A major report into the infected blood scandal has been delayed until next year.
Thousands of patients were infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.
An independent inquiry was due to publish its final report this autumn but the document will now be published in March 2024, the Inquiry team said.
Sir Brian Langstaff, chairman of the Infected Blood Inquiry said: “When we completed the last hearings, the question I was most asked was when we would publish. I said it would be late autumn.
“I have been obliged to recognise that the sheer volume and scale of the material that needs to be explained, the weight of criticisms made of individuals and organisations, and the way we are legally required to deal with them, mean that this is simply not realistic.
“I wanted, and I know that inquiry participants wanted, it to be earlier, but I must now say that we expect to publish in March. It would be misleading not to tell you that now, when we are clear that we cannot make this autumn, however hard we try.”
In 2017, then-prime minister Theresa May ordered the public inquiry into what she called an “appalling tragedy which should simply never have happened”.
An estimated 2,400 patients died after being infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.
Thousands of adults and approximately 380 children received infected blood products or transfusions during treatment by the NHS, the inquiry has heard.
Most of those involved had the blood-clotting disorder haemophilia and were given injections of the US product Factor VIII.