Department for Work and Pensions written question – answered at on 13 July 2018.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to improve and simplify the application process for personal independence payment.
The Department is continually working to improve the claimant journey for Personal Independence Payment (PIP). We have recently conducted a review of all claimant communications, as explained in the Department’s response to the independent reviews into PIP by Paul Gray. This response can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/personal-independence-payment-pip-assessment-second-independent-review-government-response.
We have recently introduced the Video Relay Service for those with communication difficulties who use British Sign Language (BSL) so they are able to communicate with the Department more easily and also ‘Next Generation Text’ (NGT) for Deaf or hard of hearing claimants unable to use BSL or those unable to speak.
In April 2018, we launched a series of videos which outline the PIP claim process in a simple and clear way, and which will better prepare claimants for an assessment.
We are undertaking some research to help us understand how application forms could be improved. External contractors will conduct independent research and we envisage that this will consist of three specific stages:
This work will be independently evaluated. The first stage of this work will commence in summer 2018 with stages 2 and 3 following sequentially. A standalone report covering all three stages of the research will be published in 2019.
As part of our commitment to improve the PIP assessment process, we are exploring options to video record PIP face to face assessments. We are starting the test this summer, which will inform wider rollout decisions.
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