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Invitation to engage with Health Minister Jackie Doyle-Price

Written by Aaron Dennis, December 14, 2019

We, along with several other members of the contaminated blood community have been invited to engage with Health Minister Jackie Doyle-Price to examine the issues we have around the current arrangements for financial support in the UK. This meeting is the result of the open letter from Sir Brian Langstaff to the Cabinet Office and the additional work we and members of the community have carried out, often behind the scenes, to facilitate such opportunities.

Chair of The Haemophilia Society Clive Smith says, “We welcome this opportunity to engage further, however we need to ensure this is not just an exercise in understanding but results in substantive action in achieving improved support and parity across the UK.”

We commit to continue to work tirelessly alongside our community partners to achieve the best possible outcome for all those affected by the contaminated blood scandal.

To ensure we fully represent your views we welcome any comments or feedback on what changes you want to see the support schemes and ask you to email us [email protected]

The communication to campaigners from the Inquiry can be seen below, the names of the attendees has been removed to protect personal privacy.

Dear Campaigners

Following Sir Brian Langstaff’s letter to David Lidington about the need to take action on financial support, the Minister for Health, Jackie Doyle Price, has agreed to meet a small group of campaigners to understand first-hand the problems of the people they support.

I expect that many of you would want to be involved in this meeting but I trust you will understand that numbers have to be limited. We were advised to focus on people who are themselves infected and receive support payments. The group attending represent people who were infected through blood products and through transfusions; infected by HIV including through their partners, by hepatitis C, or were co-infected; bereaved partners; as well as the four different countries in the UK.

This group will work together over the next weeks to get the most out of this meeting and represent different views effectively to the Minister.