Social Security Experience Panels: Personal Independence Payment health assessments

Expenses

After attending a health assessment, clients are - in some circumstances - able to make a claim for expenses incurred as a result of travelling to the assessment centre. To identify if there were any possible improvements that could be made to the current expenses system, we asked respondents to tell us their views.

Just over a fifth of respondents had claimed or claimed and received expenses after a health assessment (21 per cent), with over four fifths having not claimed (72 per cent).

Table 18: Respondents who have claimed, or claimed and received expenses after a health assessment (n=118)

Respondents who had claimed expenses tended to be happy with the process.

"[It went]…very quickly and very well. I was paid fuel expenses and it arrived within 10 days in my bank account."

"I received payment for car travel direct into my bank account. This was a good solution as I live in a rural area and use internet banking so a cheque would have been difficult to process."

Respondents differed in the length of time they thought it had taken to receive their expenses after claiming, however most respondents mentioned a time of four weeks or less.

"I completed a form and posted it off. It was dealt with within four weeks."

A minority of respondents were unhappy with the process. Some felt the process was 'more hassle than it was worth'. Others felt that having to be out of pocket before the assessment was not right, and that some clients couldn't afford to be without the money for such a long time. Some respondents suggested that instead of claiming back the mileage, the Department for Work and Pensions should pay a flat rate mileage to the client before the appointment, based on the distance from their home address to the assessment centre.