Correspondence

IBCA Community Update, 5 February (HTML)

Published 5 February 2026

Hello and welcome to your community update.

This newsletter includes:

• First public meeting of the IBCA Board
• How we are opening the compensation claim service to new groups
• Registering your intent to claim
• Our latest compensation and registration figures
• An update on IBCA drop-in sessions
• Your feedback
• Members of IBCA’s community advisory panel confirmed

Thank you for your feedback and questions. They help us improve this update.  You can get in touch by emailing ibcaenquiries@ibca.org.uk or on Facebook or X (formerly Twitter).

First public meeting of the IBCA Board

We’re committed to being open and transparent. That’s why our quarterly board meetings are now available to watch live online and as a recording afterwards.

You can see the agenda and board papers on our website. The first public board took place on Tuesday 3 February and you can watch it on YouTube.

First public meeting of the IBCA Board – 3 February 2026

The recording will also be available on our website soon. We’ll share the recording on our social media pages and website soon.

The main items discussed were:

• An update on strategic delivery, including the impact of the third set of regulations which came into force on 31 December 2025. We are waiting for information on further proposed scheme changes now the government’s consultation has closed.
• The board was made aware of concerns from the community, including those we have raised with the Cabinet Office, such as amounts for unethical research, a feeling of lack of recognition for lost education and career prospects and disparities across types of infection and compared with other compensation schemes. These concerns have also been published in a quarterly update on the IBCA website.
• An update on how private betas are progressing (private beta is the name given to the period when we bring in the first claims for a new group, when we are learning and building that part of the claim service).

Minutes of the board meeting will be available on our website soon.

How we are opening the claim service to new groups of claims

We know the number of people being asked to start their claim right now is low. People have asked why that’s the case, so John Kelly, Director of Data at IBCA, explains more in this video.

An update on new claim groups, and what needs to be in place before we can open to larger numbers

John shares why we’ve started with small numbers for new claim groups, and what needs to be in place before we can open to larger numbers.

Register your intent to claim

If you or someone you know haven’t yet registered your intent to claim compensation, please do so now.  This means we can contact you as soon as we are able to start your claim, and be aware of any reason why your claim should be prioritised.

This includes if you were infected, representing someone who has died, or are a partner, child, parent, sibling or carer of an infected person. Please share your details with us by registering your intent to claim.  

If you think this applies to someone you know, please encourage them to register. We want to make sure every eligible person receives the compensation they are entitled to.

Once you’ve registered, there’s nothing more you need to do for now. When we are able to start your claim, we’ll contact you to confirm your identity and ask you for more information.

You can also work out how much compensation you may be due, using our online calculator.

IBCA drop-in sessions

We’ve heard that people want to talk to our staff in person, so we are holding drop-in events around the UK in 2026 where you can meet our team and ask us questions. Although we can’t go through your individual claim at these sessions, you can ask us about how we process claims, what information we need to start a claim or anything else you may be wanting to know.

Birmingham date confirmed

The Birmingham drop-in session is expected to take place on 11 March 2026. We’ll confirm the date as soon as possible. Registration will open at least four weeks before the event.

Upcoming drop-in sessions

We are also planning events in the following locations:

Manchester (March or April)

London (April)

Belfast (May)

Liverpool (June)

Cardiff (June)

Requests for other locations

We chose these locations based on an earlier community survey. Thank you to everyone who’s shared feedback since then about other locations you would like to see for events. We’ll review all the suggestions we’ve received and come back to you with further information for events to take place later in 2026.

Your feedback

Thank you to everyone who continues to share feedback with us about our claim service and the compensation scheme.

Last month, we published a summary of your feedback and we plan to do this every three months. The document summarises the most common concerns and issues raised with IBCA between October and December 2025. The themes shared in this document have been compiled following analysis of IBCA’s conversations with community representatives and individuals, direct feedback (for example via emails and letters), information from community events and social media comments.

We know this can’t represent the full range of concerns we hear, but hope it is a useful summary of the most common themes raised with us. Where there are unresolved concerns about the scheme design, we continue to share these with the Cabinet Office.

Other IBCA updates

Latest compensation figures

These are our latest figures as of 27 January 2026.

People we’ve asked to start a claim:

• we’ve asked a total of 3,721 people to start their claim
• of this number, 3,558 have started the claim process.

Compensation offers we’ve made:

• we’ve made offers to 3,111 people
• the total value is £2,492,686,117.63.

People we’ve paid:

• we’ve paid a total of 2,949 people their compensation
• the total paid is £1,931,442,663.39.

To date, we have received 16,389 registrations of intent to make a compensation claim. This figure represents individual registrations, not unique people or claims. This is because some people may have registered more than once.

Of this number there are:

• 1,030 registrations of intent from a living infected person, or their representative (this does not include those claiming as living with infection and registered with a support scheme, as they should already have been contacted beforehand)
• 12,815 registrations of intent from a living affected person, or their representative
• 308 registrations of intent relating to a living infected and affected person, or their representative
• 2,231 registrations of intent from people acting on behalf of a deceased infected person

If you have questions about these figures, please contact us at ibcaenquiries@ibca.org.uk.

IBCA Chief Executive, David Foley, to appear before Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC)

On 10 February, IBCA Chief Executive David Foley will be appearing as a witness before the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC).

This is a standard but important part of IBCA’s accountability as a public body. The committee is looking into the Cabinet Office Annual Report and Accounts for 2024/25, which covers our founding year.

David Foley will be giving evidence alongside Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary Cat Little and Cabinet Office Chief Financial Officer Caroline Patterson. He will discuss our accounts in 2024-25, and progress made since then.

Members of IBCA’s community advisory panel confirmed

We are committed to putting the infected blood community at the heart of the compensation claim service. To help with this, we have appointed 13 people to our community advisory panel. They will provide independent, experience-led advice and guidance to the board of IBCA.

Their role includes:

• providing feedback on a range of areas, including building a claim service, engagement activity and operational practices;
• highlighting how our decisions will impact community members;
• representing views from those within the community, wherever possible.

The Community Advisory Panel role was advertised publicly so that anyone could apply. Panel members bring a range of experiences to reflect the diversity of the infected blood community.

The Community Advisory Panel members are: Andrew Jones,  Aster Abebe, Catherine Gadd, Conan McIlwrath, Dr Lazarus Karamadoukis, Hannah Truman, Justine Gordon-Smith, Laurence Woollard, Lester Membe, Louise McCormick, Mohammad El-Gendi, Owen McLaughlin, and Tim Green.

Members of the Panel will be supported by a Non-Executive Director from the IBCA Board, Helen Parker, and will select their own Chair of the panel once they have met. We will share more information on their work in future updates.

Alternative formats

Do you need this newsletter in a different format? We can provide large print, another language, or other formats. Let us know by:

• calling 0141 726 2397
• emailing ibcaenquiries@ibca.org.uk
• writing to PO Box 384, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE98 1XY.

Protecting you from fraud

We’re putting systems in place to prevent, spot, and deal with fraud. If you get a suspicious message or phone call and want to check if it’s really from IBCA, call us on 0141 726 2397 or email fraud@ibca.org.uk.

If you think someone has defrauded you:

• report it online at Report Fraud or call 0300 123 2040
• in Scotland, call the police on 101
• tell your bank straight away.

If you’re worried about fraud, you can find more information on the Stop! Think Fraud website: stopthinkfraud.campaign.gov.uk.

Find us online

For more information and latest updates from IBCA, you can find us online:

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