Adaptions were made to the assessment process with face-to-face assessments being suspended and replaced by telephone and paper-based reviews.

Coronavirus has impacted most, if not all state benefits in some way and today, Thérèse Coffey (the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions) and John Paul Marks (the Director General, Work and Health Services) took questions on how the DWP will continue to respond to coronavirus in the coming months.

During these questions, the issue of assessments came up with the DWP being questioned on if they’ve considered introducing video conferencing in light of other organisations taking advantage of Zoom and the like.

In responding to this, Thérèse Coffey noted DWP attempted to get additional funding for video assessment plans but weren’t successful.

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