Request

‘Question 1: How much money has so far been allocated to those affected by a Covid vaccination via the Vaccine Damages Payment Scheme?

Question 2: How many individuals have made an application to the Vaccine Damages Payment Scheme having been affected by Guillain-Barre syndrome following a coronavirus vaccination?

Question 3: How many applications to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme following a coronavirus vaccination have successfully resulted in a pay-out in total?

Question 4: How many applicants who applied to the Vaccine Damages Payment Scheme on the basis of a Guillain-Barre syndrome diagnosis following a coronavirus vaccination have been successful in their applications and received a payment? (Please also include the number of such applications which remain outstanding and the number of applications which have been rejected)

Question 5: How many applicants to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme who applied on the basis of a diagnosis of Guillain-Barre syndrome following a coronavirus vaccination were declined on the basis of not meeting the 60% 'severe disability' threshold?

Question 6: How many applicants to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme who applied on the basis of a diagnosis of Guillain-Barre syndrome following a coronavirus vaccination were declined on the basis that a full or partial recovery was considered to be likely?

Question 7: How many individuals made applications to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme in Angus, Scotland and how many of these applications were successful, are still outstanding or were unsuccessful?

Question 8: How many applications in Angus Scotland to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme were made on the basis of a diagnosis of Guillain-Barre syndrome following a coronavirus vaccination? (Please also include how many of these applications were successful, unsuccessful and remain outstanding)’

[On 15 March 2024 you clarified your request as follows]

‘With regard to question 1 I can confirm that my query relates to the total value of Vaccine Damage Payments awarded to COVID-19 claimants rather than the total costs associated with administering the VDPS scheme.’

[On 9 April 2024 your clarified your request as follows]

‘I can confirm that question 7 relates to the claims to the Vaccine Damage Payment which relate to a COVID-19 vaccination.

I can confirm that in question 7 & 8 by 'Angus' I intended to refer to the UK Parliamentary constituency of Angus if this information is available. If this information is not available in relation to the Angus UK Parliamentary Constituency, then it would be greatly appreciated if the Angus Council local authority area could be considered for these responses instead.’

Response

All data as of 15 March 2024.

All data relates to claims received by the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) and those transferred from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) on 1 November 2021.

All figures provided relate to COVID-19 vaccines. 

Fewer than five Please be aware that I have decided not to release the full details where the total number of individuals falls below five. This is because the individuals could be identified, when combined with other information that may be in the public domain or reasonably available. This information falls under the exemption in section 40 subsections 2 and 3 (a) of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). This is because it would breach the first data protection principle as:   a - it is not fair to disclose individual’s personal details to the world and is likely to cause damage or distress.
b - these details are not of sufficient interest to the public to warrant an intrusion into the privacy of the individual.
Please click the below web link to see the exemption in full.    www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/40

Breach of Patient confidentiality

Please note that the identification of individuals is also a breach of the common law duty of confidence. An individual who has been identified could make a claim against the NHSBSA for the disclosure of the confidential information.

The information requested is therefore being withheld as it falls under the exemption in section 41(1) ‘Information provided in confidence’ of the Freedom of Information Act.

Please click the below web link to see the exemption in full.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/41   Question 1 The Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) is not a compensation scheme. It provides a one-off tax-free payment, currently £120,000, to successful applicants where, on very rare occasions, a vaccine has caused severe disablement.
The total amount of money awarded to claimants is £20,040,000.00.

Question 2 The claimant can tell us what happened after vaccination on the claim form. At the medical assessment stage, the independent medical assessor provides a description of the assessed conditions they have been able to identify from the claimant's medical records. This can sometimes be a mixture of conditions. The condition recorded against each claim may therefore be different to the condition initially stated by the claimant on their original claim form. All data provided relates to the conditions listed by the independent medical assessor in the assessment report. 183 Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) claims have been received by the VDPS.

Question 3 167 claimants have been notified they are entitled to a Vaccine Damage Payment.

Question 4 The claimant can tell us what happened after vaccination on the claim form. At the medical assessment stage, the independent medical assessor provides a description of the assessed conditions they have been able to identify from the claimant's medical records. This can sometimes be a mixture of conditions. The condition recorded against each claim may therefore be different to the condition initially stated by the claimant on their original claim form. All data provided relates to the conditions listed by the independent medical assessor in the assessment report. Therefore, the total number of GBS claims awaiting independent medical assessment is unknown. 51 GBS claims have been awarded a Vaccine Damage Payment. 132 GBS claims have been rejected.

Question 5 64 GBS claims were unsuccessful because, although the claims met the criteria for causation, the independent medical assessor recommended that the vaccine has not caused severe disablement. Under the VDPS, severe disablement means at least 60% disabled, based on Schedule 2 of The Social Security (General Benefit) Regulations 1982.

Question 6 In order to determine if this information is held, we would need to manually review the independent medical assessments for all 64 GBS claims. Using a conservative estimate of 20 minutes per claim we estimate that to review all 64 claims, it would take approx. 19.2 hours to determine if we hold the information and to then provide a figure. Therefore, I estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the non-central Government limit of £450. The limit has been specified in The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 and represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether the NHSBSA holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information. Under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, the NHSBSA is not obliged to comply with your request, and I will not be processing your request further as it currently stands.

Question 7 10 individuals within the Parliamentary Constituency of Angus made an application for a Vaccine Damage Payment. We have decided not to disclose the number of claims within each status. This is because disclosure of the figures within this response, may lead to the re-identification of individuals. Therefore, we have withheld this information under section 40 of the FOIA.

Question 8 Based on the independent medical assessor’s description of the assessed conditions they have been able to identify from the claimant's medical records, fewer than five GBS claims made from the Parliamentary Constituency of Angus have been received by the VDPS. Therefore, as detailed above in accordance with section 40 (2) and section 41 of FOIA we are unable to provide figures for successful and unsuccessful claims. The claimant can tell us what happened after vaccination on the claim form. At the medical assessment stage, the independent medical assessor provides a description of the assessed conditions they have been able to identify from the claimant's medical records. This can sometimes be a mixture of conditions. The condition recorded against each claim may therefore be different to the condition initially stated by the claimant on their original claim form. All data provided relates to the conditions listed by the independent medical assessor in the assessment report. Therefore, the total number of GBS claims made from the Parliamentary Constituency of Angus awaiting independent medical assessment is unknown.