I am writing to confirm that I have now completed my search for the information which you requested.

Request

‘And the details of my assessor please’

I am in receipt of your email to the Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme dated 5 November 2024. Your request for information is being handled under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000 and has been passed to the NHSBSA Information Governance Team for a reply.

Our response

Names and GMC numbers

I can confirm that we do hold information relating to medical assessors. However, we consider the name and General Medical Council (GMC) number to be personal data under section 3(2) of the Data Protection Act 2018. Disclosure of the medical assessor’s name or GMC number would result in the identification of the medical assessor when entered into the GMC public register.

Please be aware that I have decided not to release the names and GMC numbers of the medical assessors as this information falls under the exemption in section 40 subsections 2 and 3(A)(a) of the FOIA.

As the requested information would allow a medical assessor to be identified, I consider this information is exempt. This is because it would breach the first data protection principle as:

it is not fair to disclose medical assessors’ personal details to the world and is likely to cause damage or distress.

these details are not of sufficient interest to the public to warrant an intrusion into the privacy of the medical assessor.

The requested information is exempt if disclosure would contravene any of the data protection principles. For disclosure to comply with the lawfulness, fairness, and transparency 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.

This means that the NHSBSA is therefore required to conduct a balancing exercise between the legitimate interest of the applicant in disclosure against the rights and freedoms of the medical assessor.

While I acknowledge that you have a legitimate interest in disclosure of the information, the disclosure of the requested information would cause unwarranted harm. Disclosure under FOIA is to the world and therefore the NHSBSA has to consider the overall impact of the disclosure and its duty of care. The expectation of the medical assessors is that they will remain anonymous and will therefore not be subject to contact or pressure from claimants or campaigning groups.

Given the certainty that the name and/or GMC number will identify the medical assessor there is a reasonable expectation that this information will not be disclosed under the FOIA. Disclosing this information would be unfair and as such this would breach the UK General Data Protection Regulation first data protection principle.

Please see the following link to view the section 40 exemption in full:

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

Qualifications and experience

I have established that the NHSBSA does not hold this information. This is because the medical qualifications and experience of the medical assessors are the responsibility of the third-party medical assessment supplier, Crawford and Company.

I hope, however, that the following information provides reassurance on this point:

All claims are assessed by the independent medical assessment company with a consistent approach. Each case is considered on its own merits, by an experienced independent medical assessor.

The contract with our supplier does not require them to tell us details of the qualifications of the medical assessors or their experience. The contract does require that all assessments carried out are undertaken by suitably qualified and experienced registered medical practitioner. This includes being registered on the UK GMC register with a licence to practise. In addition, they must meet or exceed the following requirements. Medical assessors must:

be a registered medical practitioner with at least five years’ post graduate experience; and

have experience of the performance of the medical and/or disability assessment, addressing questions of causation and impact in the context of legislative or policy requirements to assist the decision maker