Vaccine Damage Payments

How much?

Esther McVey, MP, has received an answer to her question about the amount spent reviewing applications for the vaccine management payment scheme over the last 5 years.

Labour’s Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Department of Health and Social Care, Andrew Gwynne, answered on November 12th.

The total from 2022 onwards is just over £25 million (£25,135,061). Now, in these times of hardship, you'd think the government would want to account for every penny.

However, one of our TTE informants has pointed out the relationship between government spending on reviewing and the amount paid out. 

On WhatDoTheyKnow, Sheila Ward made the following Freedom of Information request to the NHS Business Services Authority.

On the 21st of October, Sheila received a response from the NHSBA.

How many claims have been made to the VDPS due to an adverse reaction to a covid vaccine to date?

‘15,804 claims have been received by the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme

(VDPS).’

How many claimants have been notified of an outcome?

‘7,936 claimants have been notified of an outcome.’

How many claims have been successful? Please provide a breakdown of which vaccine were used in the claims awarded.

‘188 claimants have been notified that they are entitled to a Vaccine Damage Payment. Of these, fewer than five were Pfizer and Moderna, and the remaining claims were AstraZeneca. 

(653 claims not involving a COVID-19 vaccine have been received by the
VDPS. Fewer than five of these claims have been awarded.)

How many claims have been rejected / unsuccessful?

‘7,748 claims have been rejected, and a further 716 did not meet the criteria for medical assessment.’

‘7,357 claims were unsuccessful because the independent medical assessor recommended that, on the balance of probabilities, the vaccine did not cause the disability in question (causation).’ 391 claims were unsuccessful because, although the claims met the criteria for causation, the independent medical assessor recommended that the vaccine has not caused severe disablement.’

If TTE's information is accurate, the government spends more on reviewing cases than the claims themselves. For instance, 188 claims at £120,000 each cost £22.6 million, which is £2.5 million less than the cost of reviewing and rejecting the vaccine damage payment claims. 

The government's impact assessment of the Expansion of the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) indicates that the cost management plan was designed to ensure that only 25% of vaccine claims related to adverse events would be successful. In other words, 75% of claims would be unsuccessful.

(See page 7, section 5.2, for the Expansion of the VDPS for the COVID-19 Vaccine Costs and Benefits for scenario assumptions). 

So, to sum up:

• Vaccination was compulsory for the vast majority of people

• The government knew of the risk of damage

• Despite the medical screening safety net (presumably to stop spurious claims), they imposed a limit to the successful claims

• Managing claims has so far cost more than paying out.

TTE would like to know who authorised the Government to impose a budgetary ceiling, as outlined in the third point, to limit the number of successful claims.

Do our readers believe this is an ethically defensible process?  If not, should all those responsible for this decision still in their positions be asked to resign from government employment? 

Without referencing the Gettysburg Address, two astonished older geezers wrote this post.