The UK Government recently published the Health and Disability White Paper, which lays out proposed reforms to the benefits system. As part of its shake-up of the welfare system, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has announced plans to scrap the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) to encourage people who need to claim benefits back into work.
It’s important to keep in mind that these planned changes in the White Paper are proposals and will be debated in Parliament before coming into force in 2026/27. WCAs currently provide decisions on whether a person is fit for work for the purpose of their Employment Support Allowance (ESA) or Universal Credit (UC) allowance.
Disability campaigners, including mental health charity Mind, have long-called for reform to, or the scrapping of, the WCA, on the basis that the assessment process is ‘harmful, discriminatory and ineffective’. Mind warns that under the new proposals, instead of undergoing a WCA, the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessment would be used to decide whether a person will receive the new UC health element.
