The Government has apologised following the release of the long-awaited Penrose report, which has given details of how NHS patients were issued with contaminated blood supplies in the 1970s and 80s.
Referred to as the NHS’s worst treatment catastrophe in history, the “contaminated blood disaster” saw thousands of patients across the country infected with HIV and hepatitis C after they were given contaminated blood. It is thought that some blood supplies came from the United States where blood had been donated by high-risk donors including drug addicts and prostitutes. To date, around 2,000 people affected by the disaster have tragically died and many others have passed their diseases onto partners and children.
The Scottish Government launched an Inquiry in 2009 after campaigners demanded answers. The Inquiry aimed to establish exactly what happened, the errors made and how lessons can be learned to prevent it from happening again. Thousands of patients and their families suffered enormously from this medical negligence disaster due to how the imported blood supplies were managed.
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