IBCA Community Update, 4 September 2025 (HTML)
Published 4 September 2025
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Community update 4 September 2025
Introduction
Hello and welcome to your community update.
In this edition we cover:
- our latest compensation figures
- registering if you intend to claim
- joining an IBCA drop-in session
- how to use social media to support each other safely
- free legal support and obligations for solicitors
- a policy update about deductible compensation from previous litigation
- your feedback on the claims process and your questions.
Our latest compensation figures show that we’ve now contacted the majority of living infected people registered with an existing support scheme to start their claim. We intend to ask everyone in this group to start their claim by the end of this month (September 2025). We will then open the service to some claims from all other groups by the end of this year.
Working through the first claims from all groups will not slow down existing claims from the registered living infected group.
Thank you as always for your feedback and questions, which we regularly use to improve this newsletter. Please do get in touch by email ibcaenquiries@ibca.org.uk or on Facebook or X (formerly Twitter).
Our latest compensation figures
We’ve published our latest figures on our website, these are accurate as of 26 August 2025.
- A total of 3,230 people have been asked to start their claim – of this number, 2,803 have started the claim process
- So far, 1,424 people have received a compensation offer – the total value of offers made is £1,081,321,544.61
- A total of 1,104 people have had their compensation paid, totalling £771,606,777.66.
We publish all our figures every two weeks on our website, and the next figures will be available on Thursday 11 September.
Sharing our figures fortnightly means we can check everything is correct before we publish to give you a consistent and accurate picture.
Opening to the next group of claims
We expect that the first claims for the next group - those who are living with infection and not registered with a support scheme - will start in October. We have started designing the service for this group, working with people who will use it to understand their needs.
You may remember that when we started the first claims for the first group, we began with small numbers of people, allowing us to learn from each claim and build these learnings into the service before expanding further. We will do the same for this and every other group too. This means we will start with a small number of claims in October, and you’ll see that our fortnightly intake of claims will temporarily be much lower as we design the claim service for the second group. The number of claims will then begin to increase again as we learn from each new claim and grow our service to handle more. This will help us continue to build and improve the service and make sure it works for everyone.
Registering if you intend to claim, for all groups
In our last community update we said we aim to launch a registration service for everyone wanting to make a compensation claim by the end of September this year, if this was consistent with what we heard in community sessions. A registration service means that everyone who intends to claim compensation, in every group, could register their intent to claim with IBCA.
We held community sessions in August, speaking with community groups to better understand your needs and inform the design of a registration service.
During this process we also discussed with community groups how we might prioritise claims across all groups.
We are currently working through the views raised, and will publish a summary from those meetings on our website shortly so that everyone can see it (we’ll update our social media channels so you know when it is available). Once you read the summary, if you think any key themes have been missed, we’ll also provide a form to let us know.
We’ll update further on when a registration service will be ready once all views have been considered.
Would you be interested in joining an IBCA drop-in session?
We’ve heard in community feedback that you would like to ask IBCA more questions in person, rather than online through webinars or email. As a result, we plan to hold community drop-in sessions across the UK in the autumn and winter, and would like your views on how and where we might do this. These will be informal face-to-face events where you can meet the IBCA team, share your views, and ask questions.
Tell us how you would like these sessions to work
We have created a short survey to gather your views on the topics, timings and locations for future drop-in sessions; please do let us know what you think.
Guidance on how to use social media to support one another safely
We know many people use social media to discuss their compensation claim, and it’s encouraging to see people sharing their experiences and supporting others through the process.
However, it’s important to be mindful of fraud when using social media and sharing information online.
We’ve added some information below to protect yourself from fraud:
1. If you share any details about your compensation or your claim online, fraudsters could use this information to scam you and try and access your money. Private groups on platforms like Facebook are not completely safe from fraudsters. Please be mindful before sharing personal information online, even in a closed group. IBCA doesn’t operate closed groups to ensure that everyone can see our updates - please don’t share any personal information in our public channels.
2. Fraudsters can use information such as your birthday, where you live, family relationships or pet names to steal your identity or make their fraud more convincing.
3. Be cautious of who approaches you online. Fraudsters may create fake profiles and accounts in order to strike up a relationship based on things you have in common.
4. Be cautious of anyone contacting you online and offering to provide help with your claim. Only give your personal information to services you expect to be contacted by.
If you’re worried about fraud, you can find more information on the Stop! Think Fraud website.
If you’re concerned about a message or phone call possibly being connected to fraud and want to check it’s from us, or you have a general fraud query, you can email us at fraud@ibca.org.uk.
Free legal support, and obligations for solicitors
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has reminded solicitors about their obligations when working with clients on claims relating to infected blood.
They said: “We expect solicitors to make prospective clients aware of the availability of free legal support from the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA). If you want to take up legal support from a firm not on the existing panel, IBCA is prepared to discuss making arrangements with that firm on an equivalent basis.”
