Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many applications were made under the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme for redress arising from the administration of covid-19 vaccines as at 1 July 2024; and how many and what proportion of those applications were (a) decided, (b) successful and (c) rejected on the grounds that the 60% disability threshold had not been reached.

Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

As of 1 July 2024, the NHS Business Services Authority had received 14,088 claims to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) relating to COVID-19. Following medical assessment, 6,850 claims, or 48.6% of the total number of claims, had received an initial outcome, with 181 claims, or 1.3%, being successful and 6,062 claims, 45.1%, being unsuccessful. A further 607 claims, or 4.3%, were found invalid, due to being either outside the scope of the VDPS or a duplicate claim. Of the 6,062 unsuccessful claims, 360 claims, or 2.6%, were rejected on the grounds that the 60% disability threshold had not been reached.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans she has to (a) review and (b) expand the criteria for the vaccine damage payment scheme.

Answered by Maria Caulfield

All routine policy, including the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS), is reviewed on a regular basis. My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is currently considering aspects of the scheme, following recent meetings with interested stakeholders.

Separately, work is underway with the scheme’s administrator, the NHS Business Service Authority, to review processes and make administrative changes to improve the scheme within the current legislative framework. Formal consideration of whether any reforms of the VDPS are necessary will form part of Module 4 of the COVID-19 Inquiry, chaired by the Rt Hon Baroness Heather Carol Hallett DBE.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the effectiveness of the vaccine damage payment scheme at assessing (a) claims related to covid-19 vaccines and (b) other claims.

Answered by Maria Caulfield

All routine policy, including the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS), is reviewed on a regular basis. My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is currently looking into aspects of the scheme, following recent meetings with interested stakeholders.

Separately, work is underway with the scheme’s administrator, the NHS Business Service Authority, to review processes and make administrative changes, to improve the scheme within the current legislative framework. Formal consideration of whether any reforms to the VDPS are necessary will form part of Module 4 of the COVID-19 Inquiry, chaired by the Rt Hon Baroness Heather Carol Hallett DBE.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will require a review of the effectiveness of the vaccine damage payment scheme.

Answered by Maria Caulfield

All routine policy, including the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS), is reviewed on a regular basis. My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is currently looking into aspects of the scheme, following recent meetings with interested stakeholders.

Separately, work is underway with the scheme’s administrator, the NHS Business Service Authority, to review processes and make administrative changes, to improve the scheme within the current legislative framework. Formal consideration of whether any reforms to the VDPS are necessary will form part of Module 4 of the COVID-19 Inquiry, chaired by the Rt Hon Baroness Heather Carol Hallett DBE.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the terms of reference are for her Department's review of the vaccine damage compensation scheme; which body is responsible for undertaking the review; and what estimate she has made of when the review will be completed.

Answered by Maria Caulfield

All routine policy, including the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS), is reviewed on a regular basis. My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is currently looking into aspects of the scheme, following recent meetings with interested stakeholders.

Separately, work is underway with the scheme’s administrator, the NHS Business Service Authority, to review processes and make administrative changes, to improve the scheme within the current legislative framework. Formal consideration of whether any reforms to the VDPS are necessary will form part of Module 4 of the COVID-19 Inquiry, chaired by the Rt Hon Baroness Heather Carol Hallett DBE.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department plans to undertake a (a) review of and (b) public consultation on the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme.

Answered by Maria Caulfield

All routine policy, including the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS), is reviewed on a regular basis. My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is currently looking into aspects of the scheme, following recent meetings with interested stakeholders.

Separately, work is underway with the scheme’s administrator, the NHS Business Service Authority, to review processes and make administrative changes, to improve the scheme within the current legislative framework. Formal consideration of whether any reforms to the VDPS are necessary will form part of Module 4 of the COVID-19 Inquiry, chaired by the Rt Hon Baroness Heather Carol Hallett DBE.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has had recent discussions with Cabinet colleagues on the operation of the vaccine damage payment scheme.

Answered by Maria Caulfield

My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care meets regularly with other Cabinet colleagues to discuss a variety of issues, including vaccines.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many claims related to Covid-19 vaccinations have been made through the Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme.

Answered by Maria Caulfield

As of 26 April 2024, there have been 11,427 COVID-19 related claims made to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme.

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Question

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has had with people living with vaccine injury, and whether it will consider meeting with representatives of such people in the coming months.

Answered by Minto, Jenni - Minister for Public Health and Women's Health

It is important to acknowledge that vaccines are medicines and like all medicines they can have side effects and, on rare occasions, cause injury. Thankfully, most side effects are mild and short lived, but the Scottish Government recognises that some are not.

The Scottish Government has corresponded with the Scottish Vaccine Injury Group on several occasions, and has routinely signposted members of the public to the vaccine damage payment scheme when they have raised issues of vaccine–related injury. The safety of medicines, including vaccines, and the subject matter of the Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme are matters which are reserved to the UK Government, therefore we are unable to comment on individual cases.

The Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry is currently underway and the forthcoming Module 4 of the UK COVID-19 Public Inquiry on Vaccines and Therapeutics will consider vaccine safety and other aspects, such as potential reforms to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme.

The Scottish Vaccine Injury Group is a core participant of both the UK and Scottish Inquiries and as such has a central role. Due to the group’s involvement with the Inquiries, it would not be appropriate for Ministers to meet with them at this stage.

I advised through recent correspondence with the Scottish Vaccine Injury Group that I would be open to meeting with representatives of the group once Module 4 of the UK Inquiry has concluded, and after Baroness Hallett has issued my recommendations. This would facilitate a full and open discussion to take place between both parties, where recommendations could be discussed, especially if there were any the group felt weren’t full addressed as part of the inquiry.