The government’s Health and Disability White Paper, published in March 2023, states that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will test the use of specialist assessors with knowledge of health conditions. The paper goes on to say that ‘assessors will take part in training to specialise in the functional impacts of specific health conditions.’
Headway has been calling for this change for several years through its Right First Time campaign, which has repeatedly highlighted the need for assessments of complex conditions such as brain injury to be carried out by people with expert knowledge.
Sarah Russell, Headway’s Senior Policy and Public Affairs Manager, said: “We are pleased to see that the government plans to trial specialist assessors to conduct assessments for disability benefits.
“For years brain injury survivors have been telling us of their challenges in getting assessors to understand the complexities of their condition when navigating the benefits system.
“The nature of acquired brain injury means that its effects can often be hidden and fluctuating. This, coupled with the added communication challenges some brain injury survivors face, leads to many telling us they felt they were not understood throughout the process.”
Headway has met with the DWP on multiple occasions including back in 2021 when they were consulting on Health and Disability.
Reflecting on those consultation exercises, Sarah said: “We were very happy to meet with the then Minister, Justin Tomlinson MP, alongside brain injury survivors to share our views.
“Whilst we’re pleased that the government heeded our calls to introduce assessors with specialist knowledge of conditions, we wait to see the detail of how these assessors will be trained and what the new scheme would mean in practice for brain injury survivors.”
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