FOI-03618

Thank you for your request for information about the following:

##Request

<i>Freedom of Information Request – VDPS Claims Statistics for AstraZeneca Batch AB0002

Dear Information Governance Team,
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I am requesting information regarding the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) specifically in relation to the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine batch number AB0002.

Please provide the following data:<br><br>

1. Total Applications: How many applications for the Vaccine Damage Payment (VDPS) have been received where the claimant identified AstraZeneca batch AB0002 as the vaccine administered?

2. Claim Outcomes: Of those applications specifically linked to batch AB0002, how many have:<br>
• Resulted in a successful award of £120,000?<br>
• Been rejected on the grounds of causation (i.e., the medical assessor did not believe the vaccine caused the injury)?<br>
• Been rejected on the grounds of disability threshold (i.e., causation was accepted, but the 60% disability threshold was not met)?

3. Specific Conditions: For successful claims linked to batch AB0002, what were the primary medical conditions cited (e.g., VITT, GBS, Myocarditis)?
Privacy Note: If any of the figures above represent fewer than five individuals, I understand you may need to provide a response such as "<5" to protect personal confidentiality under Section 40 of the FOI Act.’
</i>

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 18 February 2026.  

We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).  

##Our response

The NHSBSA may hold some of the requested information; however, we estimate that the cost of compliance with the request would exceed the appropriate limit under section 12 of the FOIA.   
 
We estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the non-central Government limit of £450. 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, extracting and checking the information.

At the medical assessment stage, we record the vaccine manufacturer against each claim, however, we do not record the vaccine batch number as it is not needed for our processing purposes. We therefore do not know the vaccine manufacturer for all claims made, only those which have received an outcome report. Please therefore note that the figures below do not include claims which had not received an outcome report as of 31 December 2025.
 
The vaccine batch number may be available in some of the medical records held, however it would require a manual review of each record to locate, retrieve and extract the information. 
 
Please see the following calculation which sets out the estimated cost for compliance with this request.
 
We estimate that it would take a minimum of five minutes per case to check if a batch number is available in the medical records for each of these claims. For question one of your request using the number of claims received as of 31 December 2025, of the 22,819 claims received, 7,924 relate to the AstraZeneca vaccine. 

To identify if the information is held in these 7,924 claims and then to locate and extract the information this would take around 660 hours: 
 
<li>7,924 claims received (claims we can identify relate to AstraZeneca) x 5 mins = 660 hours</li>

This clearly exceeds the 18 hours which would accrue a cost of £450 or more, triggering the provisions of section 12 of the FOIA.

We have considered each question in your request individually and where you have narrowed the scope of cases to be checked; however, the work needed to locate and extract the information would still exceed the cost limit set out in section 12 of the FOIA.

Please see the following link to view the section 12 in full: 
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/12

##Advice and assistance

Please be advised that due to the way that the information is held by the NHSBSA, it is not possible to submit a refined request under the appropriate limit. 

##Data Queries

Please contact <a href=mailto:foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk>foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk</a>  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 <a href=mailto:communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk>communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk</a>. 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 2026” This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence:<br>
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

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: NHSBSA corporate, Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme, nhsbsa, vdps
Organization: Freedom of Information Disclosure Log