Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has written to the doctors of claimants who have been refused employment and support allowance to advise those doctors that they should stop supplying claimants with fit notes and encourage them to return to work.

We send doctors a letter called an ESA65B, after a customer has been found fit for work, stating that they no longer need to provide further notes for the purposes of Employment and Support Allowance. This letter also states what support customers can expect to receive from their local Jobcentre and asks doctors to encourage customers in their efforts to return to work.