Incapacity Benefit Wrongly Stopped - Failed Medical

cit_k

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Surely that's the fraud rate for people that are caught? How could you measure a fraud rate for undetected fraud?

By analysing a sample of claims, and finding out how many are fruadulent - giving an estimate of the level of fraud in general. Obviously, as with all government statistics, its not going to be 100 percent accurate, but obviously, they analysed a sample, and only 0.5 percent of said sample were fraud.

If fraud was as high as the press make out, then a statistical sample would also reflect that....

DWP stats, not mine...

edit to add - the will also know from reports and investigations the level of how many turn out to be fraud, and how many not...

A picture can be built up of the overall levels - and its according to the dwp a very low percentage that do commit fraud on IB.

strawberry_cupcake_2

Angel89 wrote: »

DO you also now have employment??

Or in receipt of jsa?


(Im not being sarcastic, im just genuinely curious)

No, I cannot claim JSA as I cannot claim to be fit and actively seeking work, and because of the nature of my illness, I cannot go out to work either, so yes, in that respect, I suppose I am letting them win. I could re-appeal, but I can't go through all that stress again.

I have forced myself to accept that I will never win back what i deserve, so i can either let it drag me down further, or just accept it. i wonder how many more people like myself there are out there?

strawberry_cupcake_2

cit_k wrote: »

14 months to get to tribunal - thats a long wait...

If the tribunal had made a 'error in law' it could be looked at again, but Im not sure how long you get to raise a second appeal....

Appeals have been overturned at the commissioners stage (second appeal) - so for anyone with any strength left its worth doing, although I appreciate after 14 months you probably were at your wits end.

The whistle will be blown one day - I just hope its sooner rather than later.

All I know is the answers I gave, were not recorded in the report or changed, either way, they were wrong to the answers i gave. Even the "independant judge" left out some answers I gave, if he had written them down, I definitely would have received enough points, I cant trust any of them, I am waiting on the day someone blows the whistle on this!

alwayshavingago

cit_k wrote: »

If it was something in the bundle, how would he know if it was in the tribunals copy of the bundle? Documents can be in one, but not the other.

How would he know if the judge or chair had raised the issue of any missing documents?

Its possible that documents could go missing from either bundle, its even possible the trbunal may fail to raise the fact of missing evidence in their bundle. In fact, its even happened at a second appeal, where a commissioner had multiple documents missing from his bundle (and pages in the wrong order also) - yet he didn't raise the issue and request the documents - he proceeded with the hearing anyway, despite the missing evidence.

"This task is not made easier by the fact that a few of the material documents are missing from the bundle before me and those that are there are not always in chronological order, but I am fairly confident that I have managed to piece together what has happened."



A possibility as you say - having said that it would be a mistake rather than a deliberate attempt to hide anything or a conspiracy against the claimant. The Chair/Judge can still take it into account at the hearing if it was missing from the Schedule or adjourn, however in my experience missing evidence is very rare.

The evidence from the GP would also need to be relevant to the decision and date being appealed, it would need to support the the descriptors the claimant is stating apply to him.

The OP needs to consider this when providing evidence to support their appeal, what descriptors apply how these differ from the ATOS report - the evidence form the GP or other health professional would need to support the claimants choice of descriptors. It is worth the OP speaking to the GP and explaining what has happened, it depends on the GP but most are happy to provide a factual report giving details of the illness but have little idea of how the individual patient is effected by their condition.

I have never been to a Tribunal where I felt the Chair/Judge was biased and I have never had such a report from any of my colleagues.

If the OP does not agree with a decision they should not be put off appealing I would suggest getting advice first and full written reasons (but please note the time limit) and getting good quality relevant evidence to submit.

seven-day-weekend

strawberry_cupcake wrote: »

All I know is the answers I gave, were not recorded in the report or changed, either way, they were wrong to the answers i gave. Even the "independant judge" left out some answers I gave, if he had written them down, I definitely would have received enough points, I cant trust any of them, I am waiting on the day someone blows the whistle on this!

I actually genuinely find this difficult to believe. I am not calling you a liar, I believe that is how it appears to you.

