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ITV follows Post Office drama with contaminated blood scandal series

PA Media Campaigners, including many who are personally infected and affected by infected blood, gather in Westminster, London, calling for compensation for victims to be authorised by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.PA Media
Campaigners gathered outside the Infected Blood inquiry when the prime minister gave evidence in July

ITV is to follow its hit drama about the Post Office scandal with a new series about what it calls the "biggest health scandal" in British history.

Writer Peter Moffat will tell the story behind the contaminated blood scandal.

It is thought that about 30,000 people were infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.

Bafta winner Moffat said victims had been "let down" by the state and his show would let "their voices be heard".

The announcement comes after Mr Bates Vs the Post Office drew in more than 10 million viewers and dominated the headlines last month.

Following an outcry, the government has announced plans for new legislation to quash the convictions of hundreds of people who were wrongly convicted of false accounting, theft and fraud.

ITV The promotional image of all the actors in ITV's drama about the Post Office scandalITV
The four-part series on the Post Office scandal ran nightly on ITV in January

Moffat was working on the contaminated blood scandal series before Mr Bates Vs the Post Office was broadcast, but it has now been "fast-tracked" following that show's "monumental success", Deadline reported.

More than 3,000 people are thought to have died in what has been described by MPs as the worst treatment disaster in NHS history.

The untitled series will focus on the "courage and dignity of victims and their families who have campaigned for truth, justice and accountability against impossible odds", according to ITV.

Moffat, who is behind dramas including Silk, Criminal Justice, North Square and Your Honour, said: "It's been a great privilege to meet those infected and affected and to learn about what they have been through.

"I'm ashamed to say that when I started researching this story I knew next to nothing about it. I'm even more ashamed that this ignorance is shared by nearly everyone I mention it to.

"The victims of this scandal have been let down again and again by the state - I hope in some small way this drama can help their voices be heard."

ITV's head of drama Polly Hill said: "Peter's scripts are brilliant and do justice to this important story, while bringing it to screen with real clarity and compassion."

Des Collins, senior partner of Collins Solicitors, which represents 1,500 victims and their families, welcomed the news.

The series will "expose much of what our clients have endured, not only emotionally and health-wise, but also in terms of shoddy treatment by government, in their decades-long battle for justice during which too many lives have unnecessarily been lost", he said.

A public inquiry into the contaminated blood scandal heard its final evidence last year. Its chairman Sir Brian Langstaff published his final recommendations for a full compensation scheme for those directly affected by the scandal and their relatives.

The government has said it accepts the "moral case" for compensation, and interim payouts of £100,000 each have already been made to about 4,000 victims and some bereaved partners.

However, in December it said it was still not in a position to make a final decision on compensation until it has seen the inquiry's findings in full. The publication of the final report has been delayed until May.