Universal Credit: Mental Illness

(asked on 12th October 2026) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to Figure 9 of the Department’s publication Universal Credit Work Capability Assessment statistics, April 2019 to March 2026 and the response to FOI2026/95977, how many Universal Credit Work Capability Assessment decisions for non-ESA transition claimants in the period covered by that figure recorded “Mental Health Problem” as their only medical condition overall.


Answered by
Stephen Timms Portrait
Stephen Timms
Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)
This question was answered on 22nd October 2026

879,800 Universal Credit Work Capability Assessment decisions for non-ESA transition claimants in the period April 2019 to March 2026 recorded “Mental Health Problem” as their only condition within the Mental and Behavioural Disorders ICD-10 chapter.

Of those, 143,100 recorded “Mental Health Problem” as their only medical condition overall.

Notes:

  1. Medical condition is based on evidence recorded at the WCA. An LCWRA recommendation at WCA is established when a claimant meets any one of the relevant qualifying descriptors, which are applied on a “met / not met” basis. This means the assessment can be concluded before all health conditions are discussed and recorded.

  1. Cases in which, due to evidence provided, a decision can be made without an interview-based or paper-based WCA have no medical condition information available on the analytical system data. These filework cases can relate to claimants who are severely or terminally ill, or have other complex conditions and thus may not be representative of the cohort of known medical conditions.

  1. Claimants often have complex health issues and can thus be recorded with multiple conditions. Primary conditions are not identified.

  1. The figures have been rounded to the nearest 100 and the data supplied is based on bespoke analysis of departmental datasets and has not been certified as National Statistics or Official Statistics.
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