Welcome to this new page under development – from October 2025 – to give you more information about much talked about changes coming up for “sickness benefits” which pay a basic income when your ability to work is limited by your health issues.
“Sickness” benefits include:
- Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) – if you become unwell while working for an employer. This has had some minor changes
- Contributory Employment and Support Allowance (C-ESA) – if you have paid the right National Insurance to get this non-means tested benefit when you aren’t getting SSP. No immediate changes, but there are plans to merge this with Contribution-based JSA from April 2028
- Universal Credit (for sickness) – where some big changes are coming up. These start with changes to the amounts for ‘limited capability’ from April 2026 and some other changes. But bigger changes in the way UC deals with health issues are expected from April 2028. For more detail about UC in general please see our Universal Credit pages.
Changes which are NOT now happening
You may have heard about the last Conservative Government’s plans to tighten the Work Capability Asessment (WCA) used by ESA and UC from September 2025. These are NOT now happening. The WCA will stay as it is until its planned abolition from April 2028
If these changes had happened, it would have been much harder to get into the ESA Support Group (known as the LCWRA group under UC) Changes were being made to the LCWRA descriptords for walking and social engagement alongside big restrictions to the rules for treating someone as being in these groups if there would be a serious risk to themselves or others.
As it turns out, the WCA tests are staying as they are until April 2028. Howver, ther WILL be a marked increase in the number of re-assessments under the WCA which had fallen off in recent years.
Changes to Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)
This is the legal minimum sick pay that an employer must pay for up to 28 weeks f you are off sick from work as an employee. It remains the same SSP usually paid at the flat rate of £ a week.
Many employers top this up with extra ‘contractual sick pay’ sometimes to as much as full pay; and some carry on paying something – usually at a lower level later on in a period of sickness.
The change is that more part time workers may be covered as a result of scrapping the minimum earnings rule that meant SSP only applied if you earned over £125 a week. However, this is partly paid for by adjusting the rate of SSP so that you now only get the lowe out of % of your usual pay or £ a week. So that means you will get less than the usual rate of SSP if your earnings are below £ a week.
New measures to support you into work
Most people very much hope to be back in work quickly on becoming unwell. Most sickness absence is for less than a week or 2 and certainly less than a month. For those facing a longer time off, the desire to be back in work is strong as and when health allows.
The Government have brought forward extra resources to help people with health problems find work sooner. These will fund more specialist advisers at DWP to help you overcome the extra difficulties of getting back into work, building links with employers, helping you through training courses and small grants and in negotiating reasonable adaptions in the workplace.
The Right to Try Work Guarantee.: this will strengthen some existing protections if and when you are ready to try work. The Guarantee will promise that:
- you will not be re-assessed under the WCA for at least 6 months on trying out a job
- and you can retain your existing ‘limited capability’ within UC for those same 6 months. Or if your new earnings take you off UC, that you can return to UC at your old rate within 6 months if you find it is too much for your health.
Changes to UC ‘limited capability element’ rates from April 2026
Cuts in the LCWRA element for NEW awards
The biggest change – and cut – will be for people who first qualify for the UC ‘limited capability for work related activity element after April 2026. New awards of the LCWRA element will be paid in two parts:
- the main LCWRA Element will be reduced from the previous £98 a week (£427 a month) to £50 a week (or £2 a month). This will be for everyone newly placed in the UC LCWRA group from April 2026
- some people only will get a top up of the remaining £48 a week (£2 a month) to bring their LCWRA element back to the previous rate of £98 a week (or £ a month). But this will only apply to people newly placed in the LCWRA group who also meet the WCA Severe Conditions Criteria (see below)
What about those already getting the LCWRA element?
If you were placed in the ESA Support/UC LCWRA group before April 2026, then you will carry on at the current full LCWRA element rate of £98 a week (or £427 a month) . However, the amount will be frozen at this level until April 2029
Increase in the UC standard amount
The freeze for existing claimants and cut for those newly awarded the LCWRA element – will be partly eased by a the start of a planned increase in the basic UC standard amount paid to everyone who claim UC. The amounts – whether you are single or claiming as a couple will increase by a little bit more than the usual rate of inflation. The result will be that by April 2029, the rates will be worth about £6 a week more than they would have been.
What are the WCA Severe Conditions Criteria?
These criteria first appeared in 2017 to define the most severely unwell who were going to be exempt from any future WCA re-assessments. It is now to also be used for a very different purpose of limiting the full payment of new awards of LCWRA element. To meet the WCA Severe Conditions Criteria, your health issues must meet all four of the following criteria:
Abolition of the WCA from April 2028
The plan is to abolish the Work Capability Assessment – used by UC and ESA – entirely from April 2028. And with it will go the two UC ‘limited capability’ groups and the two ‘limited capability’ elements that go with them.
Instead, any extra amounts for health difficulties will come via the new UC ‘health element’. This starts life in April 2026 as the top up to some people’s UC ‘ LCWRA element’ (see above). But from April 2028, the UC health element will expand to replace the current limited capability elements with a payment based on your entitlement to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) (or ADP in Scotland)
We don’t yet know the structure and rates for that revised UC health element. So its hard to say – in cash terms who might be better or worse off under this change.
But there are likely winners and losers
There are currently three broad groups among people claiming UC who have health problems:
- 900,000 just get a limited capability element’: because they pass the WCA but have not applied for – or could not get PIP or ADP. The disability benefits are looking at longer term health issues. This group then stand to lose from therir no longer being a payment linked to impacts on ability to work
- 1.2 million get the limited capability elements AND get PIP/ADP. So they may stay about the same losing their limited capability elements but gaining something from the health element instead. Of course that will all depend on how the rates of the new health element will compare
- 700,000 UC claimants just get PIP but do not get a limited capability element: they may be being paid UC as jobseekers, parents, carers or workers who happen to have a disability. They don’t get any ‘limited capability element’ now and might only gain from a new Health element linked to their award for PIP/ADP
What actually happens – for being beeter/worse off – in each group will depend very much on:
- what the rates are set at for the new UC health element; and
- what – if any – transitional protection will be given to those losing their ‘limited capability’ elements
It’s not just the money… UC work requirements will change too.
At the moment being in the UC LCW or LCWRA group also determines what – if anything – you need to do about paid work while on UC. As with ESA, some have ‘no work requirements’ (from being in the ESA Support/UC LCWRA) group) and others have some ‘work preparation requirements’ (from being in the ESA work related activity/UC LCW group)
These two levels of work requirements will stick around after these changes. For example carers also have ‘no work requirements’ and some lead parents of young children are also in the ‘work preparation group. And if one of those other reasons also applies to you, then you will carry on in that group.
But what if it doesn’t? If it is only your ‘limited capability’ status hat decides what level of UC work requirements you have to meet?
The answer is very likely to be the same as the current situation for people awaiting their first Work Capability Asessment (WCA) under UC. Perhaps they have come straight to UC when unwell or been on UC while in work or jobseeking but have now become unwell. This of course does not apply if you start getting UC after passing a WCA under ESA as that will also count for UC.
In that situation, you are placed in the UC ‘all work requirements’ group where the default expectation is the full activity required of a fit and active jobseeker. However, UC work coaches have the discretion to moderate these requirements or waive them altogether for people with health issues until the WCA has placed them into a limited capability group.
So that individual, case by case negotiation with your UC work coach will in future apply to everyone who has health issues under UC, with the threat of sanctions should you be deemed not to do what is expected of you in your Claimant Commitment. There is concern that the current arrangement for some people does not aleways work well, so extending it to everyone may be risky. You may need extra advice and support to get an individual UC Claimant Commitment that is appropriate for you.
No more contradiction between work and health elements
On a more positive note, there will no longer be any apparent contradiction between trying out work and risking any extra UC amount for health. You UC health element will be paid on the basis of your PIP/ADP entitlement. And that has nothing to do with your capability to work.
Big Book of Benefits 