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The disability benefit assessment system is being undermined by a “pervasive culture of mistrust”, fuelled by widespread claims that assessors are deliberately trying to prevent disabled people receiving the support they are entitled to, according to a committee of MPs. The […]
Disabled campaigners have welcomed a report by MPs on disability benefit assessments, which they say highlights “serious multiple failures”, but many believe it should have done more to highlight the serious “preventable harm” caused by the system. The report by the […]
Ministers have quietly dumped their promise to test a gentler approach to dealing with claimants who breach strict benefit conditions for the first time. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) agreed in October to trial handing out warnings instead of […]
A senior opposition MP is to write to the minister for disabled people to ask how she plans to penalise government contractors Atos and Capita, following last week’s “devastating” revelations about their “shocking” failings in delivering disability benefit assessments. Stephen Lloyd, […]
A watchdog is examining the failure of two healthcare regulators to punish nurses, paramedics and physiotherapists who write dishonest benefit assessment reports. The Professional Standards Authority (PSA) is looking at concerns about the way regulators deal with complaints about nurses, physiotherapists […]
Disabled campaigners have reacted to the political row over the Motability car scheme by calling for the organisation that runs it to use part of its huge financial reserves to increase support for disabled people. Details emerged in a newspaper last […]
A Deaf chief executive has won the right to question the government’s “discriminatory” cap on Access to Work (AtW) payments in the high court, in the latest legal challenge to the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) disability policy agenda. David […]
Lawyers and campaigners have raised fresh concerns about the government’s approach to providing legal advice to people who need help with discrimination and special educational needs (SEN) cases, after ministers abandoned efforts to award new contracts in those areas. The Ministry […]
Disabled activists have attacked the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) for hosting a conference on “choice at the end of life” that was little more than a “love fest for euthanasia”. RSM said before the event that the conference would “question […]
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 […]