Perhaps some of the answers you gave were ambiguous and were misconstrued (rather than 'changed'), or not relevant (rather than 'not recorded')?

The bit I find difficult to understand is why these organisations should gang up against anyone. It doesn't matter to them whether you pass the medical or not.

Please do not take offence, I do believe that you are telling it how it is from your point of view, I just find it unbelievable that things really happened that way.

strawberry_cupcake_2

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

I actually genuinely find this difficult to believe. I am not calling you a liar, I believe that is how it appears to you.

Perhaps some of the answers you gave were ambiguous and were misconstrued (rather than 'changed'), or not relevant (rather than 'not recorded')?

The bit I find difficult to understand is why these organisations should gang up against anyone. It doesn't matter to them whether you pass the medical or not.

Please do not take offence, I do believe that you are telling it how it is from your point of view, I just find it unbelievable that things really happened that way.

No, I think I made myself perfectly understood, the answers I gave were indeed relevant, thats why I was so suprised he had omitted from writing them in his report. Excuse me for asking, but why are you so certain that I am either not telling the truth or am just seeing things from "my point of view"? I know what happened on that day, and despite my anxiety problems I am not deluded or paranoid, I am just telling how it happened.

cit_k

as many people do - there are countless examples on numerous sites of this sort of thing happening, but many refuse to believe it happens.

It took a long time for people to believe the earth was not flat also, so dont despair - the truth will come out in the end.

cit_k

alwayshavingago wrote: »

cit_k wrote: »

I have never been to a Tribunal where I felt the Chair/Judge was biased and I have never had such a report from any of my colleagues.

I have not yet had a tribunal where I felt they were biased or unfair, its possible it could happen, as they are only human, or could be having a bad day, or their may be (god forbid but it can happen) a doctor from atos on the panel).

It not very often I read tales of bias in tribunals, I have read examples though, so its not a isolated case from memory, but they seem to be much fewer complaints about bias in tribunals than the actual assessments.

healy

The majority of medical assessments are fair and it is only the minority that are not and they are bound to be highlighted on forums like this as the majority that do not have problems have no reason to post.

Independent tribunals are independent and fair in the vast majority of cases.

cit_k

healy wrote: »

The majority of medical assessments are fair and it is only the minority that are not and they are bound to be highlighted on forums like this as the majority that do not have problems have no reason to post.

Independent tribunals are independent and fair in the vast majority of cases.

True lots do go through without problems, but equally there were 229,000 thousand cases that didnt, last year alone - thats not an insignificant number by any means.

[edit to add]
thats not counting those cases that were turned down but the claimaint was too ill to appeal, and those cases that were overturned after reconsideration and didnt make it to the appeal stage),so the number would obviously be higher.
[/edit to add]

The president of the appeals service didnt think the dwp/atos setup system was working in a fair manner....

In his final report released this month, the President of Appeal Tribunals has slammed the DWP for having made no improvement in the standard of decision making in the last ten years and criticised ATOS doctors for failing to listen to claimants.

Among the main failings of the DWP are:

• A continuing decline in the number of presenting officers attending hearings to put the department’s case and pass on feedback to decision makers.
• Failure to collect all the necessary evidence, especially by simply talking to the claimant.
• Failure to carry out proper reconsiderations when a decision is challenged.
• Medical reports underestimating the severity of the claimant’s disability.
• Failure to listen, or give credibility, to the evidence provided by claimants.
• Decision makers lacking the necessary understanding of how to decide how much weight to give to a medical report.
• Failure to set up systems that allow people with particular disabilities, such as sensory impairments and mental health problems, to make effective use of the claims and appeals process.

In addition, they highlighted the inability of the system to deal with mental health conditions effectively. In particular:

‘Criticism was made of ATOS Healthcare medical practitioners who did not appear to pay sufficient attention to the appellant at the medical examination and who produced findings in medical reports based on observations that were inconsistent, or recorded in the medical report findings that were contradictory.’

Thats from the president of the (as you say, independant) tribunals service, who deal with these cases on a daily basis.
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/latest-news/971-appeals-president-slams-dwp-and-atos