Source · Select Committees · Work and Pensions Committee
Recommendation 8
8
Deferred
Face-to-face, in person assessments were the main form of assessment for Personal Independence Payment and...
Recommendation
Face-to-face, in person assessments were the main form of assessment for Personal Independence Payment and Employment and Support Allowance/Universal Credit before the pandemic, despite widespread agreement amongst claimants and the organisations that support them that they are frequently unnecessarily stressful and poorly suited to measuring the impact of some health conditions. The pandemic forced the Department’s hand in making greater use of other formats, and feedback from stakeholders has been broadly positive. One size does not fit all, however: what matters in reducing the stress associated with assessment is choice. We recommend that the Department build on its successes introducing video and telephone assessments during the pandemic. In particular, now it knows that remote assessments are possible on a large scale, that it completes its evaluation as soon as possible and commits to informing claimants of the options available and allowing them to choose what suits them best before booking an assessment. (Paragraph 42) Technical and operational challenges
Government Response Summary
The Department is evaluating remote assessments through the Health Assessment Channel Trial, scheduled to complete later this year, and will use the evidence to inform how their multi-channelled service capability can be optimised, including whether claimants will be able to choose their preferred assessment channel.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
The Department continues to build on its successful introduction of telephone and video health assessments. In the White Paper the Department explained that it is evaluating, through the Health Assessment Channel Trial, how well remote assessments work compared to face-to-face assessments. The Health Assessment Channel Trial is scheduled to complete later this year. It will include a large-scale survey and claimant interviews to seek a fuller understanding of claimant experience by assessment channel, exploring areas such as channel preference. Evidence from the Health Assessment Channel Trial, in combination with further testing of a number of different approaches, will inform how the Department’s multi-channelled service capability can be optimised, including whether claimants will be able to choose their preferred assessment channel. While the evaluation continues, all assessment providers have introduced and embedded a flexible approach to handling claimant requests to change their assessment channel.