Personal Independence Payment: Medical Examinations
(asked on 3rd November 2025) - View Source
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of Personal Independence Payment (a) assessments and (b) reassessments were carried out (i) face-to-face, (ii) remotely and (iii) on paper in each month since July 2024.
In the recent Autumn Budget, the government reenforced a commitment it made in the Pathways to Work Green Paper, to increase face-to-face assessments for disability benefits.
All assessment suppliers have contractual requirements to raise the proportion of assessments conducted in person, and are expected to plan and manage recruitment accordingly, with progress regularly reviewed. The department is working closely with suppliers to boost capacity, with a key focus on recruiting suitably qualified health professional to support delivery in assessment centres Through these measures, the department will meet the government priority to increase the proportion of face-to-face Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessments to 30% from 5% in 2024.
The number and proportion of PIP assessments carried out by channel of assessment from July 2024 until the most recent month available can be found in the table below, with comparative annual figures from 2019 provided below.
Year | Proportion of PIP assessments undertaken face-to-face |
2019 | 83.4% |
2020 | 19.0% |
2021 | 2.9% |
2022 | 6.5% |
2023 | 7.4% |
2024 | 5.0% |
The information is not available in the breakdowns requested for all four Functional Assessment Service (FAS) suppliers for the time-period requested. We can provide data on the total number of assessments (which includes assessments and reassessments) for all four suppliers and for the time-period requested. Data for July 2024 and August 2024 is for pre-FAS contracts, data for September 2024 is a blend of pre-FAS and FAS contracts, data for October 2024 onwards if for FAS contracts.
Month | Face-to-Face | Telephone | Video | Paper-Based | ||||
| Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % |
Jul-24* | 5,700 | 5.4% | 75,000 | 71.4% | 3,000 | 2.8% | 19,000 | 18.3% |
Aug-24* | 3,400 | 3.7% | 70,000 | 74.5% | 2,300 | 2.4% | 17,000 | 18.1% |
Sep-24** | 1,300 | 1.7% | 58,000 | 79.9% | 610 | 0.8% | 13,000 | 17.3% |
Oct-24*** | 2,600 | 2.5% | 81,000 | 78.0% | 1,900 | 1.8% | 18,000 | 17.7% |
Nov-24 | 3,600 | 3.9% | 69,000 | 75.1% | 2,900 | 3.2% | 16,000 | 17.8% |
Dec-24 | 3,000 | 4.2% | 54,000 | 75.8% | 2,200 | 3.1% | 12,000 | 17.0% |
Jan-25 | 4,000 | 4.2% | 72,000 | 76.3% | 3,200 | 3.3% | 15,000 | 16.2% |
Feb-25 | 3,600 | 4.2% | 64,000 | 75.6% | 3,100 | 3.6% | 14,000 | 16.5% |
Mar-25 | 4,200 | 4.6% | 69,000 | 75.0% | 3,400 | 3.7% | 15,000 | 16.6% |
Apr-25 | 4,100 | 4.8% | 65,000 | 75.4% | 3,100 | 3.6% | 14,000 | 16.2% |
May-25 | 4,300 | 5.1% | 63,000 | 75.3% | 3,100 | 3.7% | 13,000 | 15.9% |
Jun-25 | 4,700 | 5.5% | 64,000 | 75.2% | 3,000 | 3.6% | 13,000 | 15.7% |
Jul-25 | 4,800 | 5.2% | 70,000 | 76.5% | 3,200 | 3.5% | 13,000 | 14.7% |
Aug-25 | 3,700 | 4.8% | 58,000 | 76.8% | 2,500 | 3.2% | 11,000 | 15.1% |
Sep-25 | 4,400 | 5.0% | 68,000 | 77.5% | 3,300 | 3.8% | 12,000 | 13.8% |
Please Note
- * Data for July 2024 and August 2024 is for pre-FAS contracts,
- ** Data for September 2024 is a blend of pre-FAS and FAS contracts,
- *** Data for October 2024 onwards if for FAS contracts.
- From 9 September 2024, the start of FAS, there was a ramp-up period to give suppliers time to embed the new contracts.
- Rounding policy used: between 10,000 and 100,000 rounded to nearest 1,000, between 1,000 and 10,000 rounded to nearest 100 and below 1,000 rounded to the nearest 10.
- Numbers may not sum due to rounding; percentages are based on actuals.
- All the above data is derived from unpublished contractual management information produced by the FAS assessment Suppliers which is collected for internal departmental use only and has not been quality assured to Official Statistics Publication standards.