheme and haven’t been asked to start your claim, please get in touch.  

We aim to open the service by the end of this year for first claims from infected people who were never compensated, deceased infected people, and living affected people. For supplementary claims and deceased affected people, we are awaiting further regulations to be confirmed by the UK Government.

As of 23 September 2025:

• A total of 3,590 people have been asked to start their claim - of this number, 3,284 have started the claim process.
• So far, 1,926 people have received an offer - the total value of offers made is £1,416,628,612.76.
• A total of 1,507 people have had their compensation paid - a total of £1,026,758,443.69 has been paid to people.

The next update on compensation figures will be on Thursday 9 October. The numbers of new claims coming will reduce temporarily as we complete claims for those in the first group, and bring in the first claims from the second group to claim. This is because with each new group of claims, we’ll start small while we build this part of the claim service.

This will help us improve the service and make sure it works for everyone as it opens to more and more people.

IBCA becoming an independent employer

IBCA was set up as an arm’s-length body in mid 2024, with operational independence. Since then we’ve also been working to become an independent employer made up of public servants rather than civil servants. 

Today (1 October) this has happened, and our employees are now public servants. This matters as it helps us meet our commitment to continue acting independently from government, as recommended by the Infected Blood Inquiry.

Get involved: IBCA community advisory panel 

Applications for our Community Advisory Panel are now open. 

We’re looking for up to 15 people with lived experience of being infected or affected by the infected blood scandal to help shape how IBCA delivers compensation.

As a panel member you will provide independent advice to our board. You’ll help identify barriers, provide feedback on our proposals, and be part of making sure we put the infected blood community first in everything we do.

The panel will meet virtually (so you can be based anywhere) and provide regular advice to our board.

Find out more on our website. 

Your feedback about our planned drop-in sessions across the UK

We are now organising informal drop-in sessions where you can meet the IBCA team in person, share your views and ask questions. In our last community update we shared a survey and asked for your views about the topics, timings and locations for these drop-ins.

Thank you to everyone who filled in the survey. Your feedback said:

• you want the chance to speak informally with IBCA colleagues
• you want the option to ask about specific topics with relevant experts
• you would like an informal update on how claims and the claim service are progressing, particularly focusing on affected and deceased infected people claims, and on what it’s like to make a claim
• people would be most likely to go to events in large, rail-linked hubs such as London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and Liverpool. People also said they’d like an event in South-West England.

We are planning these events using the feedback you gave us. We’ll share dates and details for the events as soon as we can. 

Your questions 

Q. What evidence should I be gathering before my claim begins? 

Claim managers are here to support everyone with their claim from start to finish. This includes helping you to gather information, including medical evidence, to support your claim. We have heard that some people are gathering information or medical records well before they start their claim. You do not need to do this - we can offer you support when we work through your claim together. 

Q. How are you preparing claim managers to help us get our compensation as quickly as possible?

Watch Joanne Dodds, our training lead, explain more about the three-week training programme and how we prepare new claim managers for their roles. We’ve shared this content before and people told us they found it useful insight into how we work.

Updates from other organisations

Further interim compensation payments for estates

The Government has announced that applications will open for further interim payments for eligible estates on Thursday 23 October.

• The additional payment is £210,000.
• This is in addition to the £100,000 interim payments to the estates of deceased infected beneficiaries which opened in October 2024.
• For an estate to be eligible, the person who died must have been registered with an existing UK Infected Blood Support Scheme, or former Alliance House Organisation (AHO) scheme (The Macfarlane Trust, Eileen Trust, Skipton Fund or Caxton Foundation), on or before 17 April 2024.
• If the estate, a living infected person who has since sadly passed away, or a bereaved partner has already received £100,000, the estate may be eligible for a further £210,000.
• If no interim payment has yet been made to the estate, a living infected person or a bereaved partner, the estate may now be eligible for an interim payment of £310,000.

The payments will not be made by IBCA - they are made through the Infected Blood Support Schemes that managed previous interim payments. 

For further information please visit gov.uk 

Infected Blood Inquiry is contacting people who have given a statement

We asked the Infected Blood Inquiry for access to written statements and exhibits to support  claims where other evidence may not be available. 

The Inquiry has written to everyone infected and affected who provided written statements to ask if they agree to sharing information with us. 

If you didn’t receive a message from the Inquiry, or would like more information about what’s happening and why, you can go to the Inquiry’s website or you can email contact@infectedbloodinquiry.org.uk 

Alternative formats

We understand that some people may need documents in different formats. If you would like to receive your community update newsletter in large print, another language, or another format please let us know by calling 0141 726 2397, emailing enquiries@ibca.org.uk, or writing to PO Box 384, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE98 1XY.

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