Correspondence

IBCA Community Update, 22 July 2025

Published 22 July 2025

Our response to the Infected Blood Inquiry report on compensation 

I’d like to begin this update by thanking you for your patience while we have carefully considered the findings in the additional report by the Infected Blood Inquiry. The report and its findings have only been possible because of the testimonials and evidence that many of you gave to the Inquiry. I’m grateful to all the witnesses and to the many people who are infected and affected who have shared their experiences with me. 

Following the publication of the report, I gave you a commitment that we’d share our response to the recommendations before the end of the month. We recognise the importance of the report and the consideration that has gone into it, and therefore we accept all recommendations in the report for IBCA. 

There are a number of significant recommendations that are specifically for the government to consider. They relate to the legal regulations that set the policy and amounts of compensation for the infected blood compensation scheme. If the government accepts them, we may need to change the way we build our service. 

We have already started to act on some of the recommendations for IBCA. For example, we are about to recruit a community panel to advise our board, and we regularly hold roundtable discussions with community groups to understand what support they need from the claim service.

We are committed to paying compensation to each and every person who is eligible, as quickly as we can and we want to make sure that as many people as possible receive compensation in their lifetime. Nearly two-thirds of those who are living with infection and registered with a support scheme have now been asked to start their claim. We expect to start claims for everyone in this group within the next few months. 

There is still work to do as we open our service, and we are absolutely committed to listening and acting on your feedback. This means we will need to continue to work with you, the community, and the groups and organisations that represent you. 

This is just the start of our conversation and engagement with you as we work to build these new recommendations into the service. As Sir Brian says, you are at the heart of everything that we do. You drive every choice we make and every milestone we reach. 

We will keep you updated with how we are acting on the recommendations over the coming weeks. 

Thank you, 

David Foley 

Overview of recommendations 

Registration and prioritisation within groups 

We have already started introducing prioritisation for those who are infected and registered with a support scheme, by asking those who are sadly nearing the end of their life to come forward so we can start their claim. We will actively explore prioritisation as we open the claim service more widely. 

We want to make sure the priority ordering and process by which we ask for people’s information through registration is simple, clear, and works for everyone. To do this, we will talk to people who are infected and affected about the Inquiry’s recommended scheme for prioritisation and test the approach. We will start doing this straight away.

We’ve considered registration before but haven’t needed it yet as all claims so far have been for living infected people already registered with a support scheme. It is important we create a registration process that works for you and is based on your feedback. We will start talking to people about how this can work this week. We expect to launch a registration scheme within the next few months. 

Opening the service more widely 

In February, we shared an update about how we’ll open our service more widely in stages, including a commitment that we’ll start claims from all groups this year. We also confirmed that our service will be built to take claims from groups in order, and 

that not all claims in each group need to be completed before another group begins. We plan to continue with this approach - progressing groups as soon as we can rather than waiting to finish one group before we start the next. 

This update included numerous groups we planned to open the service to in stages. We accept the Inquiry’s recommendation to change these groups to: people infected and never compensated; the deceased infected; and people affected. 

We will update the order in which we start claims in line with that proposed by the Inquiry. Starting this autumn, we’ll begin claims for living infected people who have never been compensated. We will also start the first claims for deceased infected and affected people this year as planned. 

We started our first group of claims with very small numbers, allowing us to design and build a claim service while we made the very first payments. For every group, we will do the same, which means you will see smaller claim numbers to begin with and then an increase as the service is built to handle more. 

This is different to the update we gave in February about how we’ll open our service. This is because the insight we’ve gathered from claims so far, along with Inquiry recommendations, means we need to change our approach. We still plan to pay the first claims for all groups this year. 

Starting the service for more groups won’t slow down claims for living infected people registered with a support scheme. We still expect all these claims to be started within the next few months.

Our original plan was also to start supplementary claims this year. We need to review this because the Inquiry makes recommendations about the regulations which the government needs to respond to and may take time to progress through Parliament. We will share more on supplementary claims as soon as possible when we know more about any changes to the regulations. It’s important we do this to make sure calculations are accurate and we take into account any impact the changes may have on the compensation due. 

We recognise that this may be frustrating for those waiting to submit a supplementary claim, and for those who thought their group’s claims would start next. To reassure you, we will start some claims from all groups this year and update you on supplementary claims as soon as we can. 

Internal reviews 

We already have a comprehensive process in place for reviews, and we will build on this using feedback from the Inquiry and people making claims. This will include people being able to bring support, for example, their legal representative, to the review process. 

The Inquiry asked that we provide written reasons for every decision. We already include this information in our declaration and offer letters and will review these with people and their registered legal representatives to understand what improvements can be made. 

Transparency and involvement 

We are already working with people from the community and groups that represent them, and will continue to do so. For example, we are establishing a community panel to advise the board. We will also take on the Inquiry’s recommendation that we need to build a more formal way to raise concerns. 

We will do more to tell you what we do with your comments and concerns. We will respond more effectively to let you know the outcome of this feedback, especially when it is something that could affect the way in which we work. 

We will improve transparency by sharing more of our processes, documents, data, and plans on our website. We will be clear which are the latest versions, as we know there are older versions online that could be confusing. 

Regulations

The Inquiry also made a number of recommendations for changes to the regulations. We understand the government is considering the recommendations and, if accepted, how they will impact our service. We’ll need to review and consider them if new regulations are laid in Parliament, working closely with the community on how we put them in place. 

What happens next 

We will continue holding regular meetings with people from the infected blood community and organising research sessions with individuals and groups to inform how we design our service. 

Over the coming months, we’ll share more details about how we’re opening our service and give you updates about feedback we’ve received and how we’re acting on it. 

What you need to do 

You do not need to do anything right now. 

If you have already received your compensation and will be due a higher award due to changes in the regulations, we will review, change, and update your payment. We will get in touch directly with people impacted by this as soon as we can, after the regulations have been updated and laid in parliament. 

We will share more about our registration process, and about how we will open the service for people infected and never compensated, the deceased infected, and people affected, in this newsletter. 

Our latest compensation figures 

We’ve published our latest compensation figures on our website, these are accurate as of 15 July 2025. 

• A total of 2,215 people have been asked to start their claim – of this number, 1,934 have started the claim process
• So far, 808 people have received a compensation offer – the total value of offers made is £602,120,084.64 
• A total of 587 people have had their compensation paid, totalling  £411,648,680.46 

We publish all our figures every two weeks on our website, and the next figures will be available on Thursday 31 July. 

Sharing our figures fortnightly means we can check everything is correct before we publish to give you a consistent and accurate picture. 

Welsh and printed versions 

If you, or someone you know, would like to receive future IBCA community updates in Welsh, or as a printed copy sent to your address, you can let us know by calling 0141 726 2397 or signing up to our mailing list on our website. 

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