The Infected Blood Inquiry’s hearings will resume in September, with medical staff to give evidence over five months.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic it was forced to cancel hearings in June and July which would have seen clinicians – including from the Royal Free Hospital– answer questions about the scandal which saw thousands given contaminated blood products containing deadly viruses such as HIV and hepatitis C.

The public inquiry opened in September 2018. Hearings will resume from September 22.

READ MORE: Contaminated Blood Scandal campaigners demand progress on compensation: ‘The government can move quickly when it wants to’READ MORE: Lawyer critical of speed of Infected Blood Inquiry Sir Brian Langstaff, who leads the inquiry, said the first hearings would see evidence from clinicians who had worked in haemophilia units in the 1970s and 1980s.

Thousands of people died or were made seriously ill after contracting viruses from blood products or transfusions they were given by doctors in the course of medical care. The inquiry is seeking to establish how this happened.