Four Volumes Missing: Family Challenges IBCA Rejection and Demands Answers

A family seeking infected blood compensation is questioning how it can establish what happened decades ago when the NHS cannot locate four of five volumes of a mother’s hospital notes.

Her son, James Pedder, is challenging IBCA’s rejection of her claim. He wants to understand how the surviving evidence was weighed—and how the substantial gaps in her medical records were taken into account.

Correspondence shared with The Unheard Voice documents both the missing records and important aspects of IBCA’s assessment.

University Hospital Southampton confirmed that four of five volumes of the woman’s notes could not be located.

The trust described unsuccessful searches, including enquiries involving a scanning company. It suggested the records might have been destroyed, but acknowledged that it had no destruction certificate or metadata to verify that explanation.

It also disclosed an incident in which a box of records had been destroyed without first being scanned. The woman’s notes might have been among them.

The distinction matters. The trust confirmed that records were missing. It could not establish precisely what had happened to them.

For James and his family, the consequence is concrete: much of the medical history that might help answer questions about their mother’s infection is unavailable.

According to James, IBCA has acknowledged that his mother received transfusions within the relevant timeframe.

In an email dated 2 July 2026, an IBCA claims manager also acknowledged that nothing in the available medical records suggested an alternative route of infection.

The same email acknowledged that nothing in those records precluded her from having been a long-term non-progressor or long-term slow progressor of HIV, referred to as LTNP and LTSP.

However, the manager considered the evidence insufficient to establish either possibility on the balance of probabilities.

Those statements do not amount to IBCA accepting that a transfusion caused her infection. Nor does the absence of evidence ruling out slow progression establish that it occurred.

But James questions why uncertainty about this particular issue appears to have been decisive.

For him, the central question is whether his mother acquired HIV through infected blood. He wants IBCA to explain how the transfusion history, the absence of an alternative infection route in the available records, the surviving medical evidence and the substantial gaps in that evidence were considered together.

Was the missing material explicitly taken into account? What evidence supported the claim? What weighed against it? And why did uncertainty about long-term progression appear to outweigh the other evidence?

These are questions about how the decision was reached. The family is asking for an explanation of the assessment as a whole.

James also questions a reference to historic viral load results.

He says his mother was not known to be living with HIV during the period concerned and asks what clinical reason there would have been to carry out those tests before her diagnosis. He also says the available evidence identified no other risk factors.

The material available to The Unheard Voice does not establish whether such testing was performed, whether results once existed, or precisely what IBCA sought to establish through them.

That distinction matters. A test that was never performed and a result that cannot now be located are different gaps in evidence.

James wants IBCA to explain what historic results it expected to find, why it expected them to be available, and how their absence affected the decision.

His challenge is specific: did the assessment consider the evidence cumulatively, or did an unresolved question about HIV progression become the determining factor?

An internal case-note extract records the decision-maker moving between considering the claim eligible and ineligible. It also records concern that the case could have implications for future claims involving possible long-term non-progression of HIV.

The extract documents contact with IBCA’s Policy, Quality and Legal teams for input and assistance with correspondence.

Seeking that advice does not itself demonstrate wrongdoing. It does show that the case involved questions extending beyond a straightforward administrative check.

James says he has struggled to obtain an explanation of how the evidence was weighed.

He told The Unheard Voice that he repeatedly asked the claims manager about this, and that when he pursued a complaint he was directed to address the issue through a review.

He says IBCA has now acknowledged the review and that the family is awaiting allocation of a new claims manager.

James has also addressed a historic reference suggesting infection from his mother’s former husband. According to James, this reflected an assumption she made when first diagnosed, before she knew about contaminated blood. He says the issue has since been resolved.

That explanation is the family’s account. It should be distinguished from an independently established finding about the source of infection.

The review remains unresolved, and its outcome is not predetermined.

The concern raised by the documents is nevertheless substantial. A family is trying to establish a historic infection while most of the relevant hospital notes cannot be found.

Missing records cannot tell us what they once contained. Their absence does not automatically establish a claim. But a decision that finds the surviving evidence insufficient needs to explain how that absence was considered.

James and his family are asking how IBCA assessed the combined significance of the surviving evidence, the transfusions he says it has acknowledged, the lack of an alternative route identified in the available records, and the uncertainty created by the missing notes.

A clear explanation should allow them to understand why the evidence as a whole was considered insufficient, including the significance attached to long-term HIV progression and historic test results.

Families deserve an answer they can understand and scrutinise: what was accepted, what was disputed, and why the required threshold was not met.

The Unheard Voice will continue following the family’s review, with their agreement, including their experience with the next claims manager and any further explanation of how the evidence has been assessed.

When the NHS cannot produce the records, the consequences reach far beyond an empty archive shelf. They follow families into the compensation process.

That demands a clear explanation.