Ask Atos Healthcare disability assessment questions

halight

Atos has many Fingers In the Government pie

http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/mel-kelly/what-on-earth-are-they-doing-to-britains-national-savings-bank

In 1861, the Palmerston government set up the Post Office Savings Bank – a simple savings scheme aiming to encourage ordinary wage earners to “provide for themselves against adversity and ill health”. In 1969 it was split from the Post Office, becoming “National Savings”. Control passed to the Treasury. NS&I (National Savings & Investments) now has around 26 million customers with £100 billion which the government borrows to help finance public spending at an affordable rate for the nation. It is a bank for the public good.

In 1998 Labour Treasury minister Patricia Hewitt announced that the Government had outsourced the day-to-day running of the bank to Siemens IT Solutions and Services for 10 years, effective from 1 April 1999. In 2004 the contract length was “extended” by 50 per cent, without any competitive tendering, handing Siemens control until 2014.

Under the eye of the new coalition government, in December 2010 the French multinational Atos Origin (now known as Atos) acquired Siemens IT Solutions & Services for £720million. (Siemens kept a 15 per cent stake in the new company for five years.)

So Atos took control of the NS&I contract — along with Siemens’s contracts with the Vehicle & Operator Services Agency, the UK Border Agency, the Office of National Statistics and the Welsh Assembly Government. (See Computer Weekly article). Atos already had medical advice contracts with the Department for Work and Pensions and information technology contracts with the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office.

At the time Atos acquired Siemens the NS&I contract was due for renewal: Atos would have to compete to retain it.

In June 2011 the government's Prior Information Notice — designed to make reductions in timescales for competition possible by indicating the possible value of a contract and what is required —valued the new NS&I 8 year contract at between £700 million and £1.5 billion.

By November 2011 the contract value had grown to between £1.25 billion and £2 billion, with a three-year extension option. What’s more, the contract notice reveals that the Government wants the contractor to supply the services provided under the contract to private sector entities as well! A nice piece of business.

In a shock announcement in November 2011 NS&I sounded the death toll on its 150-year relationship with the Post Office. Account holders, who had always been able to make deposits and withdrawals at their local Post Office, would no longer be able to do that. Instead, they’d have to run their accounts by post or by electronic transfer. In other words, they could no longer bank with NS&I alone.

The NS&I also closed its Easy Access Savings Account (with more than a quarter of a million customers) as part of its plan to “encourage customers to save with us directly”.

Customers were offered instead the Direct Saver account, managed over the internet via an ATOS preferred partner site in India, or by telephone. Before people could switch, NS&I slashed the Direct Saver interest rate.

So, a simple savings scheme that helped ordinary wage earners to “provide for themselves against adversity and ill health” has become a lot more complicated, and the idea of the public good has got lost along the way.

FTW

halight wrote: »

Other company's in other walks of life get penalized if they make mistake's
Why not Atos ?

Exactly - Atoss have had far too much of an easy ride for abject failure.

halight wrote: »

Do they have Governments in there pockets, MP's, MEP;s other members of other country's Parliaments?

MPs, definitely. But then, MPs these days amount to nothing more than water-carriers for private companies.

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

sicknotethefirst wrote: »

An interesting recording here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG9a22hbrcY&feature=player_embedded

Dear atos rep

Will you listen to the recording above and give your views as to why its a fair and honest assessment please.

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

Atos_Healthcare_company_representative wrote: »

Hi vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

HCPs will have a base location where they mostly work, but they will also work elsewhere.

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv wrote: »

In that case,if you have another assessment in the future at the same assessment centre,is it possible that you could get the same HCP you had in the past?

Atos_Healthcare_company_representative wrote: »

Hi vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

Yes, it is possible that the same HCP as before would do the assessment.

ANOTHER REMINDER


Dear atos rep

And if the HCP in question was an HCP that i had made a formal complaint about to ATOS and/or to their regulatory body (i.e. the GMC or NMC).Would/could it then still be possible to get the same HCP as before to do the assessment.That is wether or not the complaint is still proceeding or not.

sicknotethefirst

Just read this story online.. another example of why we need to get rid of these so called Hcp's.

“I was sent to an Atos fit-for-work assessment medical. I was unwell at the medical and pointed out I have had 7 heart attacks, 2 of which were within the prior 18 months. At the medical the doctor took my blood pressure with a machine and it read 174 over 145. She said That’s high, so took it on the other arm, and it read 172 over 142. Then the doctor said The machine must be broken, you look fine to me. That is the first time I have known a doctor to see visually that a person’s blood pressure is fine. As I walked out, I asked for my taxi fares, and was told I am not entitled any. As I walked to get a taxi, I got about 50 feet from the medical centre door and had a heart attack…..10 days after the medical I was allowed home (from Hospital), only to find that I was found fit for work in a letter and all my benefits were stopped”.

