{
  "id": 8912018,
  "title": "Infected blood victims and their relatives are left struggling to claim compensation",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/21/infected-blood-victims-and-their-relatives-are-left-struggling-to",
  "topic": "health",
  "section": "Health & Medicine",
  "published": "2026-09-21T11:48:35.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Guardian Health",
    "slug": "guardian-health",
    "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/sep/21/infected-blood-victims-and-relatives-struggle-to-claim-compensation"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Suzanne Morgan still recalls the day her mother passed away nine months after receiving a routine blood transfusion for gallstones. Her mother's condition rapidly deteriorated, leading to internal bleeding and her untimely death. The family was shocked to learn she had Hepatitis C and faced the indignity of her body being sealed due to the risk of contagion. Morgan, who was pregnant at the time, experienced a miscarriage in the aftermath of her mother's death, consumed by shock and hysteria. This was 35 years ago, and the family now understands that her mother's demise was due to infected blood. However, Morgan has been forced to relive this trauma through the infected blood compensation scheme. Like many other victims and their families, she is required to scour decades-old medical records to prove her eligibility for compensation, despite the public inquiry's recommendations that eligibility should be determined on the balance of probability. Claimants have been asked to provide basic information such as proof of living with a deceased spouse or sibling, old school records, tenancy agreements, utility bills, or family photos. This rigorous process has placed an intolerable burden on people who have already endured decades of injustice, according to Rachel Halford, the CEO of the Hepatitis C Trust. Some families have been asked to show old school records, tenancy agreements, utility bills, or family photos. The community hopes that Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who has long advocated for victims of the infected blood scandal, will address their concerns. However, concerns have been raised over Burnham's decision to shift responsibility for the scandal from a cabinet-level secretary of state to a junior minister. Research from the Haemophilia Society suggests that just 15% of projected compensation claims have been processed two years since the IBCA's inception, citing the unreasonably strict and sometimes impossible bureaucratic demands. Victims and bereaved families are calling for regulatory changes to shift the burden of evidence from applicants to the state, ensuring all applicants with a bleeding disorder are entitled to compensation unless proven otherwise. The current system is putting haemophilia treatment centres under immense pressure, requiring staff to sift through patients' medical notes to find evidence, often at their own expense. Lawyers representing victims and their families argue that the \"balance of probabilities\" should be the standard of proof for medical negligence claims, as it represents a comparatively lower threshold than the \"beyond reasonable doubt\" standard currently being applied.",
  "summary": "Claimants are asked to dig out decades-old medical records to prove they qualify despite inquiry’s recommendations Suzanne Morgan will never forget the day her mother died. It was nine months after she had gone into hospital with gallstones, where she received a routine blood transfusion. “She went downhill rapidly,” Morgan recalled. Her mother haemorrhaged in her liver, and the next day she was…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}