Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether the medical assessors for the Vaccine Damages Payment Scheme have access to the scientific advice given to ministers regarding the AstraZeneca Covid-19 Vaccine.

All claims to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) are assessed on a case-by-case basis by experienced independent medical assessors, General Medical Council registered doctors with a licence to practise, who have undertaken specialised training in vaccine damage and disability assessment.

When making medical assessment through the VDPS, independent medical assessors consider not just the claimant’s full medical records once they are gathered, but also the claim form and a range of credible resources to support their assessment, as per NHS Business Services Authority’s published VDPS Principles of Medical Assessment. This includes, but is not limited to, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s data, including Yellow Card information on suspected safety concerns involving a healthcare product, vaccine product information and updates, the UK Health Security Agency's Green Book, and the World Health Organization’s Causality assessment of an adverse event following immunization. Medical assessors will also consider academic research, epidemiological evidence, and the current consensus of expert medical opinion.