the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues
Outsourcing companies have been failing to request vital evidence from GPs and social workers that would help disabled people secure the benefits they are entitled to, confidential Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) documents have revealed. The “absolutely shocking” reports, released […]
Scores of healthcare professionals may have been able to continue carrying out disability benefit assessments despite being the subject of multiple complaints about their behaviour, competence and honesty, confidential new documents have revealed. The official reports, prepared by outsourcing giants Capita […]
Nearly one in three of the disability benefit assessment reports completed by a private sector contractor were significantly flawed, confidential Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) documents suggest. The figures were revealed through a government audit of personal independence payment (PIP) […]
The information commissioner has ordered the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to release documents that are likely to expose the widespread failings of two of its disability benefit assessment contractors. DWP has been attempting to prevent the documents being released […]
A nurse carrying out a disability benefit assessment fired questions at a disabled man’s wife while her husband was in the middle of a severe and prolonged series of epileptic seizures just a few feet away. Daniel Marshall, from Dorset, had […]
More than one in eight of all decisions to reject claims for personal independence payment (PIP) are eventually being overturned, new figures obtained by Disability News Service (DNS) have revealed. The figures* show that, of all the PIP claims rejected by […]
A court has ruled that a disabled woman should be awarded £5,000 compensation by the government contractor Atos, after a dishonest report by one of its assessors led to her being awarded the wrong level of benefits. Vanessa Haley, from Huddersfield, […]
The two outsourcing companies paid hundreds of millions of pounds to carry out disability benefit assessments have never met contractual quality standards on the reports their staff write for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), they have told MPs. Capita […]
The healthcare professionals who carry out disability benefit assessments on behalf of the government should be held accountable for failing to report what they are told accurately, MPs have been told. Members of the Commons work and pensions select committee were […]
An inquiry into the government’s flawed disability benefit assessment regime has produced more online evidence from the public than any other investigation ever held by a House of Commons select committee. More than 2,800 submissions had been made to the work […]