Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the financial effect of enabling registered healthcare professionals to make clinical judgments about whether illnesses are terminal without using the six-month time limit.
No such assessment has been made. However, the Department has recently engaged with leading clinicians to discuss the current wording and guidance used in the benefit system around terminal illness, with the aim of improving understanding of the Special Rules process and to consider proposed suggestions for improvement. We will also shortly be engaging with disability charities, such as the Motor Neurone Disease Association and others to help inform this work.