Inclusion London’s evidence to inquiry into contracted out health and disability assessments

Inclusion London provided evidence to the public accounts committee’s inquiry into contracted out health and disability assessments.

In our response we highlighted that contracts and assessments for PIP and WCA are driven by the DWP’s expectation to ‘reduce disability benefit spending. The DWP wished to ‘complete large numbers of assessments quickly and accurately’ to achieve the savings target.  However, many assessments are inaccurate and as result Disabled people have little or no income so struggle to pay basic living costs.  The ambition to cut the welfare bill is given high priority, while the damage done to Disabled people’s lives is largely being ignored – the human cost is considered less important than the monetary cost.  The PIP and ESA assessment system needs to become much more humane.  The design of the contracts and the assessments urgently needs to be reviewed so that Disabled people’s experience is improved.

The evidence we provide below through case studies shows that despite five independent reviews of the WCA, major criticisms still remain and PIP assessments have very similar problems, which include:

• Assessors have little or no knowledge or understanding of the impairment of the Disabled person being assessed.
• The assessments appear to be too short, rigid,  with little leeway to provide a more descriptive report
• Assessments are inaccurate or of poor quality
• Medical evidence provided by health professionals is either ignored or not obtained.

Inclusion London believes that the Work Capability Assessment should be scrapped.  The assessments for both WCA and PIP should be replaced with a system that reflects the social model of disability so that the barriers Disabled people face are acknowledged.

Download the Consultation response below.

Inclusion London evidence inquiry contracted out assessments (Final)