The 130-page Infected Blood Inquiry Report has recently been published. Co-authored by Professor Julian Savulescu, the report discusses the ethical principles that should govern and inform clinical decision-making and was commissioned primarily to inform the Inquiry’s questioning of clinicians in future hearings.
The report is based on letters of instruction given to the Group by the Inquiry which had input from core participants. Many of the questions and responses relate to general medical ethics and are not necessarily specific to issues of infected blood and blood products, hepatitis, HIV or blood and bleeding disorders.
The Inquiry Chair, Sir Brian Langstaff, appointed experts across a range of specialisms last year, as leaders in their various fields, to provide independent expertise to the Inquiry in a way that is clear and transparent. The experts were asked to explain in their reports what is now known and considered as best practice and how that has come about, and not to give an opinion on what a clinician at a previous time either knew or did, or ought to have known and done. It is for the Inquiry Chair to determine what happened and why with infected blood and blood products, and the expert reports help to inform the Inquiry’s work.
The report can be read here.
