Employment and support allowance (ESA) claimants with chronic conditions which will not improve will not be subject to repeat work capability assessments (WCA) in the future, work and pensions secretary Damian Green has announced.{jcomments on}
Green told the BBC today that:
"If you have got a condition that has made you unfit for work and which can only stay the same or get worse, I think it’s just pointless to just bring someone back again.
"It's the severity of the condition that matters, because indeed there are some people with MS that can work, but we know that it's a degenerative disease so there will come a point when it may well be that they can't work.
"And after that it seems to me that re-testing and reassessing them doesn't do them any good, it might induce anxiety and stress in them, and it is also not doing the system any good because it is pointless."
However, Green made it clear that there was no intention of scrapping retesting for the vast majority of ESA claimants.
It is not clear yet which conditions will be included or how a decision will be made as to whether retesting will be required for a specific claimant.
Further announcements are expected at the Conservative party conference and guidance will have to be produced at some stage. We’ll keep readers posted.
