FOI-01680

##Request

(1) provide me with a list of the companies or organsiations who carry
out medical assessments for the Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme;

(2) how much money has been paid to them from the public purse;

(3) how much each assessment costs the public purse; and

(4) provide me with a copy of the contract with the company or
organisation under which my assessment was conducted (Your ref.
VAD20642, and letter to me dated 12 July 2023).

##Response

Question 1

All Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) claims are medically assessed by an independent medical assessor. We have a contract with Crawford & Company Adjusters (UK) Ltd. for the provision of medical assessments under the scheme.
RTW Plus Ltd. and Pertemps Medical Ltd. are subcontracted within this agreement to complete medical assessments under the scheme.

Question 2 

Under Section 21 of the Act, we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. 

The amount paid to Crawford & Company Adjusters Ltd  broken down by month for the provision of medical assessments is available at: www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/spend-over-ps25000 

Once you’ve opened each spreadsheet, you can search (CTRL+F) the spreadsheet for “Crawford” and this will help you find payments made to our supplier.

Question 3

We have interpreted this question as requesting the fixed cost per assessment.        I am writing to advise you that following a search of our paper and electronic records, I have established that the information you requested is not held by the NHS Business Services Authority.  There is no fixed cost per assessment.       

Question 4
A copy of the information you have requested has been published on our website at
https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01680 
Due to the large size of the files we cannot email these to you.

Redactions

Please note that some of the text is redacted (blacked out). The following sets out the exemptions which apply, and the public interest considerations in favour of disclosure vs those in favour of withholding the information.

Section 31(1) – Crime Prevention

The information you requested is being withheld as it falls under the exemption in section 31(1) of the Freedom of Information Act. In applying this exemption, we have balanced the public interest in withholding the information against the public interest in disclosing the information. The below link sets out the exemption in full. The information redacted under this exemption has been labelled within the document. All other redactions have been made under the other exemptions outlined below.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/31 

See the below the factors considered when deciding that in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

Factors for Disclosure

•	There is no public interest in this information being placed in the public domain.

Factors for Withholding

•	The e-mail address is for internal use, by colleagues and customers.
•	The e-mail address could be targeted by cyber criminals for distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks or phishing.
•	A successful cyber-attack could disrupt the NHSBSA’s core services, affecting our ability to function efficiently.
•	The cost of recovering from a successful cyber-attack could be substantial, which would be at the taxpayers’ expense.

Section 40(2) – Personal Data

Please be aware that I have decided not to release full details of all staff as this information falls under the exemption in Section 40 subsections 2 and 3(A)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act.  

This is because it would breach the first data protection principle as:
a)  It is not fair to disclose these people’s personal details to the world and is likely to cause damage or distress to staff
b) These details are not of sufficient interest to the public to warrant an intrusion into the privacy of those staff.

Please click the below web link to see the exemption in full.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/40 

Section 43(2) – Commercial Interests
 
The information you requested is being withheld as it falls under the exemption in section 43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act. In applying this exemption, we have balanced the public interest in withholding the information against the public interest in disclosing the information. The below link sets out the exemption in full.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/43 

See the below the factors considered when deciding that in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

Factors for Disclosure

•	Public accountability
•	Transparency of financial information in an NHS organisation 

Factors for Withholding

•	Potential commercial damage to an organisation that acts in the best interests of public health and any possible future contractors
•	Compromising of a scheme that has been implemented to assist members of the public who have suffered damage to their health following a vaccine – any such compromise could have a negative effect on the processing of the payments to which the claimants, leading to – 
•	Large scale loss of public confidence in a scheme which exists for their benefit
•	Increased health problems and/or distress for VDPS claimants
•	Overtly negative attention from the media/ campaign groups. Whilst public scrutiny should be expected – if it becomes so excessive as to actually damage the VDPS scheme itself, then this cannot be considered as being within the public interest.

In considering how the release of this information may prejudice the commercial interests of both parties we have taken into account any harm that would/would likely to be caused, namely – 

•	Information that is specific to the tendering process, even when the contract is established, could (if published) cause damage to the third-party contractor because it would give any potential future contractors an unfair advantage should the contract ever go out to tender at a later date, leading to possible issues for the contractor in dealings with other organisations 
•	The release of tendering information could damage NHSBSA because it would discourage any potential contractors from submitting a bid if they felt that their data was likely to be published, leading to possible difficulties in creating future contracts.

In this case we feel it is in the best interests of the public that data relating to the tendering process is not disclosed. For the reasons outlined above we feel it is appropriate in this case to maintain the exemption and withhold the information. Because NHSBSA is applying an exemption to the above parts of the information, please accept this letter as a refusal notice issued in accordance with section 17 of this Act. 

Please note that this request and our response is published on our Freedom of Information disclosure log at 

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01680


Tags: Vaccine Damage Payments
Organization: Freedom of Information Disclosure Log