Campaigners have hit out after new figures revealed that hundreds of disabled people in south and west Dorset lost their benefits when they were reassessed for a new government payment.

The government is gradually replacing Disability Living Allowance (DLA) with Personal Independence Payment (PIP) as part of sweeping reforms by the government to change the simplify the benefits system.

Government officials say the new benefit help people pay for disability-related living costs, such as personal carers or mobility aids.

But 600 people who were receiving DLA in both areas had their benefits stopped when they were reassessed for PIP (the new scheme) between April 2013 and October 2017 figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show.

The latest figures show 6,612 were receiving DLA in March 2018 while 5,450 people were receiving the Personal Independence Payment.

Nationally, the figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show 24 per cent of people in Great Britain who received DLA failed to match the new criteria for PIP with disability rights campaigners have branded the move a "scandal."

Ken Butler, welfare rights advisor at Disability Rights UK, said: "The Government's stated aim with PIP was to reduce the disability benefit expenditure by 20%, around £1.5 billion a year. "It was designed to exclude many disabled people from getting help with the extra costs of their disability, including vital help with mobility. That around a quarter of disabled people have lost all their benefit entitlement is a scandal but no surprise. "Unsurprisingly, many disabled people now have no confidence in the PIP reassessment process.

Disability Rights UK want to see an in-house assessment process rather than one ruled by discredited private contractors, but PIP itself needs a fundamental redesign so it becomes a benefit to enable disabled people to lead full, active and independent lives."

James Taylor, head of policy and public affairs at disability charity Scope, said: "It's alarming that a quarter of DLA claimants have lost all support through the move to PIP.

"Scope analysis shows disabled people face extra costs of £570 a month on average. "The hundreds of thousands of disabled people who have lost out on vital financial support didn't suddenly see an end to these additional costs. "Financial support helps to level the playing field between disabled people and non-disabled people, but the current assessment for PIP does not accurately reflect the extra costs disabled people face. It needs a radical overhaul, so it works for disabled people instead of against them."

The criteria for PIP are stricter, and claims are reassessed on a more regular basis campaigners added.

However, a spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said that no claimants will miss out when they get reassessed.