Thank you for your request for information about the following:

‘Please can you confirm details of the Medical assessors dealing with all claims for the Covid-19 vaccine damage payment scheme VDPS since the NHSBSA took over the scheme in November 2021. Please confirm:

1, Name of company?

2, Date of contract, start to end?

3, How many medical assessors are employed to work on the Covid-19 vaccine claims? Please provide figures for each month since the start of the contract to present.

4, How many claims are each assessor appointed at any one time? Please provide figures for each month since the start of the contract to present.’

Your request was received on 24th October 2022 and I am dealing with it under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Response

Question 1

Crawford and Co.

Question 2

Start Date: 21 March 2022

End Date: 20 March 2027 (and in the event an Extension Period is exercised by the Authority the End Date shall be 20 March 2028 or 20 March 2029).

Question 3

I am writing to advise you that the information you requested is not held by the NHS Business Services Authority. However please see below for an estimate.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) administers the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) on behalf of DHSC and contracts a third-party supplier to carry out medical assessments. Based on the current number of completed assessments each week, we estimate that on average, from their pool of approximately 40 trained assessors, an equivalent of 11 full-time equivalent working hours is spent carrying out medical assessments. This is a tenfold increase since NHSBSA took on the scheme in November 2021.

Question 4

I am writing to advise you that the information you requested is not held by the NHS Business Services Authority. The number of cases assigned to an assessor is managed by the third party medical assessment organisation. We understand that this figure can vary at any given time depending on the volume of claims. As such we do not hold a figure for this.

Data Queries

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

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact nhsbsa.communicationsteam@nhs.net. 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. This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence detailed at: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following statement: “NHSBSA Copyright 2022” 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.