Chris Seeks Statistics On Vaccine Damage Medical Assessors & Results
Christopher Chope Conservative, Christchurch
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many full time equivalent medical assessors are employed in evaluating claims under the Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme in respect of adverse reactions from Covid-19 vaccines; and what the average time taken for each evaluation is.
Helen Whately Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Business Services Authority administers the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) and contracts a third-party supplier to undertake medical assessments. It is estimated that on average approximately 40 trained assessors undertake the equivalent of 11 full-time working hours conducting medical assessments. This is a ten-fold increase since November 2021.
At present, once medical records have been sent for assessment an outcome is from the independent medical assessor will normally be received within 12 weeks, although some complex cases may take longer. The rate of assessment is dependent on the speed with which medical records are received and this is being expedited through increased administrative resources in the VDPS and the introduction of Subject Access Requests.
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