Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of ending multiple assessments for amputees to qualify for benefits.

There are many disabled people and people with health conditions in receipt of both Universal Credit (UC) and Personal Independence Payment (PIP), which means going through two separate assessments – a process that can be complex, time-consuming, duplicative and cause stress for claimants.

The Pathways to Work Green Paper outlined our plan to end the link between capacity to work and additional financial support and the binary categorisation of claimants as “can or can’t work” by abolishing the Work Capability Assessment (WCA). Instead, any extra financial support for health conditions in UC will be assessed via a single assessment – the PIP assessment (in England and Wales) – and be based on the impact of disability on daily living, not on capacity to work.

Due to its link with the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessment, Work Capability Assessment abolition will not take place until after the Timms Review into PIP has reported. We are currently considering how the future system will operate and will provide further information in due course.

Within the current system, some disabled people will meet the Severe Conditions Criteria (SCC).

The SCC are used to identify and apply to those with the most severe, lifelong health conditions or disabilities, who are unlikely to improve, are not expected to ever be able to work, and for whom reassessments are unlikely to provide further new information.

As the condition of a claimant who meets the SCC is unlikely to improve, they do not need to have a reassessment unless they tell us that their condition has changed or improved.

Finally, DWP and our Assessment Suppliers are committed to providing a quality, sensitive and respectful service by conducting accurate and objective assessments. Where there is sufficient evidence on which to make an assessment, the claimant will be assessed on a paper basis.