Personal Independence Payment: Medical Examinations

(asked on 20th September 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to her Answer of 21 June to Question 17850 on Personal Independence Payment: Tribunals, how her Department monitors the performance of assessment providers.


Answered by
Victoria Prentis Portrait
Victoria Prentis
Attorney General
This question was answered on 27th September 2022

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) manages the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) contracts robustly, and has a full set of service level agreements setting out our expectations for service delivery. We ensure a high standard is maintained, having an independent audit function that continually monitors performance, and provides feedback to assessment providers. Quality performance is also regularly reviewed through DWP and provider senior governance meetings at a national level, and in each of the provider areas.

The contracts allow us to recover any financial loss caused by poor performance, and we have the right to terminate the contract if there is sustained underperformance.

We are committed to continuously improving the assessment service and have reiterated this in the Shaping Future Support: The Health and Disability Green Paper. During the Green Paper consultation period, we explored ways in which we could improve the current system of assessments, including by:

  • Introducing different ways to conduct assessments, such as introducing telephone and video assessments
  • Reducing unnecessary assessments
  • Improving our decisions, for example, by making sure that evidence is available earlier in the decision-making process
  • Improving support for people with serious health conditions, including people nearing the end of their lives.

We are considering all the responses to the Green Paper proposals as we consider what future policy changes might look like, which we will set out in the White Paper later this year.

The department’s Health Transformation Programme (HTP) will deliver improvements to the health and disability benefits system, including proposals that stem from the Green Paper. Our ambition is to make the assessment process simpler, more user-friendly, easier to navigate and more joined-up for claimants, whilst delivering better value for money for taxpayers.

Providers also work continuously to drive improvements in assessment services. They have introduced new management processes to drive performance across their services, including new or enhanced systems of assessment report quality checks, to improve the quality of advice the department receives. In addition, PIP assessment reports have been redesigned to have clearer justifications which support improved benefit decision making.

Reticulating Splines