Parents who lost children and children who lost parents because of the infected blood scandal should get compensation to acknowledge their loss, the Infected Blood Inquiry chairman Sir Brian Langstaff said today. Last October partners of victims, and survivors, received compensation payments of £100,000.

The scandal affected tens of thousands of NHS patients unknowingly given contaminated blood products between the 1970s and 1991.

Around 2,400 people infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s died.

Sir Brian Langstaff's second interim report recommended the government should make further interim compensation payments to those affected by the scandal.

He said: "It is a fact that around 380 children with bleeding disorders were infected with HIV. Some of them died in childhood. But their parents have never received compensation.

"Children who were orphaned as a result of infections transmitted by blood transfusions and blood products have never had their losses recognised. It is time to put this right."

There will be one interim payment per victim.

It is recommended that where someone infected died as an adult without a partner or child, the interim payment should be made to their bereaved parents.

But if there is a bereaved child, the payment should be made to the child.

Where someone infected died and there is no bereaved partner, child or parent, the payment should be made to the victim’s sibling.