FAMILIES and victims of the NHS contaminated blood scandal have demanded a public inquiry and an end to 'constant contempt'.

Patients at the Oxford Haemophilia Centre at the Churchill Hospital in Headington were among about 7,500 people infected with hepatitis C and HIV from tainted blood products in the 1970s and 1980s, which to date are believed to have led to the deaths of 2,500 British haemophiliacs.

On Wednesday former Labour health secretary Andy Burnham called for a Hillsborough-style public inquiry into the scandal.

Speaking at a Commons debate, he said: "From what I know, this scandal amounts to a criminal cover-up on an industrial scale.

"If the great British public knew the real story here... demands for full and fair compensation simply would not be able to be resisted by the Government."

Louisa Paintin, 42, has been an active member of the Tainted Blood campaign since her father Fred Paintin died in January 2000 at the age of 57.

The company secretary at Hook Norton Brewery attended the Oxford centre for weekly treatment and was infected with hepatitis C in the late 1970s.

Miss Paintin said: "It caused such bad scarring to his liver that he developed liver cancer.

"He was put on the transplant list, went back in again, and the cancer had grown hugely so he was struck off the list. Then he had two weeks to live.

"Our doctor at the time fought to get 'Due to infected blood products' on his death certificate. He said 'One day this will come out and I want that written."

Since then the family have joined the campaign for a full public inquiry into the disaster and full compensation for all victims.

In the Commons Nicola Blackwood, the MP for Oxford West and Abingdon and a junior minister in the Department of Health, resisted calls for a fresh inquiry.

She said: "The government believe that setting up a panel would detract from the work we are doing to support sufferers and their families without providing any benefit."

But Miss Paintin, who lives in Warwickshire, said: "I felt like she was reading off a sheet of paper. There was no emotion, compassion, or even interest.

"Whatever anybody has been given is not compensation because they haven't admitted liability, and money is not going to bring anybody back.

"The people that are still living - and I use that term loosely because they are on all sorts of medication - need dignity, not this constant contempt.

"If they have nothing to be scared of let's get it out in the open. There is a massive call for one and that's why they won't give us one."

In 2014 Witney residents including David Leadbetter, who was infected with hepatitis C in the 1970s, and Janette Johnson, whose son Graham died aged 15 after contracting HIV from treatment in Oxford, campaigned for proper compensation and recognition for victims.

Mrs Johnson, 69, from Woodstock said there should be another public inquiry similar to the one conducted into the Hillsborough disaster.

She said: “Every day I speak to my son’s photo. I want justice. I don’t think the government realises how important this is.

“When Graham died I did get some money but nothing since then. We should get something. It doesn’t bring him back but it would be justice.”

No government, health or pharmaceutical body in the UK has admitted liability for the scandal.

Although the Government has committed £150m for an 'infected blood payment scheme' up until 2020/21, no compensation has ever been paid.

It also emerged on Wednesday that in 1982 the Oxford Haemophilia Centre sent a letter to all haemophilia directors in England.

Raising concerns about testing blood for 'infectivity' on chimpanzees, it stated it would be 'very important' to test products on humans and the most 'clear-cut' way of doing so would be administering them to patients, which Mr Burnham said represented 'negligence of a very serious kind'.

Andrew Evans, chairman of the Tainted Blood campaign, said the letter was not new information but had not been brought before Parliament before.

He said: "We are almost 30 years down the line of campaigning and almost 40 years since the first infections. It has been frustration after frustration."

He said Ms Blackwood had come across 'like a rabbit in the headlights' during the debate, adding: "She was rushing through and just toeing the party line."

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the haemophilia centre, declined to comment.