Sick? Who gives Atos?
BY NICK SOMMERLAD ON FEBRUARY 16, 2011 11:00 PM

http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2011/02/sick-who-gives-atos.html

Terminally ill forced to take unpaid work?

By Adrian Holliday, Feb 17, 2012


For some long-term sick and disabled people, the future is unpaid - and unlimited - work. That's the stark reality for some if plans by the Department for Work and Pensions come to fruition.

And if you don't work, you could kiss goodbye to your benefits. The move, unsurprisingly, has taken much flak from mental health groups.

Justification?
The line-up includes those, the Guardian reports, with terminal cancer, but have more than six months to live, accident and stroke victims and those with mental health issues.

Matt Taylor, Mind spokesperson, told us he was concerned that people with mental health problems would "need substantial amount of support to return to employment for a whole variety of reasons, stemming from complicated medical factors. We're concerned that being pushed back into work could be damaging for their mental health."

Some individuals involved in the Wrag (work-related activity group) could be forced to do unlimited work experience for charities, high-street shops and public bodies. This contrasts with the eight-week limit for non-disabled jobseekers on a government work experience programme, plus the six-month limit on unpaid work for the community action programme, a program designed to help the very long-term unemployed.

Unpaid, no time limit
The DWP claims the changes will be 'supportive'. Currently there are around 300,000 Wrag (work related activity group) claimants. However there are significant concerns about whether staff in job centres and other agencies will have the expertise to deal with work opportunities for the terminally ill. There will also be profound concern about assessment techniques.

Compulsory work could also put pressure on some people's already-fragile state of health, made worse by the threat of their sole source of income being removed. However, for some, the chance to work again could be an opportunity and restore self-respect, the DWP is likely to argue.

GPC seeks talks with DWP over Atos ‘fitness to work’ scheme concerns

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/newsarticle-content/-/article_display_list/13584314/gpc-seeks-talks-with-dwp-over-atos-fitness-to-work-scheme-concerns

By Andrew McNicoll | 08 Mar 2012 Pulse Online

The GPC is seeking talks with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) after GPs and LMC leaders raised a series of concerns with the tests and appeals process being used in the Government's drive to get patients off benefits.

Leaders of the GPC's Professional Fees Committee are to approach the DWP for talks after LMCs warned that GPs are being swamped with requests from patients asking them to support their appeals to overturn ‘fitness to work' judgements.

The GPC said it was alarmed by the high success of appeals against original fitness to work judgements made under the work capability assessment, with private firm Atos charged with carrying out initial assessments. The DWP said that a quarter of people who have received work capability assessments to date have had appeals heard against rulings by Atos assessors. Of this quarter, 38% have had their fitness to work judgements overturned.

The GPC said it was particularly concerned over the length of time patients are having to wait to have their appeals handled – the latest DWP statistics show that an average appeal takes 24.6 weeks to be completed. The committee said it would be flagging up concerns over the levels of pay for doctors who sit on appeals panels, with concerns that the Government is ‘significantly underpaying' GPs. Doctors are currently paid £371 to sit on social security panels.

Dr John Canning, chair of the GPC's professional fees committee and a GP in Cleveland, said:‘A 40% success rate of appeals suggests the appeals process and the first round are inconsistent in their approach. We have concerns about the process with Atos and how their doctors are remunerated and encouraged to work – that is to do with how the contract is managed.

‘The second bit is how long it takes to get an appeal, it can take up to nine months in some cases and that is incredibly unfair on people. I don't believe that the tribunal service is adequately staffed with doctors – certainly not with doctors who are active in clinical practise.

‘The fees that they pay will not backfill a doctor in active clinical practise for a day. The doctors that they are employing do not have to be licensed, they only have to be registered, so they do not have to go through revalidation. They, we believe, are significantly underpaying in order to attract people who are in active practice.'

Dr John Hughes, secretary of Manchester LMC and a GP in the city, said:‘As part of the Govenrment's drive to get people into work, we have more and more patients getting called in for medicals. The quality of the assessment is sometimes in significant doubt, particularly with patients with psychological and psychiatric conditions. It does appear to be very much a tick box exercise.

