Covid jab injury payments must be urgently reformed, says inquiry chair

Heather Hallett hails vaccine scheme but criticises rule that only those meeting 60% disabled threshold can get payouts

The Covid-19 vaccine programme in the UK was an “extraordinary feat” but the payment scheme for people injured by the jabs must be urgently reformed, the public inquiry on the pandemic has found.

In her report, the inquiry chair, Heather Hallett, praised the fact the UK was a world leader in biomedical sciences, which set it in good stead for developing and rolling out vaccines at scale. But she said the government must act urgently to reform the scheme for payments to the “small minority” of people seriously injured by the vaccines, and almost double maximum payouts to at least £200,000 from an upper limit of £120,000 at present.