Concern over ‘gaps’ in safety role of DWP’s chief medical adviser

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been unable to explain why its chief medical adviser has no responsibility for safeguarding across significant parts of its work, including for key roles introduced after a disabled claimant starved to death.

Dr Gail Allsopp, who was appointed the department’s chief medical adviser 16 months ago, was giving evidence as part of an inquiry by the Commons work and pensions committee into “safeguarding vulnerable claimants”.

Allsopp, who still works part-time as a GP, told the committee yesterday (Wednesday) that she was the “senior responsible officer for clinical governance across the department”.

Since her appointment, she said, she had “aligned the clinical governance within the department to that of the NHS” so that it followed “best practice”.

This includes the training of the private sector healthcare professionals who carry out disability benefit assessments on behalf of DWP, and the impact of policy changes on disabled claimants.

But when she was asked for the impact of the recruitment of advanced customer support senior leaders (ACSSLs) following the death of Errol Graham – who starved to death after his out-of-work disability benefits were wrongly removed when he failed to attend a face-to-face assessment – she said they were “not within my remit and my sphere of working”.

She said this was because there were “two sides to DWP” and ACSSLs were linked to the part that related to work coaches and jobcentres.

According to DWP, ACSSLs provide “additional support for customers at serious risk of harm, neglect or abuse”.

Allsopp said: “We do communicate, we do work very closely together, but actually the ACSSLs sit on the side within the jobcentres, which is outwith the remit where I work.”

Asked by Labour’s David Pinto-Duschinsky how she ensured that “proper clinical oversight is applied not just to the assessment side, but to the other side”, she said she had set up a new, director-level clinical governance board with “absolute key people around the table”.

She had earlier been asked by the committee’s chair, Labour’s Debbie Abrahams, whether she had been involved in the government’s decision to means-test winter fuel payments.

Allsopp told her: “We weren’t involved in the winter fuel changes right at the beginning when the policies were being changed because it’s actually not within the disability area.

“My role sits within the disability services area, whereas the winter fuel sat in a slightly different area.

“So we weren’t involved initially, but I have subsequently been.”

She then confirmed that her team mainly covers “the disability benefit area”.

Allsopp said that safeguarding was “a really important part of my work”, and that her team had written a clinical safeguarding policy, which ensures that private sector assessors “follow our safeguarding process”, while she had “helped set up a cross-government safeguarding group”.

When the new disability assessment contracts – awarded to Capita, Serco, Ingeus UK and Maximus – went live last September, DWP took on responsibility for “all of the education and training for the healthcare assessors”, she said.

She said that, with future DWP white and green papers, her team would only be involved if it was “within that disability benefits area”.

After the hearing, Abrahams told DNS: “The committee was keen to hear from the DWP’s chief medical adviser on their role, and welcomed Dr Allsopp’s input to the committee’s Safeguarding Vulnerable Claimants inquiry.

“I was pleased to hear about the development of clinical governance structures within the department, the appointment of a Caldicott Guardian to protect claimants’ data, as well as new safeguarding approaches.

“However, there appears to be some gaps in providing ministers advice on system-wide, prospective analysis of the health effects of proposed policy changes, given the chief medical adviser’s (CMA) remit is quite narrowly defined, and currently only covers certain disability benefits.

“To help with transparency and confidence in the system, I hope that the CMA will be able to publish the advice they have provided to ministers on different policies.”

Last September, DNS reported that DWP had admitted failing to appoint a chief medical adviser for more than five years – between 2017 and 2022 – at a time when the policy decisions of the last Conservative government were causing countless deaths of disabled benefit claimants.

That failure was described by grassroots groups of disabled activists as “criminally negligent” and “absolutely shocking and appalling”.

DWP said its chief medical adviser led its clinical policy team and clinical professionals’ team, as well as overseeing the clinical governance board.

And it said she worked closely with the customer service team that oversees work coaches, while the customer service director was a member of the clinical governance board, which ensures learning is shared across the department.

A DWP spokesperson said: “Supporting claimants is a priority across the department, with support in place to ensure customers are treated with dignity and respect, and claimants with complex needs are given the support they need.

“The chief medical advisor oversees our clinical governance board which considers learning opportunities across the entire department and offers recommendations so that best practices are consistently used to the benefit of all customers.”

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