Families and estates of deceased beneficiaries

With effect from 1 April 2025, the England Infected Blood Support Scheme (EIBSS) is now closed to new applications for anyone who has historically been infected with hepatitis C, HIV or both, from NHS blood or blood products.

With effect from 1 July 2025, the England Infected Blood Support Scheme is now closed to new applications for Bereaved Partner Payments and Bereaved Lump Sum Payments.

The Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) will be responsible for all future compensation payments. For more information including details on how they will open the service more widely, visit their website.

Applications for interim payments to estates continue to remain open and guidance on how to apply, the eligibility criteria, and the application process is available at: www.gov.uk/infected-blood-compensation-estates.

The scheme provides support to spouses, civil partners and long-term partners of an England Infected Blood Support Scheme (EIBSS) registered beneficiary who has died after joining the scheme. There is also support available for estates and family members.

Spouses, civil partners and long-term partners

Spouses, civil partners and long-term partners of deceased EIBSS beneficiaries could apply for:

discretionary one-off payment towards talking therapy
discretionary one-off payment towards a funeral grant
discretionary one-off payment towards employment training
financial and benefits advice

Estates and family members

Estates and family members of deceased EIBSS beneficiaries could apply for:

discretionary one-off payment towards talking therapy
discretionary one-off payment towards a funeral grant
child payments (if you're the primary carer of a beneficiary's child)

Discretionary one-off payments

Funeral Grant

To claim a funeral grant the deceased beneficiary would need to be registered with EIBSS.

A discretionary payment of up to £4,500 is available for the person arranging the funeral, when an infected beneficiary has passed away.

To request this discretionary payment, complete the funeral grant discretionary one-off payment application form (PDF: 166KB).

Talking therapy

A discretionary one-off payment of up to £900 per year is available towards talking therapy costs.

To apply for the talking therapy discretionary one-off payment, the applicant must be one of the following:

an infected beneficiary registered with EIBSS
a bereaved beneficiary registered with EIBSS
family members of an infected beneficiary registered with EIBSS or previous schemes

To apply for talking therapy you need to download and complete a talking therapy discretionary payment application form (PDF: 318KB).

If you are a family member of an infected beneficiary and have not received a payment from us previously, you will need to complete a contact preferences and personal details form (PDF: 140KB).

Employment Training

A discretionary one-off payment per year is available to help towards employment training costs for bereaved partners.

Discretionary payments received on or after 1 April 2025 will count towards your final compensation package and will be deducted from any future compensation award, excluding talking therapy and NHS Prescription Prepayment Certificate applications.

To apply for this payment, you need to download and complete an employment training discretionary one-off payment application form (PDF: 180KB).

Child payments

These means-tested payments are to help with the costs of bringing up children of an infected beneficiary.

Dependants are children of an infected beneficiary up to the age of 18 years, or up to 21 if in full-time education.

These payments are available to the primary care provider of the child or children.

Infected beneficiaries may qualify for a child supplement by completing a child payments application form, and be assessed as having a household income under £37,900.

Bereaved beneficiaries would need to qualify under the threshold of £28,401.

If you're the primary care provider of a child or children of an infected beneficiary but not a beneficiary yourself, you may still be entitled to apply for support for the child or children for who you're caring for.

Who can apply

To be eligible to apply for a payment for children, the applicant needs to be registered with EIBSS. Everyone registered with EIBSS holds a unique reference number and will be in one of the following groups:

Someone historically infected with HIV or hepatitis C from NHS blood or blood products.
A bereaved spouse, civil or long-term partner who lived with an infected beneficiary.
Primary care providers of an infected beneficiary’s biological child or children.

How to apply

To make a claim, you need to download and complete a child payments application form (PDF: 246KB).

Alternatively, we can post an application form to you. To request this, contact us.

Details of income used for this assessment, and the amount that applicants may be eligible for, can be found in the child payments support leaflet (PDF: 146KB).