the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is facing its second call to act in consecutive weeks over the impact of the pandemic on disabled people waiting for their benefit claims to be assessed. Last week, Disability News Service (DNS) reported […]
The minister for disabled people has added fresh confusion to the government’s planned social security reforms after apparently misleading a second parliamentary meeting about proposals to merge assessments for disability benefits. Last year, the government confirmed it was pushing ahead with […]
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has halted all face-to-face assessments for sickness and disability benefits for the next three months, in a “precautionary” measure it says will protect disabled people from unnecessary risk of exposure to coronavirus. The move […]
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has caused confusion after refusing to say if a newly-announced trial will test the idea of merging assessments for its two main disability benefits. Justin Tomlinson (pictured), the minister for disabled people, announced this […]
A “staggering” and “horrific” proportion of allegations of disability benefit fraud that are made by the public are eventually found to be completely false, the government’s own figures have revealed. The response by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to […]
Disabled activists have responded to the government’s continuing failure to deal with the dishonesty and inaccuracy of the disability benefit assessment process by launching schemes to ensure that claimants can record their own assessments. Grassroots groups of disabled activists launched two […]
The amount of time that nurses and physiotherapists spend carrying out face-to-face disability benefit assessments can vary hugely, depending on where the test takes place, according to analysis of new Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures. Although the figures do […]
The proportion of disability assessment reports completed by government contractor Atos that were found to be significantly flawed has soared by more than 40 per cent in the last two years. The percentage of substandard Atos* personal independence payment (PIP) reports […]
The government has confirmed that it is pushing ahead with plans to test how it might be able to merge two disability benefit assessments into one, despite comments from a minister that appeared to suggest that no such plans were being […]
Staff working for a discredited benefit assessments contractor threatened to call the police after a claimant asked about the mental health qualifications of the nurse who was assessing his eligibility for personal independence payment (PIP). Atos has now launched an investigation […]