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Social Security Benefits: Disabled

Answer

The employment and support allowance was introduced in October 2008 and has replaced incapacity benefits for new customers. Alongside the employment and support allowance we have introduced a new more robust medical assessment—the work capability assessment, which focuses on what people can do, as well as what they cannot. The number of face-to-face medical assessments for all incapacity benefits completed by Atos Healthcare during each month is as follows:

Month	Assessments
October 2008	55,487
November 2008	52,352
December 2008	45,904
January 2009	53,050
February 2009	49,453
March 2009	68,051
April 2009	63,315
May 2009	64,106
June 2009	66,575
Total	518,293

The number of medical assessments undertaken was, until recently, below the number of cases coming in for assessment, but action has been taken which will by the summer raise these to a level that will clear the accumulated backlog. No additional payments will be made to clear overdue work capability assessments. The prices paid for assessments remain confidential.As at November 2008, there were 2,593,010 incapacity benefit/severe disablement allowance claimants in Great Britain and, based on provisional figures, an additional 51,000 claimants of employment and support allowance.Figures for the number of claimants moving off incapacity benefit/severe disablement allowance are only available for November 2008, one month after the work capability assessment was introduced. Figures for the number of claimants moving off employment and support allowance are not yet available but are expected to be released later this summer.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

496 c1328-9W; 271989

Session

2008-09

Subjects

Disability Social security benefits

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk