Time to read
NAT welcomes the findings, released today, within Professor Malcolm Harrington’s independent review of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA)*. We fully support the call for change to ‘improve the fairness and effectiveness of the WCA’ by improving transparency, empathy and communication within the assessment process for Employment Support Allowance (ESA).
NAT were among the 400 organisations and individuals to contribute to the independent review, based on our own research report Unseen disability, Unmet needs – A review of the impact of Work Capability Assessment on people living with HIV**.
Deborah Jack, Chief Executive of NAT (National AIDS Trust), comments:
‘NAT supports the recommendations of the independent review and we were extremely pleased to see some of our concerns included in the final report. Our research has found that the barriers to work experienced by people living with HIV, such fluctuating symptoms, side-effects of treatment, depression, pain and fatigue are not fully taken into account by the WCA.
‘As Professor Harrington notes, this is the first of five independent reviews of the WCA, and there is clearly a long way to go in order to address all of the issues that NAT and other disability organisations have raised around the WCA. In addition, NAT is extremely concerned that the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) will go ahead with plans to migrate 1.5 million incapacity benefit recipients on to ESA from February, without fully considering Professor Harrington’s findings or how to implement them.’