Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what has been the cost to his Department of assessing claims under the Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme in each of the last four years for which information is available.

I would like to apologise for not being able to provide a substantive response to Question 119822 in the previous parliamentary session, which asked what the cost had been of assessing claims under the Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme (VDPS) in each of the last four years for which information is available.

The VDPS is administered by the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA). In the last four years, data from NHSBSA shows that it has incurred the following costs to administer the scheme:

• in the financial year 2022/23, the total cost of administering the scheme was £8,861,965.84;

• in the financial year 2023/24, the total cost of administering the scheme was £16,170,563.53;

• in the financial year 2024/25, the total cost of administering the scheme was £28,803,961.56; and

• in the financial year 2025/26, the total cost of administering the scheme was £29,191,321.71.

These costs include assessment costs, and wider staff and non-staff costs. The primary reason for the increase in costs in the administration of the scheme is as a result of the increase in volume of VDPS applications received and the associated assessments required.