Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps is the government taking to ensure that reassessments for sufferers of chronic conditions are as unobtrusive and infrequent as possible.

As announced in the recent Shaping Future Support: Health and Disability Green Paper we want to make changes to the assessment process so people with the most severe health conditions and disabilities can claim the benefits they are entitled to through a simpler process. We are exploring how to test a new Severe Disability Group (SDG) so those with severe and lifelong conditions can benefit from a simplified process to access ESA/UC and PIP without ever needing to complete a detailed application form or go through a face to face assessment/reassessment.

We have already stopped reassessments for people with the most severe conditions that are unlikely to change. In Shaping Future Support: The Health and Disability Green Paper, we proposed ways to further reduce the number of unnecessary assessments, while continuing to ensure support is properly targeted. Alongside this, we proposed ways of offering greater flexibility and simplicity in the way that assessments are delivered, including improving the evidence we use to make decisions from health assessments, and learn the lessons of coronavirus where we introduced telephone and video assessments.