Key facts about Employment and Support Allowance

For new customers, Employment and Support Allowance replaces Incapacity Benefit and Income Support paid on incapacity grounds. Existing Incapacity Benefit or Income Support customers will initially continue to receive their existing benefits, so long as they satisfy the entitlement conditions.

To start their claim, most customers just need to make a single phone call to Jobcentre Plus on 0800 055 66 88, with no initial claim forms to complete or sign.

Customers with speech or hearing difficulties can contact Jobcentre Plus using a textphone on 0800 023 48 88. Calls to 0800 numbers are free from BT landlines but you may have to pay if you use another phone company, a mobile phone, or if you are calling from abroad.

Customers unable to claim by phone can claim via a representative or interpreter, by completing a printed claim form or face-to-face through most Jobcentres.

Employment and Support Allowance offers personalised support and financial help if people are not working due to an illness or disability. It gives people access to a specially trained personal adviser and a wide range of further services.

Central to Employment and Support Allowance are the new medical assessments which examine what people can do, rather than what they can’t, and identify what personal support they might need.

Most people claiming Employment and Support Allowance will be expected to take appropriate steps to help prepare for work, including attending a series of work-focused interviews with a personal adviser.

Under Employment and Support Allowance, if people have an illness or disability that is too severe to undertake any form of work-related activity, they will get increased financial support and will not be expected to prepare for a return to work.