Social Security Benefits: Medical Examinations

(asked on 17th April 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many health professionals provide assessments for her Department; what the process is for ensuring those professionals meet quality standards; and how many such professionals have been removed from post in the last 12 months.


Answered by
Sarah Newton Portrait
Sarah Newton
This question was answered on 25th April 2018

Currently the total number of Health Care Professionals (HCPs) conducting assessments is 3518.

All HCPs conducting assessments are highly trained practitioners who must have at least 2 years post full registration experience or less than 2 years by individual, prior, written agreement with the Department. Requests by providers to employ HCPs with less than 2 years post full registration experience are rare and exceptional. To ensure HCPs deliver high quality assessments they are subject to a rigorous recruitment and approval process, followed by a comprehensive training programme in disability analysis. They also receive coaching and complete Continuous Professional Development modules to ensure their knowledge is kept up to date. All HCPs are subject to the Provider’s audit process and, in addition to this, DWP undertakes independent audit to ensure that the advice provided to the Department’s decision makers is of suitable quality, fully explained and justified.

The providers do not specifically record data on disciplinary or performance management action on quality standards alone.

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