April 2016

Capita faces fresh calls to be stripped of personal independence payment (PIP) contracts after release of Channel 4 undercover footage. 

What: Undercover filming for Channel 4’s Dispatches about PIP assessments shows Capita’s chief medical officer telling a trainee assessor that the company needs its assessors “to be doing as many assessments a day as you can possibly manage”, and to “forget your mental health background and park it to one side” when carrying out assessments. Undercover footage also shows one experienced assessor, Alan Barham, admitting that he sometimes completes his assessment reports before even meeting the claimants, which he says is standard practice.

Why significant: Fresh evidence of serious concerns about the outsourced PIP assessment programme.