The Work Capability Assessment phone call: what to expect

A telephone Work Capability Assessment is a structured interview with a healthcare professional working for the DWP assessment provider in your region. It is one of three channels, alongside video and face to face, and the provider picks it from the file rather than from your preference, though you can ask. You are sent a letter with the date, time and channel. The call comes to you, so be somewhere quiet where you can talk without interruption, and allow longer than you expect. The assessor works through the activities the questionnaire covered, your conditions, your medication and treatment, a typical day and your previous work. There is no physical examination on the phone. They write a report and send it to a DWP decision maker, who makes the decision on your claim.

Have your own copy of the questionnaire in front of you. You will be asked about the same activities, and the report is stronger when your answers line up with what you already wrote. Keep your prescription list, recent letters and any symptom diary to hand, because medication is recorded by name and dose. Write down in advance the things you are most likely to underplay: what you have stopped doing, the help you get that you no longer notice, what happens after you push through something. You can have someone with you on the call, and they can speak if you agree that beforehand. If there are dates you cannot make, the questionnaire has a box for the next three months, and telling the provider early is far easier than rearranging later.

Telephone and face to face assessments are audio recorded as standard. You can opt out at any point before or during, and where an opt-out is on the system neither side records, including you on your own device. If you want the recording afterwards the provider has to give you a copy on request, and reasonable requests for more than one copy are allowed. Video assessments currently have no recording facility at all, which is worth knowing before you agree to one. Video recording a consultation is not permitted either way. You, or whoever is with you, can take notes throughout: that right is unconditional, though the notes are your own record rather than an official one, and DWP reserves the right to challenge them later.

Contact the assessment provider, not your jobcentre. Which provider you have depends on where you live, and gov.uk lists them by postcode. Ask early: only one rescheduled appointment is offered per referral, so a second change is recorded as a failure to attend and goes to a decision maker. Reasonable adjustments are a separate request and do not use up that reschedule. DWP and the provider have a duty to consider them, and they cover more than physical access: an interpreter, an assessment in Welsh, a step-free centre, a different channel, or a time of day when your condition is more manageable. Ask in writing where you can, keep a note of when you asked, and repeat the request on the day if it has not carried across.

You can be treated as not having limited capability for work if you fail to attend without a good reason, but the rule has conditions attached. Notice must have been sent, it must have included the time and place, and it must have gone out at least seven days beforehand unless you agreed to shorter notice. If any of that fails, the determination cannot be made. If it holds, you will be asked why you did not attend, and the onus of showing a good reason is on you. Illness on the day counts where you can evidence it. Not receiving the letter can count, and is judged on your circumstances. A consultant telling you the appointment was unnecessary does not. Answer the enquiry: an unanswered letter is what turns a missed call into a stopped element.