who carries out work capability assessments for esa
Work Capability Assessment In its last term of office New Labour began to phase out Incapacity Benefit and replace it with Employment and Support Allowance. At the same time the Work Capability Assessment became the gateway to the new out-of-work sickness benefit. The policy objectives for the new test were: to accentuate the positive by "looking at what you can do, not what you can't do"; to take into account new disability legislation, changes in the workplace and developments in occupational health; to make the test more stringent; to assess most new claims in person rather than on paper; and, once the new test had bedded in, to use it to re-evaluate virtually every established sickness benefit recipient. To facilitate these last two objectives testing capacity was increased fivefold by employing nurses and physiotherapists to work alongside doctors, and a semi-structured interview technique based on a computer-generated template was used for the first time.[3]
National Healthcareer Association The National Healthcareer Association (NHA) is a national professional certification agency for healthcare workers in the United States.[3] Granting credentials in more than 8 allied health specialties, it is an organizational member of the National Organization for Competency Assurance (NOCA).[4] The National Healthcareer Association partners with educational institutions nationwide with over 350,000 certified individuals. It is one of the largest certification and continuing education providers.[5] The National Healthcareer Association works with health training institutions, hospitals, unions, and the US Defense Department through DANTES; it has approved over 2400 training/testing locations throughout the US and in several countries. These institutions offer allied health programs and use the national certification as their "End Of Program Credential." Healthcare professional certification is different from a license such as a Registered Nurse, or a licensed practical nurse. Although certification is not state mandated and/or regulated in all 50 states, most employers and industry organizations prefer their employees to be certified.[6]