THE upcoming general election must not distract from the infected blood scandal - that's the message from the Lib Dem parliamentary candidate for Romsey and Southampton North. 

Geoff Cooper's comments come following the release of the final report of The Tainted Blood Enquiry.

The inquiry investigated the reasons why many people with blood disorders received infected blood products and people who received blood transfusions received blood contaminated by viruses such as HIV and hepatitis.

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The estimate is that more than 3,000 deaths are attributable to infected blood, blood products and tissue and more than 30,000 people were infected.

The report describes “systemic, collective and individual failures to deal ethically, appropriately and quickly, with the risk of infections being transmitted in blood, with the infections when the risk materialised and with the consequences for thousands of families.”

Cllr Cooper said: “This incredibly thorough and detailed report highlights a number of actions and a clear timetable for achieving those actions. Unfortunately, we are likely to have a general election in the middle of the proposed timescales so it is hard to imagine that this is going to be the top priority.

“Successive governments must take responsibility for this complete system failure so it would seem appropriate for a cross-party group to be set up, with an agreement that the election will not get in the way.

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“People have waited far too long for proper compensation and it is not right that they should suffer further delay because politicians are putting their own interests first.

“The report describes system failure in a number of areas and it is incumbent on all NHS staff in a leadership position to take note of the findings and ensure that they operate in an ethical environment and encourage a duty of candour so that incidents and concerns are listened to, acted upon and not dismissed.

“As a father, I was particularly moved by the experience of the children at Treloar’s school in Alton. It is unbelievable that what amounts to experimentation on children should take place in the UK.

“We can all learn from this considered report and hopefully we will not see a similar scandal in the future.”

The Infected Blood Inquiry, which was launched in 2017 by former prime minister Theresa May, published its final report on Monday and is shining a light on how “wrongs were done at individual, collective and systemic levels”.

Tens of thousands of people were infected with contaminated blood products or blood transfusions between the 1970s and early 1990s.

An estimated 3,000 people have died as a result while those who survived have lived with life-long health implications.

The final report of the Infected Blood Inquiry found that children being treated for haemophilia were used as “objects for research”. 

Of the pupils that attended the Lord Mayor Treloar College, a boarding school in Hampshire, in the 1970s and 1980s, “very few escaped being infected” and of the 122 pupils with haemophilia that attended the school between 1970 and 1987, only 30 are still alive.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the exploitation of children at Treloar’s a source of “eternal shame” that is “hard to even comprehend” in a statement to the House of Commons on Monday.

The 2,527-page report, written by inquiry chairman Sir Brian Langstaff, concluded that children at Treloar’s were treated with multiple commercial concentrates that were known to carry higher risks of infection and that staff favoured the “advancement of research” above the best interests of the children.