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Policy Paper Published 27 Feb 2015 Department for Work and Pensions ↗ View on GOV.UK

Government response to the Work Capability Assessment independent review year 5

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

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The government welcomes the fifth, and final, independent review of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) published on 27 November 2014, the second 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.

Dr Litchfield made 28 recommendations for DWP to improve the WCA. These relate to a range of issues and include:

  • increasing in the number of people placed in the Employment and Support Allowance support group, especially younger people
  • ensuring that communications are as good as they can be, especially for more vulnerable claimants
  • providing better support for claimants with learning disabilities

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