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Health Transformation Programme
19 February 2024 - DWP publishes guidance for clinicians on the severe disability group and the simplified assessment processes for PIP and LCWRA
https://www.rightsnet.org.uk/welfare-rights/news/item/dwp-publishes-guidance-for-clinicians-on-the-severe-disability-group-and-the-simplified-assessment-processes-for-pip-and-lcwra
May not technically be HTP, just White Paper
12 March 2024 ‘the Health Transformation Programme will transform the entire PIP service to simplify and shorten the application process for all PIP claimants’ https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2024-03-04.16698.h
[edited to fix link]
[ Edited: 18 Apr 2024 at 03:05 pm by Carri ]19 March 2024 - Health Transformation Programme management information to January 2024
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-transformation-programme-management-information-to-january-2024
25 March 2024: DWP’s own research into PIP claimants’ ‘channel preferences’ with some comments on the prospects of online-only PIP https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/digital-skills-channel-preference-and-access-needs-personal-independence-payment-customers
26 March 2024: DWP confirms it is testing the sharing of health assessment reports with PIP claimants by default before a decision is made
https://www.rightsnet.org.uk/welfare-rights/news/item/dwp-confirms-it-is-testing-the-sharing-of-health-assessment-reports-with-pip-claimants-by-default-before-a-decision-is-made
26 March 2024 - update on ‘specialist assessors’ trial
‘As the term “specialist” has a very specific meaning in a medical context, the decision has been made to rename the initiative to “Condition Focused Assessors” to avoid misalignment with clinical definitions. The ambition and intent of the initiative remains the same. In September 2023, we began a small-scale test matching certain PIP claimants’ primary health condition to an existing healthcare professional (HCP) with relevant clinical experience. This test ran until January 2024, at which point it was expanded to cover claimants with multiple conditions. (...) Initial exploratory research will be published later this year.’
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-03-19/19455
19 April 2024
PIP (and fit note) overhaul proposals part of PM’s speech: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/prime-ministers-speech-on-welfare-19-april-2024
If they actually happen, they obviously overshadow all the nonsense in this thread so far
Edited to add:
29 April 2024
Consultation/Green Paper published:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/modernising-support-for-independent-living-the-health-and-disability-green-paper/modernising-support-for-independent-living-the-health-and-disability-green-paper
It’s a ‘political if’. ‘Political if’ = won’t happen, couldn’t happen, not intended to happen but generates a headline.
29 November 2023 - Public Accounts Committee report on the HTP
TL;DR
‘...we believe the greatest risk to the programme is that the Department focuses exclusively on the delivery of a new digitalised service, without achieving the important transformational change in the experience of claimants on which the wider benefits of the programme rely.’‘
Just an update - DWP Permanent Secretary Peter Schofield has written to the Committee to say that, while the Department agreed with the recommendation to publish a revised Health Transformation Programme business case by Spring 2024, ‘unexpected delays’ in obtaining the necessary inter-departmental approval of the revised business case mean that it has revised the publication date to Summer 2024.