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COVID-M4.5 No Response

Reform Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme

COVID-19 Inquiry · Module 4: Vaccines and Therapeutics · Issued 16 April 2026 · Addressed to: Department for Work and Pensions

Source — verbatim from the inquiry

●Inquiry recommendation

The UK government must reform the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme as soon as possible. The reform should include as a minimum: increasing the £120,000 payment, at least in line with inflation to date; subsequently applying annual increases in line with inflation; introducing multiple levels of payment, commensurate with the degree of injury suffered; and any transitional arrangements necessary to provide for fairness between applicants to the existing scheme and applicants to the revised scheme.

COVID-19 Inquiry, Module 4: Vaccines and Therapeutics · 16 Apr 2026 Source PDF →

Published evidence summary

Publicly available evidence relating to this recommendation:

- An implementation status cannot yet be assessed. No government response or recommendation-specific delivery evidence was located by 23 July 2026, so the absence of a published update should not be treated as evidence that implementation has or has not begun.
- The Module 4 report was published on 16 April 2026 and contains five recommendations (UK Covid-19 Inquiry, Module 4: Vaccines and Therapeutics).
- Searches of GOV.UK and Inquiry publications found no government response or recommendation-specific implementation update as at 23 July 2026.
How was this evidence gathered?
Evidence searched by Codex (GPT-5), production evidence audit 2026-07-23 on 16 Apr 2026
Checked data held on this site (government responses, progress updates, independent evidence)
External sources searched: covid19.public-inquiry.uk

Response — verbatim from government

●No formal government response recorded

The Index has not yet recorded a verbatim government response to this recommendation.

Evidence trail — what's actually happened since

  • 16 Apr 2026 Status: Pending. No government response yet received. Module 4 report published 16 April 2026. Source →

Each entry above links to a primary source — gov.uk written statement, consultation response document, or inspection report. The Index does not characterise government intent; it tracks what has been published.

How this page is built

Source and Response are verbatim from primary documents. The Evidence trail records published activity since — written statements, consultation outcomes, inspection findings, parliamentary references. The Index does not paraphrase or characterise intent; it tracks what has been published. Where the evidence is the absence of action (a missed deadline, a slipped timetable), that absence is documented from primary sources rather than inferred.

This recommendation's data is verified periodically against primary sources. The Index is monitored for staleness weekly.