Correspondence

IBCA Community Update, 14 May 2025

Published 14 May 2025

Introduction from David Foley

Hello, and welcome to our latest community update. Following further hearings of the Infected Blood Inquiry last week, we continue to reflect on the learnings that I, and all of us at IBCA, regularly take from your feedback.

Firstly, thank you to the Infected Blood Inquiry and all those who gave and listened to the evidence given. Hearing from community members directly is essential to IBCA, and we continue to work with the community to shape and improve the compensation service. At IBCA we have held more than 150 community sessions with more than 1,200 attendees so far, and every one of these provides an opportunity for us to understand the impact of our work on you and also adapt and improve as we go. These sessions will continue to ensure community members are helping to shape our compensation claim service.

Secondly, we have heard specific feedback on what you would like us to change now, and over the coming months, as we increase the number of claims being processed. We have outlined some in this update, and will continue to share more as we go.

We know that so many of you will have waited decades for recognition and compensation, and that’s why our priority remains paying as many people as soon as possible. You will have hopefully heard my update at the Inquiry that we have committed to starting on average a hundred claims a week. At that rate, we expect to have brought in to claim all those who are infected and registered with a support scheme this calendar year. We will also start other groups as soon as we can, while we learn from your experiences and grow the compensation claim service. 

As always, please share any feedback with us by emailing ibcaenquiries@ibca.org.uk.

Thank you,

David

In this edition 

• Acting on your feedback
• Increasing the number of claims
• Increasing the number of claim managers 
• Update about our Interim Chair and Board
• Our next webinar 

Acting on your feedback

Based on your feedback, recent changes include:

• Altering our language so that it meets your needs. For example, we are going through our letters and other communications this month to take out references to ‘invites’ when we bring in new claims, and will refer to ‘Clinical Advisors’ rather than ‘assessors’, as these roles will support your claim wherever possible.
• Being clearer on timelines where we are able to. We can’t yet promise when more groups can begin their claims, as we are still designing and building the claim service, but we have committed to starting on average a hundred claims a week. At that rate, we expect to have brought in to claim all those who are infected and registered with a support scheme this calendar year. 
• Working with those in other groups, so we can start to understand their needs and concerns. For example, we know that those who are infected and not registered with a scheme have told us they are worried about what information we could ask for when they claim, so we will be holding sessions with representatives from this part of the community to better understand where the gaps in information may be, and how we can help. We will hold similar sessions with other parts of the community in future, where needed.

Increasing the number of claims

As we mentioned in our last update on 1 May, we are now asking an average of 100 people to start their claims every week. In some weeks, this will be higher as more Claims Managers come on board. We will continue to randomly select claims from those infected and registered with a support scheme, in addition to those from this group who contact us if they are sadly nearing the end of their lives.

We also said that when we’re asking large numbers of people to start their claim, we’ll send these every Tuesday and update on our social media channels to confirm they have been sent. You may receive this contact from IBCA through phone, post or email, depending on your contact preferences with your support scheme. If it’s by post, there may be a short delay in it reaching you.

We’ll publish our latest figures on our website every fortnight, so you can regularly see how many people have been brought into claim. The next figures will be published on the afternoon of 22 May. 

Increasing the number of Claim Managers 

IBCA is recruiting up to 500 Claim Managers whose role is to support each person making a claim. They will work with you to gather all the information needed, so that the right level of compensation is paid as quickly as possible. 

Since March, we have taken on 90 new Claim Managers to start their training, and now have 107 in our team. From the end of June, we plan to increase by around 80 people per month to continue to increase the number of claims we can process. We will be starting a new recruitment campaign soon to bring those people on board.

We’ve heard feedback about the time it takes to recruit our Claim Managers. We want to move as quickly as we can, but it takes time to complete recruitment processes, as each person is required to undertake security checks before they are able to start with IBCA.

Our induction and initial training take three weeks in a classroom environment. This is followed by a further three weeks of support as new Claim Managers start to process their first claims, supported by more experienced team members.
In the Inquiry hearings, we promised to publish more details about the training for claim managers. We will do this on our website and let you know when we have done so.

Update about our Interim Chair and Board 

Sir Robert Francis KC, the current interim Chair of the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA), will continue in his role for another 18 months. Sir Robert’s term as interim Chair has been extended to provide continuity and stability for IBCA and the infected blood community.

He said: “I am honoured to continue serving as ​Interim ​Chair of the Infected Blood Compensation Authority.

“My priority remains to ensure that we pay compensation to those impacted by the scandal as quickly as possible, while maintaining transparency and compassion throughout our work.​”

He will now remain interim Chair until 22 November 2026. Before his term ends, there will be a fair and open recruitment campaign to appoint a permanent Chair of the Infected Blood Compensation Authority.

Paula Sussex CBE, currently a Non-Executive Director on our Board, will be standing down this summer as she is being appointed as the new Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. Until then, she will continue to provide input and support to the Board. 

Next community-wide webinar 

Thank you to all those who have provided feedback on our community-wide webinars. We have been listening and will be making some changes to better meet your needs. We plan to discuss this with the Communication Advisory Panel (a panel of infected and affected people who provide communications advice to IBCA) and then hold the next session in the summer; we will confirm a date soon. This does mean that the previously mentioned webinar date of 3 June will be changed. As always, please be assured we’re continuing to meet and hear from members of the community in meetings, online and through social media in the meantime.

A quick reminder - please be aware of potential fraud 

We’re putting ways of preventing, detecting and addressing fraud in place so we can ensure compensation reaches only the people who are eligible.

Contact us if you’re concerned about a message or phone call and want to check if it’s from us, or if you have a general fraud query related to IBCA. You can call 0141 726 2397 or email fraud@ibca.org.uk.

If you’ve been a victim of fraud or cybercrime, report it via the Action Fraud website or by calling 0300 123 2040. In Scotland, contact the police by calling 101. You should also report it to your bank immediately.

Welsh language versions

If you, or someone you know, would like to receive future IBCA community updates in Welsh, you can let us know by calling 0141 726 2397 and signing up to our mailing list on our website: www.ibca.org.uk. 

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