‘The patients are then taken off benefits - they then appeal and we then get an increased workload from that because they are advised by third parties that if they are appealing then they have to see us for a further sick note.'

Her Majesty's Courts and Appeals Service, which manages the tribunals, refused to say how many doctors used on tribunal panels are clinically active. But a spokesperson said: ‘Medical members undertake regular training and are subject to appraisal on their judicial and medical skills including ‘in-court' observation to ensure they can make fair and robust decisions based on accurate medical information.'

A DWP spokesperson said: ‘If a 'fit for work' decision is overturned at appeal, it does not necessarily mean that the original decision was inaccurate - often, customers produce new evidence in their appeal. The DWP is working closely with the MoJ and the Tribunals Service to reduce the number of appeals.'

An Atos spokesperson said: ‘ [An] appeal tribunal hears all evidence afresh, including any new evidence that was not available to the original Decision Maker, to decide whether the original decision on benefit entitlement was correct. Thus when an appeal panel reaches a different decision this does not necessarily mean that the original decision lacked validity or the original assessment was not correct.'

How then one has to ask, did DWP manage to invite a Gateshead lady who has 24 hour care and 24 hour 02, in a wheel chair, needs to be toiletted as can't do it for herself, reckon she needs to attend a preparation for work course for 6 weeks. Reported on Look North last Tuesday lunchtime at 13.35 - by 13.45 it was reported that this lady was being approached by themselves that very afternoon. Interesting we haven't heard about this since

Incapacity tests reject 37% of claimants
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17379564

A third of incapacity benefit claimants are fit for work, Government’s OWN figures show

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2115476/A-incapacity-benefit-claimants-fit-work-Government-s-OWN-figures-show.html#ixzz1pEAdOapo

Sickness benefit: 'They try their damnedest to avoid paying'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/mar/19/sickness-benefit-try-avoid-paying

Disabled woman took on welfare system – and won

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/disabled-woman-took-on-welfare-system--and-won-8037165.html

Watchdog finds 'weaknesses' in sickness benefit system http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19244639

NAO criticises Atos benefits contract
Audit criticises Department for Work and Pensions over failure to achieve value for money in medically assessing benefits claims

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/aug/17/nao-criticises-atos-benefits-contract

NAO calls for overhaul of Atos medical assessments

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/newsarticle-content/-/article_display_list/14455105/nao-calls-for-overhaul-of-atos-medical-assessments

Sickness benefit contractor Atos Healthcare to review letters

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19370200

Atos appeal woman Cecilia Burns from Strabane has died http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19433535

Disability protests at benefits contractor Atos HQ
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19437785

Chris Grayling heckled in parliamentary debate as he defended Government use of Atos Healthcare

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/chris-grayling-heckled-in-parliamentary-debate-as-he-defended-government-use-of-atos-healthcare-8104848.html

Atos scandal: Benefits bosses admit over half of people ruled fit to work ended up destitute

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/atos-scandal-benefits-bosses-admit-1344278

Labour calls for review of sickness benefits assessment
Shadow work secretary Liam Byrne defends decision to introduce Work Capability Assessment but admits it is not working

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/sep/26/labour-review-sickness-benefits-assessment

Incapacity benefits appeals heap unpaid work upon GPs

http://www.gponline.com/News/article/1150875/incapacity-benefits-appeals-heap-unpaid-work-upon-gps/

One-legged marine 'not disabled enough' to be allowed benefits

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/913386-one-legged-marine-not-disabled-enough-to-be-allowed-benefits#ixzz285goh27Q

Norwich disabled assessment centre 'inaccessible' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-19700635

Atos Nurse Joyce Drummond Apologises Over 'Ridiculous' Disability Benefits

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/25/atos-nurse-joyce-drummond-disability-benefits-dwp_n_1911928.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

Fear of fitness to work tests driving disabled patients to suicide, say 6% of GPs

