The Functional Assessment Services contract will see a new set of contractors providing functional health assessments on behalf of the Department from 2024 to 2029 as an interim service until the Health Assessment Service is delivered in 2029. We asked the Department about the distinction between the Functional Assessment Service and the Health Assessment Service. The Department explained that the interim service would be “very similar to what it does at the moment” but will involve a single contractor delivering both health assessments for PIP and Work Capability Assessments within each geographic region rather than two contractors delivering one type of assessment in each geographical area.30 The NAO’s report found that the Department struggled to recruit healthcare professionals to support its health transformation areas and that it intended to alter the contracts for the functional assessment services so that contractors were responsible for providing the healthcare professionals required to deliver the service.31 The Department believed that it has built sufficient flexibility into the functional assessment service contracts to allow it to bring the contractors in to support the expansion of transformation areas, however this would need to be separately negotiated.32