Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help reduce waiting times for decisions on applications to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme.

The Department is working with NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA), the administrators of the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS), to process claims at a faster rate. We have scaled up and modernised VDPS operations through the digitisation of the claims process and increasing administration staff working on the VDPS. NHSBSA is also engaging with healthcare providers to improve the return rate of medical records, essential to assessing claims, including though submitting subject access requests.