A UK-wide public inquiry examining the scandal of contaminated blood products is to hear evidence from Scottish Government witnesses.
Mairi Gougeon, Minister for Public Health and Martin Bell, director of Primary Care at NHS National Services Scotland, will appear remotely at a hearing on May 18.
They will answer questions on the Scottish Infected Blood Support Scheme (SIBSS) which was set up in 2017 to provide help for those infected with hepatitis C, HIV or both, as a result of NHS treatment.
Later in the month the inquiry will also hear from UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock, Northern Irish Health Minister Robin Swann and Welsh Health Minister Vaughan Gething on current support schemes elsewhere in the UK.
The Infected Blood Inquiry, which began in September 2018, is examining how as many as 30,000 people across the UK – including around 3000 in Scotland – were infected with HIV and hepatitis through contaminated blood products imported from the US in the 1970s and 1980s. Thousands have since died.
Chaired by Sir Brian Langstaff, it is also looking at the impact on their families, how authorities, including government, responded and whether there was a cover-up.
In March an increase in annual payments to victims of the blood scandal and a £10,000 lump sum bereavement payment for the families of those who have died was announced for Scotland.
Campaigners have battled for decades to find answers over what has been described as the biggest treatment disaster in the history of the NHS. Many of those infected were haemophiliacs, while others had received blood transfusions.
The six-year Penrose Inquiry held in Scotland into the disaster, which concluded in 2015 and cost £12 million, was labelled a “whitewash” by victims.
Last year survivors in Scotland gave evidence to the UK inquiry about a “coalition of secrecy” surrounding the blood scandal.
One man said medics had known he had hepatitis C nine years before he was told.
The inquiry has also heard evidence from Scots medics, including Professor Christopher Ludlam, consultant haematologist and reference centre director at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh from 1980 to 2011.
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