19 December 2016

Professor Harrington believes he was never shown work capability assessment (WCA) related peer reviews into claimants’ deaths.

What: Following the DWP freedom of information response received on 16 December, Professor Harrington tells Disability News Service that he has no recollection of being shown the peer reviews into deaths and he is convinced that he would remember being shown “such damning indictments of the system”. Harrington had already told DNS – in 2015 – that he believes he was not shown the Stephen Carré PFD, which would have been available for his first WCA review.

Why significant: His comments appear to show that DWP failed to share with him either the relevant peer reviews in 2012 or the PFD report, despite these documents being clearly crucial to whether the WCA was fit for purpose.