Health Secretary orders vaccine compensation scheme review as claims soar

The Health Secretary has ordered a review of the vaccine compensation scheme after a surge in claims following the pandemic, The Telegraph can disclose.

Victoria Atkins has asked officials in her department to draw up options for reforming the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS), which campaigners have said is no longer fit for purpose.

It comes amid concern that the scheme is struggling to cope after becoming overwhelmed by a huge volume of claims from those suffering side-effects after Covid vaccines.

In 2019, 27 claims were made, with that number followed by 26 in 2020 and 41 in 2021. This rose to 480 in 2022 and 4,008 last year, according to figures from the Department of Health.

Separate figures, released under freedom of information requests, reveal that, up to April 26, 11,022 claims have been made to the scheme in connection with Covid vaccines.

In an apparent about-turn earlier this week, AstraZeneca admitted for the first time in court documents that its Covid vaccine can cause a rare side-effect.

The pharmaceutical giant is being sued in a class action over claims that the jab, developed with the University of Oxford, caused death and serious injury in dozens of cases. The Government has indemnified AstraZeneca against any legal action, but has so far refused to intervene.

Conservative MPs have been pressing ministers to reform the VDPS, which they argue does not adequately compensate those who have suffered severe side-effects from Covid vaccines and been left unable to work.

Esther McVey, a minister without portfolio, is understood to be among those pressing Ms Atkins to make changes to the scheme.

The VDPS awards a one-off £120,000 tax-free payment to people who have been severely injured, and to the families of those who have died, as a result of vaccination against certain diseases including Covid. In order to qualify for the payment, individuals have to be deemed 60 per cent disabled.

Sir Jeremy Wright, a former attorney general, has raised concerns about the scheme with Ms Atkins as well as with Rishi Sunak.

He said the Government needed to act “swiftly” to reform the scheme because the class action case against AstraZeneca is “not a good look”, adding: “They can’t ignore this problem – they have to confront it”.

Sir Jeremy said he believed mass vaccination was a “good thing” but stressed that people who were injured “should be properly looked after”.

The Government should either get involved in the AstraZeneca case and settle with the claimants or should raise the amount claimants receive under the VDPS, he added.

“People’s confidence in vaccination is absolutely crucial,” he said. “If they don’t think there is a safety net there, their confidence in that vaccination policy will diminish.”

Charlet Crichton, who founded the charity UK CV Family, which supports those who have suffered side-effects from Covid vaccines, said the scheme was “antiquated” and no longer doing what it was set up to do.

“Ministers say you can use the £120,000 payment to fund litigation – but you can’t, because vaccine damage cases are long, drawn out and costly,” she said. “You would need a couple of million to take the pharmaceutical companies to court.”

Earlier this week, it emerged that some families whose loved ones died after taking the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine have abandoned attempts to sue the company after being told they were likely to lose.

People whose relatives were harmed after having the jab pulled out of the High Court case after being told they would be unlikely to succeed with their claims because a leaflet issued at the height of the pandemic warned of a rare side-effect associated with the vaccine.

The document, given out at vaccination centres, said “extremely rare cases of blood clots with low levels of platelets have been observed following vaccination with Covid-19 vaccine AstraZeneca”.

Legal experts believe it could potentially protect the pharmaceutical firm against cases brought by families whose relatives were given a dose supplied after April 7, 2021.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We have already scaled up and modernised the operations of the VDPS  to allow cases to be processed more quickly, including by digitising the application process and increasing the number of administration staff to ensure claimants receive outcomes as soon as possible.”