Work Capability Assessments - have your say

29 July 2010

What are your experiences of the Work Capability Assessment process? If you're affected by Parkinson's and have recently been assessed for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) please respond to a Government call for evidence with your experiences of the system.

It's a real opportunity for you to tell the Government about any difficulties you may have had with assessments and how it's impacted on your quality of life.

The Department of Work and Pensions is undertaking an independent review of the way that fitness to work is judged during the ESA assessment process.

Evidence submitted will be used to create a final report, which will be presented to the Government.

Difficulties with the assessments

Employment and Support Allowance is a benefit paid if your ability to work is limited by ill health and disability. It involves a Work Capability Assessment.

ESA and Incapacity Benefit (which ESA will gradually replace) are an important source of income for nearly half of all people with Parkinson's of working age.

But concerns have increased as more people with Parkinson's have experienced the assessment process and found that it is not acknowledging Parkinson’s and the symptoms of Parkinson's as it should.

In 2009 we asked people with Parkinson's about their experiences of the ESA process - read our report Of little benefit and not working (PDF, 85KB).

We found that many people felt decisions had been wrongly made about fitness to work. This was due to many factors.

Many people thought they'd been rushed through the assessment and that staff had shown a lack of knowledge about Parkinson's, its impact on a person’s health, the way the condition fluctuates and the impact of Parkinson's drugs.

Call for a fairer process

Steve Ford, our Chief Executive, comments:

"Our message to the review team is simple: let’s have an assessment process where staff are better trained and the process recognises the full impact that Parkinson's can have on someone's life.

"You simply can't make snapshot judgements of people's abilities when it comes to a condition like Parkinson's. It's clearly leading to the wrong decisions being made if 4 out of 10 people are successfully overturning the decision on appeal."

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