Now he finds himself facing the daunting task of pushing through changes to incapacity benefit.
Not everyone being assessed on Incapacity Benefit will have a face-to-face meeting with a healthcare professional.
It is not clear how many people have been helped off Incapacity Benefit and into work.
In 1998 the total on incapacity benefit was "1.7m and rising", Blair writes in his memoirs.
Incapacity Benefit reassessment is one of the biggest changes to the welfare system in a generation.
The incapacity benefit will be replaced by an employment-and-support allowance, which will take two forms.
Other disability benefits, with even laxer entry conditions than incapacity benefit, remain largely unchanged.
He found that nearly two-thirds of incapacity benefit claimants had no skills or qualifications at all.
Departmental sources admit that it is proving hard to move people off incapacity benefit.
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What we've got to do is change the attitude of employers rather than those on incapacity benefit.
People receiving unemployment or incapacity benefit can have their state pension credited as though they are working.
Ms Hepburn, a former teacher with MS, was reclassified "fit for work" after five years on incapacity benefit.
And incapacity benefit, which is meant to replace lost income, will be confined to those recently in work.
He estimated that 30% of those seeking to move from Incapacity Benefit to Employment Support Allowance would be rejected.
She said there is a reason that Northern Ireland has the highest number in the UK on Incapacity Benefit.
The department said that of the 941 claimants who have moved from Incapacity Benefit to JSA, 67 secured jobs.
Of the total who were reassessed, 12, 500 were found fit to work and they will lose their Incapacity Benefit.
So in 1995 the Tories replaced Invalidity Benefit with Incapacity Benefit, which required claimants to satisfy an objective medical test.
Not even the rebellious peers were prepared to wreck the whole welfare bill for the sake of more generous Incapacity Benefit.
Once people are on incapacity benefit, they tend to remain on it.
They hope to get one million people off incapacity benefit by 2015.
Incapacity benefit plans face opposition from Labour backbenchers who are concerned vulnerable people may be forced off them, even if unfit for work.
Interestingly, though, Employment and Support Allowance, which is the replacement for Incapacity Benefit, is one of those payments restricted to a 1% rise.
Almost a third of benefit claimants in Northern Ireland who were re-assessed for their entitlement to Incapacity Benefit have been found fit to work.
The government is seeking to reassess all 2.6 million people on incapacity benefit - and its successor, employment and support allowance (ESA) - by 2014.
Last week, peers inflicted three defeats on the coalition over proposed changes to eligibility for employment support allowance (ESA) - formerly known as incapacity benefit.
He promised to support the government if it kept to its promises on issues such as genuine reform of Incapacity Benefit but warned against tax rises.
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Tony Wilson, 34, from Middlesbrough, had been unemployed and receiving incapacity benefit for almost nine years before being referred to the Work Programme through Triage in February 2012.
Incapacity benefit, paid to people too ill to work, was brought in to replace the widely abused invalidity benefit, whose recipients turned out to have included shot-putters and mountaineers.
The universal credit will replace jobseeker's allowance, tax credits, income support, employment and support allowance - formerly known as incapacity benefit - and housing benefits with a single payment.
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