A VICTIM of a contaminated blood scandal has criticised the findings of a long-awaited inquiry, describing the report as a "whitewash".

Thousands of NHS patients were infected with hepatitis C and HIV in the 1970s and 1980s after receiving blood that was not tested properly.

David Fielding and his brother Brian, from Farnworth, were being treated for haemophilia when they both became infected with Hepatitis C and HIV respectively. Brian died in 1990 after contracting Aids.

David's condition was diagnosed in 1998 when he was told he had just six months to live unless he received a liver transplant.

After a six-year inquiry costing millions of pounds, Lord Penrose concluded that more should have been done to screen blood and donors for hepatitis C in the early 1990s and that the collection of blood from prisoners should have stopped earlier.

Regarding HIV infections, the inquiry found that once the risk had emerged, ''all that could reasonably be done was done''.

Mr Fielding said: "I'm absolutely devastated. So much was depending on this, for my life and my future. I was so hoping that there would be an announcement about compensation for the victims.

"A wrong has been done here. I don't know what I can say about this other than what people were shouting in the hall. It's a total whitewash."

Lord Penrose recommended that every patient who had a blood transfusion before September 1991 be offered a test for the virus, if they have not already been tested.

In a display of their anger some campaigners at the conference, held outside the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, burned a copy of the report.

Glenn Wilkinson, from the Contaminated Blood Campaign, said: "I feel totally devastated. We didn't expect the world, we didn't expect this to be the final solution for this campaign but we certainly expected a lot more than that.

"It has created a new level of disappointment. I don't think we've had a single answer from what was said in there."

Prime Minister David Cameron said: "It is difficult to imagine the feelings of unfairness that people must feel at being infected with hepatitis C and HIV as a result of a totally unrelated treatment within the NHS."

He apologised to "each and every one" of the affected and announced £25 million of funding to improve financial support for the victims.