§ 5. Mr. Mohammad Sarwar (Glasgow, Govan)How many claimants receive attendance allowance; and what plans he has to improve the application process for this benefit. [120940]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Bayley)Just over 1.25 million people currently receive attendance allowance, and the number continues to rise. The Benefits Agency is keen to improve the services that it provides and to reduce the number of unsuccessful attendance allowance claims. It is trialling new ways of taking claims, which will make the process more accurate and sensitive to the needs of claimants. The trials will include home visits to gather the required information, instead of claimants having to complete a lengthy questionnaire.
§ Mr. SarwarI thank my hon. Friend for his answer. Many of my constituents who used to lead independent lives now need care and assistance from family, friends and Government. Will my hon. Friend assure me that those who clearly deserve attendance allowance will no longer have to humiliate themselves during a complicated application process?
§ Mr. BayleyThe number of people qualifying for attendance allowance continues to rise. During our first two years in government, the number receiving it rose by some 45,000. We are very conscious that filling in the forms is difficult for some elderly people, especially the elderly confused. That is why we are testing a new way of taking claims, involving a Benefits Agency officer 10 visiting the person concerned, sitting down with him or her and orally collecting the information needed for the form to be filled in. We hope that that will help.
§ Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West)One of the recommendations of the recent report on medical services by the Select Committee on Social Security was that sessional doctors who carry out assessments for attendance allowance should have the proper amount of training from the Sema Group to honour contractual obligations. In response to that, I have received representations from a constituent, who is a doctor, saying that Sema is prepared to provide the training, but not to pay the doctors for it. Has the Minister any leverage over that?
§ Mr. BayleyIf the hon. Gentleman has an individual case to bring to my attention, he should do so, but let me tell him what the Government inherited and what we are doing about it. We inherited a training regime for the doctors who work for the Benefits Agency that was entirely ad hoc and that was run by a senior doctor in each boarding centre, but not against a national protocol. That meant that doctors were trained to different standards and to interpret evidence in different ways in different parts of the country. That led to confusion and to different decisions by Benefits Agency decision makers in different parts of the country.
That was unacceptable, and we are changing that. We have established a national system of training. For the first time, we are using trained trainers—trained postgraduate medical trainers—to deliver that training. We are improving the training available to doctors. We are extremely concerned that Sema did not fulfil its quota of days for training, for which it has been paid, in its first year. We will ensure that it makes up the shortfall in its second year.
§ Mr. Andrew George (St. Ives)Further to the point raised by the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne), what assessment has the Minister made of the Select Committee's finding that inaccurate assessments by examining medical practitioners are often given greater weight by appeal tribunals than those by consultants or general practitioners, and that examinations by EMPs are far too brief? What action will the Minister take to ensure that those assessments are improved?
§ Mr. BayleyIf the hon. Gentleman had read the report in detail, he would have been aware of the many actions that we are taking. First, the Benefits Agency gives equal weight to all evidence, irrespective of the source—whether it be from a general practitioner, an examining medical practitioner engaged by the agency, or a hospital consultant. Secondly, there is no limit on the time that EMPs spend on an assessment. They are under instructions to spend whatever time is necessary to produce a report that will enable the questions that have been asked by the decision maker to be answered.