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Dr Boulton's view at the time of providing his statement to the Inquiry was that the UK Blood Transfusion Service should have introduced HCV screening in 1990 and this should have been fully funded.

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Funding did not appear to have presented a challenge to the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service in relation to starting the anti-HCV screening tests.

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The view of David McIntosh of the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service in his evidence to this Inquiry was that: "misplaced desire for Anglo-Scottish solidarity was the clear cause of the unnecessary delays in the universal implementation of HCV testing in Scotland."

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In his written evidence to the Inquiry, Professor Allain stated that the start of anti-HCV screening should have been on 1 August 1991 to ensure that labile blood products were already tested at the official starting date.

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Dr Rejman commented in his written statement that his understanding was that national implementation of Hepatitis C screening should be coordinated to avoid possible medico-legal complications in the future, which was a common view.

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Dr Gunson and others were working on a journal article reporting on the pilot study.

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Dr Perry identified a number of shortcomings in the decision-making process with regard to the introduction of routine testing.

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In his written statement to the Inquiry, Dr Lloyd stated that had he seen the ACVSB meeting notes of 21 November 1990, he might have considered starting testing at Newcastle RTC earlier than they did.

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Dr Lloyd described the "extended test" as a "face saving exercise".

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Dr Lloyd's evidence to the Inquiry was that running a trial on the more effective second-generation tests instead of starting general screening was illogical.

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In his written statement to the Inquiry, Dr Lloyd commented that the RIBA II assay "appeared to substantially remove the issue of lack of specificity. Once the RIBA II test was available, the lack of specificity with the first-generation test would have been much more manageable".

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Dr Gunson noted that Chiron had announced that it was working on a recombinant immunoblot assay confirmatory test, but that it was not yet available.

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Dr Barbara's written evidence to this Inquiry was that the second-round comparative evaluation of test kits needed to be completed and to gain more experience in confirmatory assays before reliable and more accurate and specific testing could begin with workable methods for determining the infection status of the donor.

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The Chief Medical Officer endorsed the recommendation that routine screening should be introduced as a public health measure.

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A draft circular on changes to blood handling charges circulated to recipients in the Department of Health stated: "Ministers have agreed that screening for HCV should be introduced as a public health measure. A starting date of 1 July has been set".

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Dr Harrison was supportive of the coordinated national start date.

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Dr Gunson wrote to Graham Hart, then director of operations of the NHS Management Board in the Department of Health, outlining the development of the Chiron/Ortho test.

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Following a meeting of ACVSB, Dr Metters wrote to Dr Rejman, outlining that it would be far more difficult to demonstrate the practical benefits from the introduction of the Chiron test.

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Dr Metters wrote to Mike Malone-Lee outlining prior warning of the likely cost if the ACVSB were to recommend introducing Hepatitis C screening for all blood donations.

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According to John Canavan, the suggestion that assessment of the relative merits of the two tests could have been undertaken concurrently with the implementation of the screening would have raised significant operational considerations for the RTCs in terms of staffing, equipment and donor counselling arrangements.

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