Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 11
11
Rejected
Department plans wider testing of health transformation service to ensure representative claimant sample.
Recommendation
The Department has started to process applications from claimants living in specific postcodes in London and Birmingham through the health transformation. The Department acknowledged that the two health transformation areas alone will not provide it with a representative sample of claimants and that it will need a wider range of claimants to give assurance that the proposed changes to the service are working as expected. It told us that it planned to try the new service in a range of different areas and to make sure that it took into account a “wide range of customer types from across the country” as part of its evaluation of the new service.18 It intends to increase the number of claimants involved in its testing to up to 20% of new claims nationally to provide it with sufficient volumes to provide it with the assurance it needs.19
Government Response Summary
The government explicitly disagrees with the committee's recommendation regarding the need for a wider range of claimants in testing. It notes it publishes HTP management information quarterly and will look to include overturn rates in future publications.
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation. 6.2 On 19 December 2023, the department published the first in a new series of HTP MI. Publication of this MI will continue quarterly in line with the PIP Official Statistics release schedule. 6.3 This release includes monthly information on the number of referrals to the Health Transformation Area (HTA). As the programme and underlying data systems mature, the department will be able to evolve this publication to report against KPIs and underlying performance metrics. 6.4 Health assessments are conducted on the same legislative basis and same clinical standards across providers. The department will keep under review what data can be published on performance of the existing providers and is currently designing the publication strategy for when new FAS contracts are in place from Autumn 2024. 6.5 The department already publishes overturn rates at Mandatory Reconsideration (MR) and appeal in the PIP Official Statistics and will look to include equivalent measures within future HTP statistical publications once the service is suitably developed and robust, and where publishing will provide a representative picture of the HTP’s progress.