Welfare Reform Bill

I fear that I shall repeat much of what the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, has just said, as I too have quite a few questions about this matter. As he said, there are arguments going both ways as to whether having the two assessments together is a good thing. Citizens advice bureaux have wide experience to draw on in this area and they think that it is unsatisfactory because of the different purposes of the two assessments. However, for any disabled person who is travelling a long way to be assessed, having the two tests on the same day could be beneficial, as the noble Lord said. But for others, it could be confusing and worrying and it may sow distrust between claimants and their personal advisers. We now have a copy of the letter which the Minister wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, about this matter after the Bill’s first day in Committee, from which I gather that the pilot of the work-focused health-related assessment, to be started later this year, will help determine whether the same healthcare professional carries out both health assessments or whether they will be carried out by two different people—I think that that is right. However, what about the decision maker? Will that be the same person? Would any part of the first part of the PCA inform the second work-focused, health-related test? Surely the decision on the first test of the PCA would not always be made immediately, so it would not always be clear whether the second work-focused health assessment was necessary. What would be the point of the second test if it was obvious that the claimant was likely to become a member of the support group? I was going to ask whether a doctor carrying out the second assessment would necessarily be qualified to assess work capabilities and rehabilitational needs, but we now discover that the second test will be carried out by healthcare professionals who will have ““health-related”” skills. The letter states that they will focus on ““health interventions””, so my next question is still relevant. Is a medically led work-focused, health-related assessment necessarily the best way of understanding a person’s anxieties as well as ambitions? I was also concerned by the sentence in the letter which stated that occupational physicians very often discuss an employee’s sickness absence and the steps that can be taken to get the employee back to work, but a short-term sickness absence is very different from a long-term disability. Above all, those who undergo both tests should be dealt with sensitively and with clear explanations given about the purpose of each test.