Watch: Rishi Sunak makes statement on infected blood scandal after damning report released

Prime minister Rishi Sunak made a statement in Parliament after the findings of a report on the infected blood scandal were revealed on Monday, 20 March.

Mr Sunak has called the findings of the inquiry a “day of national shame”, as he pledged to give victims compensation and apologised to them on behalf of successive governments.

The Government and the NHS were found to be complicit in a decades-long cover-up of actions which led to the infection of tens of thousands of people and the deaths of around 3,000, the inquiry found.

The chair of the investigation, Sir Brian Langstaff, called for the victims to be compensated.

The scandal affected more than 30,000 people in the UK who were infected with HIV and hepatitis during the 1970s and 1980s due to being given treatment with contaminated blood products, most of which “could and should have been avoided”, the report concluded.