Health-related Benefits Assessments

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising such an important point and for her work and expertise in this area. Our job is to make sure that we assess the right people at the right time. There is always a danger when debating this that we forget the significant number of people who are absolutely dependent on sickness and disability benefits; frankly, most of them would give anything to not be dependent on those benefits and to not have had the condition, injury or accident that transformed their lives for ever.

Our job is to make sure that those who need our support get it. We have been looking at the way we review things, so that we are reviewing the right people to make sure they get the right level of award. If it gives the noble Baroness some reassurance, there will be cases where the health assessor can clearly make a judgment based on the medical evidence alone. In those cases, they will not necessarily need to see somebody face to face or call them to an assessment. Where there is any doubt, however, we need to make sure that people get the right support if they are entitled to it and give confidence to the public that we are doing those assessments in the right way.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I was interested by the answer the Minister gave to my noble friend in relation to the signed contracts for work being undertaken virtually. Could she clarify whether there is an expiration date, or a time limit in some form or another, for these contracts in order that you can bring people back to a face-to-face arrangement quickly?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

These were long-term contracts and were signed only in late 2023 and took effect shortly after, but we are not simply taking that as meaning that we cannot do anything. We are in close negotiations with all the contractors to look at how we can drive up the proportion of face-to-face assessments. It will take time because, having started with so many being home-based, we have to make sure we can get the numbers back up in time. There are limited numbers and assessors have to be either a registered doctor, a nurse, an occupational therapist or a physiotherapist; they have to be trained in disability assessment medicine; and they have to engage in continuous professional development. We need to make sure they are properly qualified to make those assessments, but we are working to get the numbers up as fast as we can.