The government’s Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) has spent £83 million on running costs since April 2022, while only £31.6 million has been paid out to those who say they were harmed by Covid‑19 jabs. The disclosure, made in answer to a parliamentary question, shows that administration and medical assessment expenses are now more than twice the amount awarded to successful claimants.
Rising costs revealed
According to the latest figures supplied by the NHSBSA, which administers the scheme on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care, staffing, overheads and fees for independent medical reviewers have risen sharply. In the financial year 2022/23 the bill for those assessments stood at £4.3 million; by 2025/26 it had climbed to £19.3 million. The NHSBSA attributes the increase to the growing volume of applications it must process.
Claims surge and low success rate
Since the scheme was reopened for Covid‑related injuries in November 2021, 24,260 claims have been lodged. Of those, only 264 have met the strict threshold of “severe disablement” required to qualify for the one‑off, tax‑free payment of £120,000. The vast majority of successful applications are linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine, which, while credited with saving millions of lives worldwide, has left a small number of recipients with life‑altering injuries.
Calls for reform
Campaigners argue that the current structure is inefficient and unfair. Kate Scott of Vaccine Injured and Bereaved UK (VIBUK), whose husband was left severely disabled after an AstraZeneca jab, said the scheme “offers too little, too late, to too few” and urged the government to act on the Covid inquiry’s recommendation to increase payouts and tie them to the degree of injury. The Taxpayers’ Alliance echoed the concern, with chief executive John O’Connell stating that the public would be “stunned” to learn that administrative costs now far exceed the compensation paid to victims, and calling for an urgent review to cut unnecessary bureaucracy.
Government response
Health minister Dame Diana Johnson confirmed that the £83 million figure covers staffing, administration and medical reviews between April 2022 and March 2026. The Department of Health and Social Care said it is “carefully considering” the inquiry’s proposals and will respond shortly, adding that work is under way to speed up claims and improve the applicant experience. The NHSBSA reiterated that it continues to work closely with ministers on managing the scheme’s costs.
Why it Matters
The stark imbalance between what the scheme costs to run and what it delivers to those it was designed to help raises serious questions about the value of public money spent on vaccine injury compensation. If the process remains slow, expensive and inaccessible, public trust in vaccination programmes could erode, undermining one of the most effective tools in modern medicine. Reforming the VDPS to ensure that a larger share of funding reaches genuinely injured individuals would not only fulfil a moral obligation but also reinforce confidence in the safety nets that accompany mass immunisation efforts.
