Sir Brian Langstaff: Infected Blood disaster was no accident

Says Sir Brian. Just to start off with, can you tell us what the main findings of your inquiry are? Well, let me put it into context. What I've been looking at are people from families across the UK who've gone into hospital for treatment and over 30,000 have come out with infections which were life shattering. And 33,000 of those have died. And deaths keep on happening week by week. What I've found is that disaster was no accident. People put their trust. In doctors and the government to keep them safe. And that trust was betrayed. And then the government compounded the agony by telling them that nothing wrong had been done, that they'd had the best available treatment, and that as soon as tests were available, they were introduced and both of the statements were untrue. That's why what I'm recommending is that compensation must be paid now and I've made various other recommendations to help to make the future of the NHS better and treatment safer. It's obviously hard to imagine that something like this has been allowed to happen. Can you just give us a sense of the scale of the devastation that has caused to families across the UK? Well, I think the the scale speaks for itself if you have over 30,000 people who go into hospital. And come out with infections which were life shattering. That in itself is huge and the suffering for them and for others is huge. When you add to that the fact that over 3000 have died. And that deaths keep on happening week after week. You not only have a disaster which happened over years, but it's still happening. What that brings with it is suffering, which is very difficult to put into words. You really have to listen to people who've lived it to hear and to understand. And last question, looking ahead, you stated something about people in leadership taking personal accountability. What does that accountability look like? Well, it looks like taking some responsibility for what those they lead are doing and saying. And by imposing a duty to take that seriously, a duty which makes the leaders accountable, that's how you get change. In organizations.