The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has confirmed it is trialling a new system for assessing Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claimants. As it stands, healthcare professionals carry out PIP assessments.
But a shake-up will see the assessments taken off healthcare professionals like general practitioners and nurses, and handed over to DWP case managers instead. They will be handed a greater role in determining which descriptors apply and what level of benefit should be awarded.
The PIP assessment assesses how a disability or long-term health condition affects your daily life. It is evaluated across 12 areas, with points awarded for each based on the level of difficulty you face for over half of the time across a 12-month period.
Whistleblower raises concerns
The Independent cites an anonymous whistleblower, who said: "Decisions on complex, fluctuating, and especially mental health conditions require clinical insight and direct assessment experience."
"Removing health professionals from the decision-making process will strip out essential medical nuance, leading to poorer quality, less accurate, and less fair outcomes," they told charity Disability Rights UK.
"Many vulnerable claimants will face wrong decisions, increased stress, financial hardship, and unnecessary appeals."
Disability Rights UK reacts
Fazilet Hadi, Disability Rights UK's head of policy, said it was "absolutely astonishing" and fumed: "Stopping health professionals from making recommendations on the basis of their assessment and requiring them to solely pass information to DWP case managers to make the determination, is a recipe for disaster, which will result in thousands of poorly informed and inaccurate decisions."
Claiming PIP is intensely personal; we have to talk about the impacts of our impairments and health conditions, in ways many of us find emotionally and practically difficult.
"At least we have some chance of our individual needs and circumstances being understood, when the recommendations are being made by the people we have actually spoken to."
DWP responds
A DWP spokesperson said: "Case managers already make all final PIP decisions - that has not changed."
"This small-scale trial is about re-balancing roles so that assessors focus on what they do best, freeing up capacity by reducing duplication, and empowering case managers to apply their own judgement based on all the evidence."
