Policy paper

Government response to the Work Capability Assessment independent review – year 4

Government response to Dr Paul Litchfield's independent review of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA).

• From: Department for Work and Pensions
• Published: 27 March 2014

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

Documents

Government's response to the year 4 independent review of the Work Capability Assessment

Ref: ISBN 9781474101462, 2632934 38473 03/14, Cm. 8843

PDF, 610 KB, 43 pages

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Government's response to the year 4 independent review of the Work Capability Assessment (print version)

Ref: ISBN 9781474101455, 2632934 38473 03/14, Cm. 8843

PDF, 620 KB, 48 pages

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Rich Text Format (RTF): Government's response to the year 4 independent review of the Work Capability Assessment

Ref: Cm. 8843

MS Word Document, 6.15 MB

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Welsh: Government's response to the 4 year independent review of the Work Capability Assessment

Ref: ISBN 978-1-78425-129-1, Cm 8843

PDF, 230 KB, 6 pages

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Details

The government welcomes the fourth independent Review of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) published on 12 December 2013, the first to be conducted by Dr Paul Litchfield. Dr Litchfield is Chief Medical Officer and Director of Health, Safety and Wellbeing for BT Group, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Faculty of Occupational Medicine and as such was well placed to carry out the review.

He made 32 recommendations to DWP to improve the WCA.

As a result of Dr Litchfield’s recommendations we will:

• carry out a full impact assessment into the alternative approach to the decision making process as outlined by Dr Litchfield
• continue work already begun with the British Medical Association (BMA) to develop a new ESA113 form for healthcare professionals to use for the collection of further medical evidence
• comprehensively review all letters and forms used in the WCA process – including the Limited Capability for Work Questionnaire (ESA50)

In the response we describe how we will work towards achieving Dr Litchfield’s recommendations to help further improve the WCA.

Published 27 March 2014