Request

On the 10 June 2024, you asked us:

Could you tell me how many people have applied for compensation under the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) please?

Can you tell me how many claims have been successful/pending/rejected?

And could you send me a breakdown in figures for the types of illnesses/deaths that are being claimed for?

On 11June 2024 you clarified your request as follows:

I am specifically looking for data on the Covid vaccines, so just figures relating to those please.

And the date range would start at the vaccine rollout so let’s say a start date of January 2021

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 11 June 2024 as this is when we received your clarification.

We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000.

Our response

I can confirm that the NHSBSA holds some of the information you have requested. 

All data is as of 19 June 2024. All data relates to claims received by the NHSBSA and those transferred from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) on 1 November 2021.

All figures provided for questions 1 to 3 relate to COVID-19 vaccines.

Section 40(2) Freedom of Information Act

Whilst this some of the requested information is held by the NHSBSA, we have exempted some of the figures under section 40(2) subsections 2 and 3(a) of the FOIA because it is personal data of applicants to the VDPS. 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.  

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/40

Information Commissioner Office (ICO) Guidance is that information is personal data if it ‘relates to’ an ‘identifiable individual’ regulated by the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) or the Data Protection Act 2018. The information relates to personal data of the VDPS claimants and is special category data in the form of health information. As a result, the claimants could be identified, when combined with other information that may be in the public domain or reasonably available. Online communities exist for those adversely affected by vaccines they have received. This further increases the likelihood that those may be identified by disclosure of this information.

Section 40(2) is an absolute, prejudice-based exemption and therefore is exempt if disclosure would contravene any of the data protection principles. To comply with the lawfulness, fairness, and transparency data protection principle, we either need the consent of the data subject(s) or there must be a legitimate interest in disclosure. In addition, the disclosure must be necessary to meet the legitimate interest and finally, the disclosure must not cause unwarranted harm. The NHSBSA has considered this and does not have the consent of the data subjects to release this information and believes that it would not be possible to obtain consent that meets the threshold in Article 7 of the UK GDPR.

The NHSBSA acknowledges that you have a legitimate interest in disclosure of the information to provide the full picture of data held by the NHSBSA; however, we have concluded that disclosure of the requested information would cause unwarranted harm and therefore, section 40(2) is engaged. This is because there is a reasonable expectation that patient data processed by the NHSBSA remains confidential, especially special category data. There are no reasonable alternative measures that could meet the legitimate aim. As the information is highly confidential and sensitive, it outweighs the legitimate interest in the information.

Section 41 FOIA

This information is also exempt under section 41 of the FOIA (information provided in confidence). This is because the requested information was provided to the NHSBSA in confidence by a third party - another individual, company, public authority or any other type of legal entity. In this instance, details have been provided by the claimants.

For Section 41 to be engaged, the following criteria must be fulfilled:

• the authority must have obtained the information from another person,

• its disclosure must constitute a breach of confidence,

• a legal person must be able to bring an action for the breach of confidence to court, and

• that court action must be likely to succeed.

The NHSBSA can confirm that the information has been obtained from a third party and that subsequent disclosure of that information would constitute a breach of confidence. In addition, disclosure could result in a legal person being able to bring action for the breach of confidence to a court and that court action.

Question 1

You asked: Could you tell me how many people have applied for compensation under the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) please?

13,804 claims have been received by the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS). The VDPS is not a compensation scheme, meaning a claimant could still seek damages in court.

Question 2

You asked: Can you tell me how many claims have been successful/pending/rejected?

Please note, following disclosure of FOI-01924 (see the below web link) whereby the figure disclosed for awarded claims was 175, we are unable to provide the exact number of claims that fall into each category requested. This is because the change in number for awarded claims has increased by fewer than five and could result in claimants being identified. Provision of the exact figures of the other requested statuses allows a calculation of the amount awarded and therefore we have therefore decided not to disclose the exact amount for each status under section 40(2) and section 41 of the FOIA. Details of these exemptions are outlined above.

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01924

Question 3

You asked: And could you send me a breakdown in figures for the types of illnesses/deaths that are being claimed for?

During the application process the claimant can tell us what happened after vaccination in part 7 of the application form. This is a free text narrative from the claimant and may not specifically name a condition or illness. This information is recorded within the Claims Management System and provided to the independent medical assessor alongside the full medical records once received from the appropriate healthcare providers. The NHSBSA does not perform any analysis on this free text information to categorise the information into a types of illnesses and as such the NHSBSA does not centrally record the information you have requested about the types of illnesses claimed. Performing this analysis would require interpretation from a medical professional and would be creating new information which the FOIA does not oblige an authority to do.

In addition, I estimate that performing this analysis would exceed the non-central Government limit of £450. The estimate is as follows:

As of 19 June, NHSBSA had received 13,804 claims. In order to understand what types of illnesses/deaths have been claimed, it would take an average of 5 minutes to review each claim, based upon a sampling exercise. This activity would take 1,150 hours to conduct (5x13,804, divided by 60).

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 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244/contents/made 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. 

Under section 16 of the FOIA public authorities such as the NHSBSA are required to provide advice and assistance while processing requests. The below may be of interest to you.

Assessed conditions

The NHSBSA holds information on the conditions listed by the independent medical assessor in the assessment report. This is because 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.

Please note that due to the numbers identified for some of these assessed conditions being fewer than 5, we unable to provide a breakdown of the figures or whether this was an illness or death. We have therefore decided not to disclose the exact number for each status under section 40(2) and section 41 of the FOIA. Details of these exemptions are outlined above.

The recorded assessed conditions for awarded claims are:

Anaphylaxis

Bell’s Palsy

Capillary leak syndrome

Excessive swelling of the vaccinated limb

Guillain-Barre Syndrome

Immune thrombocytopenia

Myocardial Infarction

Myocarditis/pericarditis

Pulmonary Embolus

Stroke/ CVA

Transverse myelitis

VITT/Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis

Other

Data Queries

If you have any queries regarding the data provided, or if you plan on publishing, the data please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

Reusing the data and copyright

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and is subject to NHSBSA copyright.

Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following statement:

“NHSBSA Copyright 2024” This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the licence.

Information you receive which is not subject to NHSBSA Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. Please obtain their permission before reproducing any third party (non NHSBSA Copyright) information.