Standard of Proof and Automatic Eligibility
Infected Blood Inquiry · Second Interim Report · Issued 5 April 2023 · Addressed to: UK Government
Government responseUK Government: Accepted (May 2025)
DeliveryNo statement from UK Government found
Recommendation, verbatim from the inquiry
●Inquiry recommendation
As above, save that (a) the last bullet point should read: "eligibility is accepted if the information available points towards eligibility and the opposite cannot be shown to be more likely" and (b) eligibility should be automatic for individuals already accepted under an existing support scheme.
Infected Blood Inquiry, Second Interim Report · 5 Apr 2023 Source PDF →
Published evidence summary
AI-generated evidence summary
The UK Government stated in May 2025 that people registered on current or predecessor support schemes will be automatically eligible for compensation, although they may need to provide further evidence to assess award amounts (Cabinet Office response, May 2025). It added that unregistered applicants must provide evidence of infection and causative treatment to establish eligibility while avoiding an adversarial burden of proof (Cabinet Office response, May 2025). The record holds no update since the UK Government's response of May 2025 (Cabinet Office response, May 2025).
Sources
AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026.
Government response
●UK Government · Accepted · 14 May 2025
The Government acknowledges the further distress and trauma that can be caused to those applying for compensation, and so the Scheme has been designed to minimise the burden on applicants whilst protecting against fraud. People registered on a current UK infected blood support scheme or predecessor Alliance House organisation scheme will automatically be eligible for compensation. However, they may need to provide further evidence to enable assessment of the compensation award amount. People not registered with a current or former support scheme who acquired infections within the time period where evidence from the IBI suggests contamination to be likely, will be asked to provide evidence to establish infection cause (i.e. evidence of infection and relevant causative treatment). This follows recommendation 3 of the Second Interim Report, which aims to avoid adversarial concepts of the burden of proof on applicants.
Extract from: Full Government Response to the Infected Blood Inquiry's May 2024 Report
Delivery
No statement on delivery from UK Government has been found in the sources searched. This is separate from the response above.
How this page is built
The recommendation and the government responses are verbatim from primary documents. Delivery statements and other bodies' findings are shown in their own words, each with its source. The summary is written by this site and labelled as such. The Index does not paraphrase sources or characterise intent; it records what has been published.