Speeches by Dixon.

“We have talked about health transformation, but the other major programme that we discussed when you appeared before us before, or that you told us about, was your service modernisation programme. This relates to the point about customer experience but also to culture change. You briefly touched on this issue right at …”

“But of those that go to appeal, 70% to 80% are upheld in favour of the claimant.”

“The number who succeed on appeal suggests to me that there may be problems with the health assessment not getting it right first time, if the recommendations are then overturned on appeal.”

“The outsourcing of the PIP health assessment has been mentioned; are you confident in the quality of those health assessments?”

“I am sure that some of the people who participate and feed into the Timms review will voice some of the things that both Rachel and I have said about their experience. If improvements can be made, that will be most welcome, but I am sure that more improvements will be desired as we go through the co-production phase.”

“Sorry to have diverted to customer service and the timeliness of phone calls; we were talking about the timeliness of making a claim and the process from start to finish. With the work of the Timms review starting imminently, do you anticipate there being further changes to the PIP process that you will need to incorpo…”

“If it does show the right decision first time, that is not only a cost saving, but a huge reduction in anxiety for claimants who have to go through quite an adversarial appeal process. On people advising you about a change in circumstances, I think part of the reason is that they just do not get through to you. I have …”

“Is there evidence for that?”

“Reduced appeals.”

“And that is anybody across the country.”

“To build on what Rachel said, all of us as MPs have stand-out individual claimants’ experiences that illustrate some of the challenges with PIP and, indeed, with DLA when parents make applications on behalf of children. The case of my constituent Matthew illustrates it well. He made an application for PIP—he has autism…”

“It would be good to get an assurance that that was part of the training.”

“On training, I think there was a commitment in the national suicide prevention strategy that staff in DWP should be getting training to identify and refer as appropriate people who may express suicidal ideation. Has that been included in your additional training?”

“Thank you.”

“It is good to hear that it was about freeing up time to support other claimants. In fact, one of the things that my niece mentioned was prioritising reassessments and work capability, because I think many people are waiting over a year to have an assessment for work capability or to be reassessed, and parking those peo…”

“It is good to see you again. Before we get going, I should declare a conflict of interest: my niece is a work coach, as I mentioned last time. She is certainly full of ideas about things that could be changed, and we may come on to one or two of them later. Obviously, one of the changes we were quite concerned about wh…”

“I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this debate, and I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Member’s Financial Interests. I am an officer of the all-party groups on carers, and on housing and care for older people, and I was formerly chief executive of the Centre for A…”

“Will my hon. Friend give way?”

“As the hon. Member rightly says, ICBs are under a legal duty to commission palliative care services. Does he not recognise that the problems we are having, not just with hospice care but with the lack of availability of palliative and end-of-life care, often come down to poor commissioning—ICBs failing to commission in…”

“I commend my hon. Friend for explaining the problems so clearly, problems that are shared by my elderly residents in Aire Valley Court and Sutton Court in Bingley. They too have seen above-inflation rises in service charges and a lack of transparency about accounts, with no evidence to justify them. Does my hon. Friend…”