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/fear-of-fitness-to-work-tests-driving-disabled-patients-to-suicide-say-6-of-gps-8197432.html

Botched tests deny the disabled their benefits

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9590852/Botched-tests-deny-the-disabled-their-benefits.html

How can it be that a disabled man needs to go on hunger strike just to get heard by Atos?
A man with physical disabilities and mental health issues is on hunger strike in Wales, after having his disability benefits cut

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/how-can-it-be-that-a-disabled-man-needs-to-go-on-hunger-strike-just-to-get-heard-by-atos-8282368.html

Centres 'unfit for work'

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/centres-unfit-for-work-8341100.html

Disabled man abandoned on the second floor of building during Atos fire alarm evacuation

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/disabled-man-abandoned-on-the-second-floor-of-building-during-atos-fire-alarm-evacuation-8376322.html



A disabled man was trapped in a centre run by Atos, which assesses fitness for work, when the fire alarm went off and staff evacuated the building, leaving him behind in his wheelchair.

Geoff Meeghan, 32, who has early-onset Parkinson’s and is unable to walk more than three metres without support, was being assessed on the second floor of a building in Neasden, north-west London.

Disabled people arriving for appointments are supposed to be asked if they can exit the building without assistance, but Mr Meeghan, pictured, was not. He waited with his support worker Nick Ephgrave, from the charity Parkinson’s UK, and his sister, who acts as one of his carers, before being called in for his assessment. A few minutes in, the alarm sounded and the doctor present said they needed to evacuate.

“The doctor held the door open for us to come out but then ran down the stairs and left us there,” Mr Meeghan said. “We weren’t allowed to use the lift and asked a security guard for help – he said he’d send some but no one came. Eventually another security guard came past and stayed with us, even though he had been told to evacuate.

“Even though I can tackle stairs with help, it was a highly stressful situation and I felt like it was far too risky. I was worried that flames might come up the stairs and that I might fall or something. It wasn’t a drill. We could see the fire engine arriving outside. I feel like there was a general lack of respect for disabled people at Atos – they make you feel as though you’ve done something wrong by being disabled – like you’re being persecuted.”

An Atos spokesperson said: “This should never have happened and we apologise unreservedly. We will be getting in contact with Mr Meeghan directly. We have since reviewed this case internally with the building security and management team to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”

How can the Atos boss get a bonus of £1million while disabled people suffer?

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/how-can-the-atos-boss-get-a-bonus-of-1million-while-disabled-people-suffer-8374083.html

Atos comes under attack in emotional Commons debate
Private contractor criticised by MPs who say constituents judged fit to work died or became suicidal soon after assessments

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/17/atos-attack-emotional-commons-debate

Atos subcontracts tests for new disability benefit to NHS
Number of NHS trusts reported to have been contracted to help carry out assessments for personal independence payment

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/17/atos-subcontracts-tests-to-nhs

GPs in south east Wales told not to help benefit appeals http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-23353623

Work fitness tests must improve, say ministers http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23405339

Crisis meetings over shortage of doctors for Atos assessments

http://disabilitynewsservice.com/2013/10/crisis-meetings-over-shortage-of-doctors-for-atos-assessments/

Vulnerable man starved to death after benefits were cut
44-year-old died months after sickness and housing benefits were stopped following Atos fitness-for-work assessment

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/28/man-starved-to-death-after-benefits-cut

Thousands with degenerative conditions classified as 'fit to work in future' – despite no possibility of improvement

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/thousands-with-degenerative-conditions-classified-as-fit-to-work-in-future--despite-no-possibility-of-improvement-9811910.html

Capability assessment waits 'will take 18 months to reduce' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29952335

A disabled peer has warned her own government that tightening social security rules even further could lead to more deaths of benefit claimants, days after Disability News Service (DNS) revealed there had been 60 secret reviews into such tragedies.

http://disabilitynewsservice.com/2014/11/disabled-peer-warns-dwp-tighter-benefit-rules-cause-deaths/