Asked by: Emma Dent Coad (Labour - Kensington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 14 February 2018 to Question 127010, on employment and support allowance, if she will place a copy of the ESA65B letter that her Department sends to GPs in the Library.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The ESA65B letter is issued to GPs in every case where an Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimant has been found ‘fit for work’. This process was built into the IT system as part of the introduction of ESA in October 2008.
Following a Ministerial requirement by the Cabinet Secretary, which was endorsed by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the content of the ESA65B letter has been improved in order to explain to GPs the type of support customers can expect to receive from their local Jobcentre, and to ask GPs to encourage customers in their efforts to return to work. As part of this work officials engaged with the British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners to ensure that the revised wording was fit for purpose.
The Department does not hold information on the number of ESA65B letters sent to GPs.
I will place a copy of the ESA65B in the House Library.
Asked by: Emma Dent Coad (Labour - Kensington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will instruct her officials to copy employment and support allowance claimants into all correspondence that they address to those claimants' doctors.
Answered by Sarah Newton
To send claimants a copy of all correspondence would incur unnecessary duplication. When making a claim, customers give their consent for the Department to contact their doctor or other healthcare professionals for further medical information if required and to inform them of the outcome of their assessment. To send claimants a copy of these would incur unnecessary duplication.
The Department is continually reviewing and amending claimant communications, in consultation with support organisations and the assessment provider, to ensure they are clear and informative and meet claimants’ needs
Asked by: Emma Dent Coad (Labour - Kensington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has written to the doctors of claimants who have been refused employment and support allowance to advise those doctors that they should stop supplying claimants with fit notes and encourage them to return to work.
Answered by Sarah Newton
We send doctors a letter called an ESA65B, after a customer has been found fit for work, stating that they no longer need to provide further notes for the purposes of Employment and Support Allowance. This letter also states what support customers can expect to receive from their local Jobcentre and asks doctors to encourage customers in their efforts to return to work.