FOI-02779

__Request__

1. How many approved claims involved symptoms such as fatigue dizziness cognitive issues or exercise intolerance without a formal diagnosis like myocarditis or GBS?

2. How many approved claims listed immune response to vaccine as the primary or contributing condition?

3. How many successful claims had an NHS coded adverse reaction to vaccine recorded within 30 days of administration?

4. How many approved claims involved patients who were formally advised not to receive further COVID vaccines?

5. How many approved claims reported symptom onset 4 to 10 days after vaccination?

6. How many approved claims involved cardiac issues such as tachycardia atrial dilation or tricuspid regurgitation without myocarditis?

7. Are physical and mental impairments combined when calculating the 60 percent disablement threshold?

8. How many successful claims included a temporary return to normal activity such as work or exercise followed by relapse?

9. Of the claims that passed causation but failed on disablement how many involved fatigue anxiety cognitive dysfunction or post exertional symptom worsening?

10. How many approved claims included structured rehabilitation attempts such as CBT or recovery programs?

Please provide the most recent available data Ranges are acceptable where exact numbers are not disclosable.

__Our response__

We have numbered your questions to ensure that we can easily reference these in our response. For clarity, we have taken “approved” and “successful” within your request to mean the same thing, i.e. claims which resulted in an awarded payment.

__Questions 3 to 5__

I estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the non-central Government limit of £450 and is therefore exempt under section 12 of the FOIA 2000.

The limit has been specified in The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 and represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether the NHSBSA holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 is available at:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244/contents/made

We cannot confirm whether the requested information is held by the NHSBSA. In order to determine whether the information is held, we would need to manually interrogate claim forms, supporting evidence, and medical information (collectively referred to in this response as supporting data) supplied with each claim.

As of 31 March 2025, 217 claims relating to COVID-19 have received an award. Each claim contains varying amounts of supporting data, and can range from hundreds, to several thousand pages. In order to answer these questions, we would need to interrogate all supporting data, amounting to several thousands of pages of information. We are not able to accurately estimate how long this would take, but we know that given the sheer volume of information we would need to search, this would vastly exceed the appropriate limit of 18 hours.

In addition, due to the reasons set out above, we cannot offer advice on how you could refine the scope of your request to fall within the appropriate limit.

__Question 7 – Are physical and mental impairments combined when calculating the 60 percent disablement threshold?__

We confirm that this information is held. The below is taken from the document titled “Principles of Medical Assessment”:

“The assessment must compare the individual to a person of the same age and sex in whom physical and mental condition is normal and this phrase must be stated in the report.”

The full document can be found at the below web link:

https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/vaccine-damage-payment-scheme-vdps-claim-process

__Remaining Questions__

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 NHSBSA.

The NHSBSA does hold various statistics, derived during the natural course of processing/assessment of claims. However, in order to provide the figures requested, this would require the expert judgement of a medical assessor. It would not be possible for a non-clinical person to interrogate the records to provide the figures requested, as they would lack the medical expertise required to do so. 

It could only be done by someone with medical expertise. They would need to interrogate/examine:

* claims, including claim forms,
* supporting evidence,
* and medical information supplied by healthcare providers,

to establish whether the circumstances of each case met the criteria set out by each question, in order to count it towards the requested statistics. In addition, in doing so it would involve creating new information, given the amount of judgement/analysis required. 

__Data Queries__

Please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference if you have any specific questions regarding this response; or, if you feel you may be misunderstanding or misinterpreting the information; or, if you plan on publishing the data.

__Reusing the data and copyright__

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk. 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 2025”. 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.

Tags: Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme, vdps
Organization: Freedom of Information Disclosure Log