The Disability, Health and Work Minister Justin Tomlinson has recently confirmed that the new integrated assessment service will be tested, trialed and developed in London initially before being rolled out nationally.

The new integrated assessment service for employment and support allowance pilot will include ESA, PIP and Universal Credit.

Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work Justin Tomlinson confirmed in parliament via a written question that testing of this single digital platform had started in a small number of assessment centres in early 2020 . This was detailed in a written statement given in March 2020 which was paused due to the impact of Covid-19.

Mr Tomlinson confirmed this saying “We have been reviewing our delivery plans and expect the IT development to form part the work of the new Departmental Transformation Area. The new Departmental Transformation Area (DTA) will provide a safe environment to test, adapt and learn from new ideas and processes before rolling out at a greater scale, and ultimately nationally.’

He went on to say ‘This approach recognises that our claimants include some of the most vulnerable in society and it is critical that we carefully develop the new integrated health assessment service.’

This combined approach can only be disastrous for disabled people. Combining ESA, PIP with the Universal Credit system that has already been proven to be failing people will have a detrimental affect upon the well being of disabled and ill people.

It will be impossible to incorporate these three benefits fairly and it will leave so many vulnerable people in mental and physical distress.

Mr Tomlinson’s written answer is available from parliament.uk

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