Employment and Support Allowance: Skin Diseases

(asked on 14th December 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent discussions he has had with Maximus on making improvements to how that provider conducts employment and support allowance assessments for people with a skin disease; and what steps that provider is taking to improve such assessments.


Answered by
Sarah Newton Portrait
Sarah Newton
This question was answered on 21st December 2017

I will personally be meeting with Maximus in the New Year but the department regularly meets with the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments (CHDA) to discuss all aspects of their delivery of Work Capability Assessments, including ensuring it works effectively for people with all types of health conditions and disabilities.

The Department expects CHDA to continuously seek out opportunities to improve the service they provide and to identify how to improve the customer journey. Since CHDA took over the contract to carry out assessments in March 2015, they have made a number of improvements to claimants’ experience of assessments, including increasing the number of Healthcare Professionals by over 60% and opening new assessment rooms so they can see more people in more locations.

CHDA have also introduced a number of claimant-focused improvements, including:

  • establishing a Customer Representative Group with leading charities who have regular meetings with the clinical leadership team from CHDA;
  • producing videos for their website showing claimants exactly what to expect when they have an assessment;
  • introducing disability awareness training for clinical and administrative staff (carried out by Disability Rights UK);
  • introducing a customer charter that commits to treating all of their customers with professionalism, dignity and respect;
  • introducing a telephone support service to help claimants complete their ESA50/UC50 questionnaire, including advising about the types of evidence that are useful; and
  • increasing the number of mental health champions in place.
Reticulating Splines