Rishi Sunak Issues "Unequivocal" Apology To Infected Blood Victims After Devastating Inquiry Concludes

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has issued an "unequivocal" apology to infected blood victims after the damning findings of a major multi-year inquiry were published on Monday.

The Infected Blood Inquiry was set up under former prime minister Theresa May in 2017 after more than 30,000 patients were injected with blood and blood products contaminated with HIV and Hepatitis C during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.  A large amount of blood clotting agents from infected commercial donors were imported from the US. More than 3,000 people have died. 

With a sombre statement to the House of Commons on Monday, the Prime Minister apologised on behalf of the British state for the "institutional refusal to face up to these failings, and worse, to deny, and even attempt to cover them up".

"This is a day of shame for the British state. Today's report shows a decade's long moral failure at the heart of our national life," he said

"From the National Health Service to the civil service to ministers in successive governments, at every level, the people and institutions in which we place our trust failed in the most harrowing and devastating way.

"They failed the victims and their families, and they failed this country."

A 2,527-page report by inquiry chair Sir Brian Langstaff published on Monday stated that there were "systematic" collective and individual failures at the heart of the crisis. The author found that the scandal could "largely, though not entirely, have been avoided". It made a list of several recommendations which included compensation, a suitable national memorial, as well as a memorial to the Treloar school victims. 

"I want to make a wholehearted and unequivocal apology for this terrible injustice. First, to apologise for the failure