The parents and children of victims of the infected blood scandal will have to wait until at least next year to find out whether they will receive compensation, a cabinet minister said on Wednesday.
Thousands of patients contracted HIV and hepatitis through contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s in what has been branded the worst disaster in the history of the NHS.
After decades of campaigning by victims and their families, the Government on Wednesday announced that about 4,000 people who became infected, and bereaved partners, will receive a £100,000 interim compensation payment by the end of October.
But campaigners said the announcement fails to recognise the majority of family members affected by the scandal, including the children and parents of victims.
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Kit Malthouse today hinted that further payments would be made, but only when the Infected Blood Inquiry is complete.
The inquiry chairman Sir Brian Langstaff is expected to complete the review into the fiasco next year.
"The eligibility and the scope of where this terrible scandal impacted and what should then happen is exactly what Sir Brian is looking at in his inquiry," Mr Malthouse told Sky News.
"It would be wrong of me to prejudge that."
He added: "We have to wait for the inquiry to conclude. The infected and bereaved partners will get this money quite quickly over the next few weeks. Then we will be able to consider once the inquiry is concluded, the more complicated questions about wider eligibility and what, if any compensation should be payable."
Nearly 30,000 people, who mainly suffered from haemophilia, were infected with HIV and hepatitis through the tainted blood thickening treatments. An estimated 2,400 people have died as a result.
Lawyers for the victims said it is "frustrating" that the families impacted by the scandal will have to wait for compensation.
In a statement they said: "They have already waited decades and any argument that we need more evidence of the fact the Government must be held to account is now untenable."
Sue Threakall, whose husband Bob died in 1991 after being treated by contaminated blood product Factor VIII is eligible for the first wave of compensation, but she said: "This is not just about money - it's about recognition of people whose lives have been destroyed, young adults have grown up their whole life without their parents and they have not been recognised, and parents whose young children died in their arms.
"We've always said there will always be families out there who don't know what they are eligible to claim. Their lives could have been so much better supported."
