Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to his Department's publication entitled Transforming Support: The Health and Disability White Paper, published on 16 March 2023, what progress his Department has made on testing matching a Personal Independent Payment applicant’s primary health condition to a specialist assessor; and when he plans to publish the findings.

The Health and Disability White Paper, published in March 2023, set out ambitious and extensive reforms to further support disabled people including exploring the initiative referred to as “Specialist Assessors”.

As the term “specialist” has a very specific meaning in a medical context, the decision has been made to rename the initiative to “Condition Focused Assessors” to avoid misalignment with clinical definitions. The ambition and intent of the initiative remains the same.

In September 2023, we began a small-scale test matching certain PIP claimants’ primary health condition to an existing healthcare professional (HCP) with relevant clinical experience. This test ran until January 2024, at which point it was expanded to cover claimants with multiple conditions.

We continue to work closely with key stakeholders and support organisations as we progress our testing. Initial exploratory research will be published later this year. The Health Transformation Programme looks to publish evaluation when services are suitably developed, and when findings are robust and provide a representative picture of our progress.