Subscribe to Search results

The report which Susan Deacon had requested was delivered to her in draft by departmental officials. They sought to steer her "very firmly in the direction of not agreeing to compensation or special priority treatment for Hep C sufferers who may have been infected by NHS treatment", keeping in step with her English counterparts.

Published on:

Malcolm Chisholm said he would make £20,000 available for those diagnosed with Hepatitis C, with a further £25,000 paid to sufferers who developed conditions such as cirrhosis and cancer of the liver.

Published on:

Following the Secretary of State's agreement to the various component parts of the payment scheme, a Scottish email threw into doubt payment for people who had cleared Hepatitis C following treatment.

Published on:

Generally those who cleared Hepatitis C would statistically be likely to do so within the first six months. There was no opportunity for a person to explain why they considered that they had continued to suffer Hepatitis C infection beyond six months, nor could the Skipton Fund examine their evidence on the point. This was a function of the design of the Fund, and the way in which the Department of Health set out to operate it

Published on:

The note of an advisory group meeting on hepatitis recorded that "the experts were asked for their initial thoughts on the medical trigger for the second (higher) payment. It was felt that this should be a recognised stage of the disease, rather than subjective symptoms of illness."

Published on:

Guidance on assessing applications for the £20,000 payment from the Skipton Fund did not include first-hand evidence of the applicant in their definition of evidence, so this could not be used to support an application. There was no opportunity for an applicant who could be considered a natural clearer to explain why they considered that their Hepatitis C infection caused suffering beyond 6 months, and the Fund could not examine evidence on this point.

Published on:

The Fund worked with Professor Thomas to create a model of determining whether a person infected with Hepatitis C had reached stage 2 before dying, as their estate would be entitled to payments. This model estimated the likely speed of progression from infection to cirrhosis, differentiating those also coinfected with HIV.

Published on:

Dr Hewitt wrote to Nicholas Fish about Hepatitis C and intramuscular gamma-globulin and the fact that the transmission of the virus had not been documented with its use, despite more than half of preparations containing detectable HCV RNA. However, the intravenous intramuscular immunoglobulin had caused patients to develop non-A non-B Hepatitis, whereas the intramuscular immunoglobulin had not.

Published on:

Dr Hewitt wrote to Keith Foster stating that anti-D immunoglobulin produced in the UK had an "unparalleled safety record with regard to transmission of viruses", but there had been known cases of transmission episodes from anti-D produced outside of the UK including the Irish Transfusion board in the 1970s and early 1980s. These were a different method of manufacture and were intravenous preparations.

Published on:

Dr Mary Ramsay of the Health Protection Agency Centre for Infections was asked for advice by Nicholas Fish, acting as secretary to the appeals panel, on the extent to which science and statistics showed that injecting drug use for less than two years was likely to be a cause of an Hepatitis C infection, where the sufferer also had a history of blood transfusion and reported on in March 2007.

Published on:

The Skipton Appeals Panel would not hear from affected individuals personally.

Published on:

To qualify for Skipton Fund payments a person had to have been alive from 1 April 2016 and not be eligible for a Stage 2 payment. Scotland also provided for a Stage 2 payment of £50,000 to be made to a person coinfected with HIV if they had not already received a Stage 2 payment. England and Wales provided a bereavement payment of £10,000 if a contributory factor to the person's death was Hepatitis C (or HIV if coinfected).

Published on:

The definition of when a Stage 2 payment should be given was amended to include the infected person developing B-cell non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma where that had arisen after the person contracted Hepatitis C.

Published on:

The Scottish Haemophilia Forum argued in March 2005 that: "The Skipton Fund arose only as the result of the campaigning in Scotland by the Scottish Haemophilia Forum, the Motion supported by 80 MSPs from all parties, the unanimous support of the 1999-2003 Health Committee of the Scottish Parliament and the decision of the then Health Minister Malcolm Chisholm."

Published on:

Dr Reid was advised by the civil servant who had principal responsibility at the time for blood and blood policy, Richard Gutowski, that financial assistance for people infected with Hepatitis C through blood or blood products was not justified,

Published on:

Fibrosis is a state of scarring and scarring is not flexible. A cirrhosed liver is stiff, whereas a normal liver is pliable and soft. When fibroscans became available, which measured the degree of stiffness in a liver, they were therefore also useful diagnostically. A fibroscan produced a numerical value.

Published on:

A consequence of the court's ruling in "A and Others v National Blood Authority" was that the Scottish Executive began "considering constructively the implications" of it.

Published on:

The Scottish Executive instructed NHS Scotland to enter into discussions in Scotland with Scottish litigants who had been in the same position as those in England and Wales, with a view to settling their actions under the Consumer Protection Act.

Published on:

Susan Deacon was informed that the BBC were planning to run a story on claims for compensation from haemophiliacs who had contracted Hepatitis C as a result of receiving infected blood clotting agents from the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service in the late 1980s / early 1990s.

Published on:

Nicholas Fish began working for the Skipton Fund in November 2004 as a temp. He was the assistant to the then administrator, helping to write letters, gather evidence, answer emails and carry out general administrative duties.

Published on: