Disabled claimants from Huddersfield will no longer have to travel as far as Manchester to see if they still qualify for benefits.
Following pressure from local health campaigners, Atos has agreed to open a benefits assessment centre in Huddersfield.
Local claimants of personal independence payments (PIP), which replaced disability benefits, were previously being sent as far as Manchester and Stockport to see if they qualified.
Atos, which carries out the assessments on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions, says it will open a centre in the ‘Huddersfield area in the early part of 2016’.
The company has began advertising a job vacancy for a team leader to serve the upcoming Huddersfield site.
An Atos Healthcare spokesperson said: “We will be adding to the number of facilities available in the area and will be opening an additional centre in the Huddersfield area in the early part of 2016.
“We are currently working through the legal and site completion processes involved and will confirm further details when all the lease agreements have been concluded.”
The move has been welcomed by government-funded patients’ champion Healthwatch Kirklees.
Shabana Ali, who led the campaign for Healthwatch Kirklees, said: “It looks promising. If it’s right then it’s a good result.
We think that 26 local councillors, carers groups, charities, MPs and community organisations wrote to (Work and Pensions Minister) Ian Duncan Smith asking for a more local PIP assessment centre.
“So it’s a win for all of us, and most importantly for people in receipt of disability benefits in Kirklees and their carers.”
The move was also welcome by Batley and Spen MP Jo Cox and Dewsbury MP Paula Sherriff.
Ms Cox said: “I am delighted Atos have listened to the local voices demanding this change. It is not fair that people, many of whom are disabled, ill or among the most immobile, have to travel so far and for so long in order to have their assessment.
“Almost half a million people live in Kirklees, it is only right that we have our own assessment centre serving those local people who need it. This is why I tabled a motion in parliament asking for the Government to press for a remedy to this.”
Ms Sherriff said: “Having a PIP assessment centre would greatly alleviate the current intolerable situation where distressed constituents are being asked to travel as far as Manchester and Stockport.”
But she added: “I have had many constituents contact me who have been traumatised by the PIP process and have had benefits stopped in very unfair circumstances.
“The PIP assessment process appears to be nothing more than a political move by the government to save money through attacking the most vulnerable in society.”
