New development: the commodification of social security medical assessments—academic analysis and practitioner experience

Machin, R ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2296-2123 and Reynolds, A, 2023. New development: the commodification of social security medical assessments—academic analysis and practitioner experience. Public Money and Management. ISSN 0954-0962

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Abstract

This article explores the issues caused by the commodification of medical assessments which determine eligibility for social security benefits in the UK, with a focus on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)/Universal Credit (UC). Commercial companies have become a mainstay in the assessment processes for welfare benefits, and yet the standard of service they provide has drawn criticism from a wide range of stakeholders. The authors contend that the current system of commodified medical assessments is fundamentally flawed and argue for an alternative approach. However, while the current system remains, it is important that vulnerable benefit claimants are supported with the process and, consequently, the academic analysis in the article is accompanied with a set of best practice guidelines developed by a welfare rights practitioner.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Public Money and Management
Creators:	Machin, R. and Reynolds, A.
Publisher:	Routledge
Date:	15 August 2023
ISSN:	0954-0962
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1080/09540962.2023.2244785 DOI 1792130 Other
Rights:	This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/),which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	16 Aug 2023 10:34
Last Modified:	16 Aug 2023 10:34
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/49573

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