ATOS are nothing but liars

nad1611

Hi
I know how angry you feel. I went very unsuspectingly 15 years ago to my first medical, being a trusting soul I believed everything I said would be taken as the truth, how wrong I was. Virtually everything I said was turned to sound positive I subsequently lost my claim, only to win on Appeal spending approx, 3 minutes in the room, because unlike my assessor they had read everything reports etc.
15 years on has made me the cynical careful person I am today. I agree with rogerblack, suggesting that on one day out of 7 justifies ESA would be a stretch to say the least. All in all you have to be honest and say what you're capable of or not capable of for the majority of the time.
My biggest advice is be well prepared, go through every comment made and state why it's incorrect, where possible add any supporting evidence you can. My second bit of advice is this website (below), they will literally help you through the whole process,you'll see how countless of genuine people have been helped, you won't be disappointed. It does have an annual membership but you'll have updates and emails about all the current news on Welfare, they are absolutely invaluable. Good luck and try and remain calm and focus that energy into his appeal. It sounds as though he would benefit from you going with him. And although my experience of the Appeal Process was a long time ago, they were really nice to me and extremely polite and clear in their advice. I don't think I have heard of anyome complaining about how they were treated at their Appeal.
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk

cit_k

rogerblack wrote: »

Personalising it, and calling people liars does generally not help.

It is very unlikely the assessor was actively lying.

Are there inaccuracies caused by the assessment software, and insufficient care taken on the assessments - certainly at times.

It is important to work out the difference between inaccuracies in the report which upset you, and inaccuracies in the report which make a significant difference to anyone reading it attempting determine his ability as regarding the descriptors.

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/m-06-11.pdf - this document lists the specific descriptors.

If, for example, his ability to hold a door open is not in question, then that would have little relevance to the outcome, though may raise issues about the quality of the assessment.

I disagree, I think it very likely the assessor was lying, after all they have to check the report for errors before signing it off - both a DWP/ATOS duty and a medical ethics duty as well as a legal duty.

So, they lie either that they have checked it, or lie in the first place and trhen lie again that it is accurate.

Either way, they are liars.

cit_k

HB58 wrote: »

I think ATOS staff are paid per assessment, so the temptation will be to get through as many as they can, rather than taking time to do the job properly.

basa2000, you can now get the assessment officially recorded, the claimant is given a copy of the CD before leaving the building.

CD? they have stopped using tapes?

cit_k

lemontart wrote: »

nothing unusual the report we got back was exactly the opposite of what was said and the reality of the situation - took a year for it to be sorted out - may as well not have been there for all the notice they took of what was said in reply to questions.

They have agreed to the next one being recorded so somewhat naively I am am remotely optimistic they will accurately record the answers as given and not make it up.

But prepared for it being the same scenario and having the go through the appeal system again, least this time I can expedite things giving the lies we were fed last time so know what to expect and what needs to be done.

I foudn they still lied even when it was officially recorded, and the decision maker when told to listen to the recording which proves lies, said they had listened to it, and found no problems.

Go figure, it clearly contains proof...

cit_k

dodger1 wrote: »

It's neither unless it's done during a judicial proceeding. An ATOS assessment is not a judicial proceeding.

Not quite true

The course of justice must be in existence at the time of the act(s). The course of justice starts when:

• an event has occurred, from which it can reasonably be expected that an investigation will follow; or
• investigations which could/might bring proceedings have actually started; or
• proceedings have started or are about to start.

It is quite common for judicial investigations to occur in sickness benefit claims, so it is reasonable to assume that a claim for IB or ESA is likely to involve the judiciary at some point - ergo it can be reasonably expected that a investigation will follow in a court.

However, an investigation is already underway - to determine the legal status of fitness for work, and entitlement for benefits, so the assessor lying, when they know the case could be appealed (and the forms are going to be investigated by a decision maker for allocation of public funds) is most likely going to constitute a perversion of the cause of justice.