The legal support available through IBCA covers:
- help to confirm the information used to calculate your compensation is correct
- advice on if your compensation offer has been calculated correctly and if you should ask IBCA to review the decision
- support with an internal review, if you request one
- an offer to share information on your behalf, if we ask for it.
You can still get legal support for other reasons, but it will not be paid for by IBCA.
Visit our website for more information on free legal support available through IBCA
Policy update: Deductible compensation from previous litigation
When calculating a compensation award, the regulations require IBCA to deduct previous compensation and settlements paid in certain circumstances. This does not include settlement payments made through previous or existing support schemes. Compensation or settlement payments made as part of certain group litigation cases are deductible, as well as certain compensation or settlement payments made in individual cases.
To learn more about which compensation or settlement payments are deductible, read the full update on our website.
Publishing our first annual report and accounts
Our annual report and accounts will be published later this month. It will include details of IBCA being created in law last year, and what happened up to 31 March 2025, but doesn’t include progress since April 2025 when we increased the number of claims we brought into the service each week. We’ll let you know through our social channels when the report is available.
Independent review of IBCA is underway
We’re welcoming reviewers into IBCA in September, to talk about how we’re paying compensation as quickly as we can to all those impacted by infected blood.
This independent review was announced by the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Nick Thomas-Symonds, recently and is expected to conclude later this year.
Over the next few weeks, colleagues from across IBCA will be part of the review, and we’ll talk about how we’re building a claim service and the feedback we’ve heard from community members.
Reviewers will also be speaking to members of the community who have claimed recently, to ask about their experiences.
These are important conversations that will continue to shape and improve the ways we work, and we expect the Minister for Cabinet Office to update further on the outcomes of the review this autumn.
Establishing our community panel to advise IBCA’s Board
In our last update we said that we are establishing a community panel to make sure views and feedback continue to inform our decision making. The panel will provide advice to the Board, and although it will not have decision-making authority, members will play an important role in shaping discussion, highlighting potential impacts on community members and offering recommendations that reflect the needs and priorities of the infected blood community.
You’ve told us it’s important that a mix of people with different experiences are part of the panel. This is something we’ll build into the panel’s recruitment so we can ensure it’s as representative as possible.
We expect to begin advertising these roles this month. When recruitment is open, we’ll let you know in this newsletter and on our social media channels.
Your feedback on the claim process and questions
We’ve been asked to share more information about what it’s like once your claim begins. So, we’ll regularly share feedback from other community members about their experiences so far.
Kieran - one of our first claim managers to join IBCA - recently shared his experience of supporting someone through their claim from start to finish.
He said: “However much training we receive, the greatest expert about someone’s claim is that person. They’ve lived it and we owe it to them to listen.”
Here are some recent comments:
“Thank you for everything you’ve done to speed the process along. This is of course a large sum of money and life changing, but it will also go a long way to bring closure.”
“Thank you Catherine [Claim Manager], you have been amazing through this process and made a very confusing and emotionally fuelled experience more tolerable.”
Your questions
Q. If I am claiming as an affected person and receive compensation from IBCA and later die, will the compensation be subject to inheritance tax?
A: No. Compensation paid to an affected person in their own right is exempt from inheritance tax (IHT). This is set out in the ‘The Infected Blood Compensation Scheme (Tax Exemptions and Relief) Regulations 2024’: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2024/902/made
The relief applies retrospectively. HMRC will apply a credit against any IHT on death. For example, if someone received £100,000 in compensation, their estate would receive a £40,000 IHT credit.
Q. If I am a legal personal representative of an estate and receive compensation directly from IBCA for a deceased infected person, will the compensation be subject to inheritance tax (IHT) when I distribute it to the beneficiaries of the deceased person’s estate?
A: No, the compensation received directly from IBCA and subsequently distributed to the beneficiaries of a deceased infected individual’s estate will be relieved from IHT. If a beneficiary who received compensation later dies, no further IHT relief applies and so their heirs may be subject to IHT.
Q: If I die and leave the money in my estate, and the beneficiary (person who inherits my estate) later dies, will their estate be subject to inheritance tax?
A: Yes, if the total value of the beneficiary’s estate exceeds the Inheritance Tax threshold. The IHT credit associated with the compensation only applies when the compensation is paid to the estate of the infected person. If a beneficiary who received this compensation subsequently dies, no further IHT relief is applicable to their own estate.
Q. Will the interim payments of £210,000 for estates come from IBCA?
A: No, the interim payments are being administered by the Infected Blood Support Schemes on behalf of the UK Government. The application process for these payments has not yet opened. Future updates about interim payments will be published on gov.uk.
Q. When you publish your compensation figures, why is there a gap between the number of people who’ve been asked to start a claim, and the number of people whose claims have started?
A: That’s because there is usually a short time between making contact and starting the conversation with the claim manager. Some people prefer to take time to consider their options, or may feel it’s not the right moment for them due to health or personal circumstances.
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