Coroner’s report describes how disabled woman died after DWP told her she owed £13K

The repeated failures by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that led to a disabled woman’s death – including telling her she owed nearly £13,000 in back-payments after her husband died – have been described in detail for the first time.

The department’s detailed failings were described in a coroner’s summary of the inquest into her death.

The document reveals how DWP sent three letters in quick succession – despite being repeatedly informed not to contact the woman because of her significant mental distress – that told her she owed £768, then £5,323, and finally £12,762.

Six days after the final letter was sent, she took an overdose that led to her death.

Disability News Service has obtained the summary of evidence put together by assistant coroner Fiona Butler at the end of February’s inquest into the death of Nazerine (known as Naz) Anderson, from Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire.

Three of the document’s 13 pages are taken up by an account of DWP’s multiple failings in the months leading to her death.

They expose the flawed universal credit and safeguarding systems, the repeated failures of DWP staff, and the months of distress caused to Anderson by the department’s actions.

These failings began in September 2022 when her case was randomly selected for a “performance measurement review” of her universal credit claim.

Butler concluded that this review was the “recurrent and predominant cause” of her increased anxiety through the seven months in which her mental health deteriorated before she died.

On 2 November, she was told by DWP that there may have been an overpayment of universal credit that her late husband had received before his death, which she could have to repay.

Before November 2022, her depression and anxiety had been managed by medication and “minimal input” from her GP, but after the DWP contact about the review she began to have significant suicidal thoughts and was referred to specialist mental health services.

She was admitted to a mental health unit for two periods of inpatient treatment in December, and Butler concluded that “the trigger stressor” for this was the DWP performance review and the suggestion that she was facing an overpayment debt.

After her discharge in January, she received months of support from the mental health crisis team.

The coroner’s summary details how DWP was repeatedly told of her mental distress and suicidal ideation, and how her work coach failed to record her “vulnerability” on her profile after a phone conversation with her and her daughter on 28 November.

It also reports how DWP work coaches are not able to see entries made by colleagues on the performance review system, so progress reports on the review were not seen by Anderson’s work coach.

After a meeting on 1 December, the work coach again failed to add information about her mental distress on the “additional support tab” of her profile.

This meant the work coach’s colleagues were not able to see this information “at a glance”.

Anderson’s daughter sent a letter with detailed information about her mother’s mental health – including her suicidal ideation and admission to the mental health unit – to the performance review team on 23 December.

The letter also requested that all correspondence should be sent to her – and not her mother – because further correspondence would be “of serious detriment to her health”.

This letter was uploaded to the performance review team’s system, but it was not available to other parts of DWP, including the work coach, and “nothing was done about it”.

Correspondence continued to be directed to Anderson and not her daughter.

On 17 January 2023, following another telephone appointment, the work coach noted Anderson had been “in and out of hospital” because of her mental distress, but they again failed to add information about her mental health to the additional support tab.

In March, Anderson left two messages about the review of her claim on her universal credit online journal, but neither of them was actioned.

It was only on 21 April that her daughter’s letter was finally uploaded onto the main DWP system, four months after she had sent it.

Six days later, a call handler failed to record anything on the additional support tab despite Anderson displaying mental distress during a call, and also failed to alert other staff to the need to communicate with her daughter, despite being told about the letter.

On 3 May, there was yet another DWP call in which Anderson showed mental distress, and which failed to lead to information being added to the additional support tab.

The same day, DWP sent Naz Anderson a letter saying she owed £768, then sent her a second letter the same day saying she owed DWP £5,323.

Eight days later, a third letter was sent, now stating that she owed £12,762.

In the previous four weeks, Anderson had now received six communications from DWP, despite the letter from her daughter.

Six days later, she took an overdose, and was admitted to hospital the following day, but despite treatment she developed multi-organ failure because of the effect of the overdose.

She died on 19 June 2023 at the age of 52, with her family by her side.

Butler found that she had not intended to take her own life.

She concluded: “Those mental health professionals who had worked with Naz throughout 7 months in which her mental health deteriorated gave evidence to me that the recurrent and predominant cause of Naz’s increased anxiety was the DWP performance review.

“I find [on] the basis of the evidence I have heard and read that this was the case.”

She said that Naz Anderson “was dearly loved and is greatly missed” and had “dedicated her life both professionally and at home to caring for others”, as a support worker for people with learning difficulties, as a mother, and as a carer for her late husband.

Following the inquest, Butler sent a prevention of future deaths (PFD) report to DWP, raising serious concerns about its safeguarding failures and calling for action “to prevent future deaths”.

In its response to the PFD report, DWP admitted there were “missed” opportunities to share information about Anderson’s claim, and to consider whether an appointee should act on her behalf.

It also admitted flaws in its systems that meant some staff could not “pin” vital information to claims or use the additional support function on the universal credit system, and claimed it was being redesigned.

It also admitted repeated failings by staff to use the additional support tab that should have alerted those dealing with Naz Anderson’s claim to her support needs.

And it said it was reviewing how it handled cases where a claimant could not manage their own affairs and needed an “appointee” to act on their behalf.

Despite repeated concerns being raised in recent months about safeguarding and the safety of the administration of universal credit and other benefits, none of the main political parties have mentioned the issue in their election manifestos.

The rollout of universal credit to the remaining hundreds of thousands of disabled people still receiving income-related employment and support allowance will begin in September.

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