This cannot be allowed to go on. This Hcp should not be allowed within feet of a sick/disabled person. 'You look fine to me?'

isolation

Quote:
Originally Posted by mazza111
And who is paying for the service given by ATOS? The government. Who's money are the government spending? The people's.

zoominatorone wrote: »

That's correct, the people working who pay tax on their wages, you know, the CONTRIBUTORS to society

Nice to see that is one 'contributor to society' that is happy with ATOS - perhaps they can have you stuffed and mounted in their offices? Personally, as a 'contributor' myself, I find it a disgraceful waste of money which also treats many vulnerable previous and future 'contributors' in a very unfair manner.

Dee
http://dwpnegligence.wordpress.com

isolation

Ificansocanyou wrote: »

If you're entitled surely you claim and get on with it. If you're not, coming on a forum claiming you are based on your opinion won't change anything.

But I feel the point that many are making is that they *are* entitled to this or that benefit but because of an unfair adversarial system created by the DWP and palmed off on ATOS, they do not get the benefit they are entitled to because of false assessment reports.

Sure, coming on here won't change that but challenging the myth that ATOS perform fair assessments and that these are fairly monitored by the DWP is providing a useful response to those who would believe that the current system is providing a useful service in fairly reducing the amount of benefit claimants / scroungers.

Dee
http://dwpnegligence.wordpress.com

isolation

Ificansocanyou wrote: »

Not quite the same as someone saying I want benefit, being advised they're not entitled, then saying they want it anyway just because their opinion tells them they're entitled.

Or in many people's experience:-
Saying I want (/am entitled under current descriptors) benefit
Being told by ATOS / DWP that they're not entitled
Then proving they are entitled to it anyway
But face many months of struggle and stress and no entitled income until they reach tribunal stage when someone impartial eventually looks at their claim.
... but don't let the truth put you off your ranting.

Dee
http://dwpnegligence.wordpress.com

mazza111

Ificansocanyou wrote: »

In many people's experience they may, for example have claimed IB for years, become familiar with the criteria, accepted it as the norm and expected to be entitled based on their status quo.

However reforms set different criteria, in the case of ESA looking for what people are capable of doing, not what they are not, using software to remove subjectivity.

Now when some people are finding objective assessments find them capable of work they go to tribunal where often the decision becomes subjective. After failing the wca test they know the criteria so are often able to present what the tribunal needs to hear/see to have the objective decision overturned. Try claiming someone miffed by the dwp decision, on the border of eligibility wouldn't just say that little extra to get over the line at tribunal.

Sorry, but it's not like that at all. If it was I would agree with you. They didn't even look at my dd's physical ability/disability. The report was full of lies, insignificant lies, but lies none the less. If I read the report without a name, I wouldn't have recognised the dd. Now keep in mind I've had many, many dealings with ATOS over the years. If they had told the truth about the lass, I would have said ok, fairy nuff! But they didn't, the report really was full of lies. And she didn't transfer over from IB. She was a new ESA claimant and the WCA was a farce for her. BTW it turned out ok in the end, because one HCP found her fit for work, the next one put her into support group. It's the difference between one HCP who's heard of her condition and one who hasn't.

Again I'll reiterate. I do believe that there should be some sort of test for people receiving sickness benefits, but the WCA is not fit for purpose. And I don't believe ATOS are. When doing these WCA we need the HCP to be honest.

Former_MSE_Andrea

Hi everyone

I'm going to try to answer a few points raised in the last week or so.

Please report people you feel are trolls by clicking the report button in their post, whether it's on this thread, the Benefits board or anywhere on our forum.

We have 31 million posts on the forum now, the forum isn't moderated (with that many it can't be) and we can't emphasise enough, due to the sheer volume of posts on this forum that's the only way we can know when something's happening - by you telling us. Please do help us to help you.

This goes for all forum users you feel have broken our rules, including company representatives.

Muttleythefrog - I agree with you, it could be a PR exercise, we can't know for sure, (and I hadn't seen that link to the atos page before so thank you to the person who posted that).

What I do know is, at least one person on this thread has thanked atos and said its response has been helpful.

We can't be sure if we hadn't allowed the thread that person would have found the answer they were looking for. Maybe they would have, maybe they wouldn't but it does mean one person has been helped.

There's no obligation to post on this thread, there are many other threads where forum users have been able to help others without Atos' responses.

Where this thread could be useful, is if anyone going through the atos process is told something different they can point to what Atos itself has said on this thread.

We haven't yet decided whether it will continue.

Lastly, to make it absolutely clear, we have no connection with Atos whatsoever other than it being given representative status and permission to answer questions on the forum, as we do with other companies, and no company can pay to be mentioned on our site nor tell us what to write editorially, that's not how we work. The full info about our site is in the About MoneySavingExpert.com and Site Funding pages.

Andrea