The documents will also end up at tribunal - as official evidence, as ATOS themeslves (never as far as I know) rarely attend the tribunal.

So the document itself should be taken as official evidence that can be used by the judiciary as well as the authorities in determining benefit entitlement.

nad1611

What I find interesting is how the public have no problem in believing it when they are told benefit claimants lie to defraud but as soon as someone accuses an Assessor of lying, it's case of..."well the assessor must have misunderstood or perhaps the person didn't explain themselves well enough.

If it's not lying when I was asked if I could load washing in a Washing Machine and I said No, and the report read.." can do all her household chores"...what word would you use to describe that action?

seaside

lord i have got my medical on the 18th may think i will ask for it to be recorded. note to self must try and stay calm

Muttleythefrog

seaside wrote: »

lord i have got my medical on the 18th may think i will ask for it to be recorded. note to self must try and stay calm

lol.. I went loopy and have been in the Support Group ever since

I'd be tempted to record it covertly too... I udnerstand they'll get you to sign a declaration imposing restrictions on use of the official copy.

Take any supporting medical evidence that you haven't already placed into the process.

Ellejmorgan

seaside wrote: »

lord i have got my medical on the 18th may think i will ask for it to be recorded. note to self must try and stay calm

That's good in theory but be aware that they will tell you the equipment isn't available and will try to mess you about with appointments..
I would also ask to see a doctor if your condition is complicated or you could end up seeing anyone..

rogerblack

nad1611 wrote: »

What I find interesting is how the public have no problem in believing it when they are told benefit claimants lie to defraud but as soon as someone accuses an Assessor of lying, it's case of..."well the assessor must have misunderstood or perhaps the person didn't explain themselves well enough.

If it's not lying when I was asked if I could load washing in a Washing Machine and I said No, and the report read.." can do all her household chores"...what word would you use to describe that action?

Incompetence, slipshod behavior, just ticking the boxes, negligence, impossible working conditions.

Lying is a positive act.
It requires a decision to lie.

A builder who throws bricks off a roof without looking to see if someones passing by isn't attempting murder, they are being negligent.

To go into the process of getting your decision overturned based on allegation that the health-care-professional (HCP) lied about you raises the obvious issue of why would they?

They have never seen you before in their lives, and you're just one of a dozen people they will see that day.

Unless you're going to claim that they hate all women/black people/people from yorkshire/diddn't like your face, or that ATOS train people to lie - you then run into a problem.

The problems with the work capability assessment as done by ATOS are complex, and not due to a few bad apples in the system that go out of their way to lie.

If this was the case, it'd be simple to fix.

They are systemic, and caused by the whole structure.
The LIMA software plays its part, in that it may - on the basis of the responses to questions asked by the software prefill large amounts of text and conclusions.

The HCP can then go on to edit these into correctness - but...

Considering it from the other side for the moment.
Being a HCP is hard.

You are not simply taking down what the claimant says.
You are trying to ask questions suggested by the LIMA software, select the most appropriate response to the question, then edit the response that LIMA may have filled in for you.
But the claimant may be continuing to talk during this, and both paying attention to the claimant, and the screen is hard!
And the thing they've just said after question 14 may mean you need to go back and edit question 2, and enter text into question 18.
And they're still talking.

Combine this with the fact that some HCPs may be poor typists, and the pressure to see more claimants an hour, and you have a plenty of reasons for why reports are poor, without needing to invoke lying at all.

To address your case.
The 'Can do all her household chores' is probably filled in from some other response you made automatically by the software - perhaps after you'd answered about the washing machine, and was not edited properly afterwards.

The 'washing machine' question was likely not intended to ask about your ability to do the washing machine, but about your ability to 'perform sequential tasks'.

If they then followed up to your 'no' with some other question to assess this - they may not have logged the fact you can't when it comes to the part that generated the 'can do all household tasks'.

For example - you might have been asked at some point 'do you get any help from anybody in the house' - and it then automatically added that phrase when you said no.