Ask Atos Healthcare disability assessment questions

strangeotron

I thought, perhaps foolishly, that the DWP made the decision as to whether the person goes into the support group or WRAG or neither?

Not that I'm excusing ATOS at all; clearly they are malevolent. The DWP probably just follows their recommendations, in a tick box exercises, to the letter.

The whole thing is a debacle, but this is an interesting point.

nogginthenog

Fridge3 wrote: »

I didn't say it was fair or otherwise, just their deaths aren't attributable to wrag.

Many people also continue to work with diseases in most of those groups; it doesn't follow that their work killed them either.
People are often stressed by working when they'd rather not and remains to be seen if that's on a larger scale people being found fit for work when they'd rather not.

Its not a case of attributing, It's simply a case that if you are unfortunate enough to need the "services" of ATOS. you are 21+ more times likely to need the services of a undertaker.than someone who thinks they dont need to claim sickness benefits.

Never the less these claimants should have singled out by ATOS and highlighted as having a increased mortality risk before the interigation.

Which proves without doubt that the system is failing genuinely very sick and disabled claimants.

schrodie

strangeotron wrote: »

I thought, perhaps foolishly, that the DWP made the decision as to whether the person goes into the support group or WRAG or neither?

Not that I'm excusing ATOS at all; clearly they are malevolent. The DWP probably just follows their recommendations, in a tick box exercises, to the letter.

The whole thing is a debacle, but this is an interesting point.

For a long time now the DWP have taken what these "medically qualified" (and I use that term very very loosely)people from Atos have told them whilst ignoring the medical evidence given to them from medically qualified doctors and consultants.

Harrington did highlight this practice and the DWP said it would "do something about it"!! However given the continuing high number of sub-standard WCAs being carried out by Atos and the high number of successful appeals against these sub-standard WCAs we can only assume that the DWP hasn't quite got it right......yet. I wonder why!!!

halight

The government’s Work Capability Assessment for disabled people is one of the toughest in the world – it is not fit for purpose

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/archives/10325

Case studies have repeatedly shown the inhumanity of a system based on government targets and the pain and misery of the increasing stringency of these tests. One example from the 2010 Citizens Advice Bureau’s report on ESA and WCA testing procedures highlights the experiences that someone considered ‘fit for work’ through WCA might endure:

[QUOTEShe was in a great deal of pain in her muscles and joints and had extreme fatigue. At times her balance was affected and she could not walk without someone to support her. Sometimes she lost sensation in her legs, and on her worst days she could not walk at all. Any exertion such as walking 40 or 50 metres led to days in bed. She had had a bad reaction to some of the treatment and an ECG showed her heart muscle had been damaged. Her husband had to come home from work each lunchtime to help her. Her immune system was weakened, so she had to be careful when mixing with others. She claimed ESA but was given six points in the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) and found capable of work. Her doctor supported her claim and she is currently appealing, but under Incapacity Benefit she would probably have been exempt and would have avoided this process.][/QUOTE]

One estimate claims that up to 500,000 people have been wrongly denied Incapacity status. In the Guardian, Amelia Gentlemen reminds us that since its rollout people with terminal illness have been found ‘fit for work’, those with mental health issues have said the system cannot appreciate complexities of mental health, and others that the tick box system is unable to cope with any nuances of long term impairments or illness.

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

Moreover Atos’s own staff have said the assessments are too harsh. Prospect, the trade union who represent 135 Atos doctors, has also stated that the target of seeing ten or more people a day is unrealistic and will lead to wrong assessments, especially in complex cases.

An overwhelming 69 per cent of those going through the WCA process had ‘multiple health conditions’, with 81 per cent of people receiving medical treatment for their condition and 38 per cent waiting for treatment or additional treatment in all ESA groups. These statistics do not present us with a set of fraudsters pretending to be sick or disabled, nor a set of individuals who have been languishing on incapacity benefits for years; in fact 71 per cent of applicants to ESA were new claimants making their first ever claim.

=========

halight

The discredited WCA

The WCA is not really about assessing fitness for work, nor supporting people into work. The ‘capability’ tests were always part of a mutual interdependence between successive Governments’ need to reduce social claims on the state and business identifying financial benefit in such a process. The misery it causes is deemed irrelevant by all parties.

The 2011 manual issued by the DWP to Atos provided new regulations including:

…infrequent loss of consciousness would not substantially impact on a person’s ability to work and therefore only those experiencing weekly or monthly episodes of loss of consciousness will be awarded scoring descriptors.

Thus if you spontaneously lose consciousness once every five weeks, you will be assessed as ‘fit for work’. This is one example of the non reality of new WCA ‘fit for work’ standards. It undermines the logic, and the economic and social realities of any reasonable employment criteria. The WCA is presented under the guise of state and market efficiency. It serves neither criterion.

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/archives/10325

halight

[QUOTEMoreover Atos’s own staff have said the assessments are too harsh. Prospect, the trade union who represent 135 Atos doctors, has also stated that the target of seeing ten or more people a day is unrealistic and will lead to wrong assessments, especially in complex cases.][/QUOTE]

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/archives/10325



Did The Atos PR Rep tell us that there were no targets what so ever?

halight

JS477

The last labour mob brought in the WCA to throw at least 1million off IB now we have the nastier tories who are taking the WCA further to also deny genuine sick and disdabled people getting benefits.

To achieve this target they are using their friends at Atos who are doing their bidding for £100 million a year plus the £millions in successful appeals against Atos's sub-standard WCAs!

FTW

mazza111 wrote: »

So you think it's quite fair that these people who have died days/weeks after assessment have been treated fairly by ATOS?

Whether the blame lies with ATOS or not remains to be seen. But the stress that's caused when genuinely sick people are found fit for work is horrendous and until you've been through it yourself, you really don't have a clue.

No, he doesn't, since he never has experienced the assessment process - yet he thinks he knows better than anyone who has.

FTW

Mordred12 wrote: »

Someone i know had a Atos Assessment and the Doctor contradicted himself a lot on the report....

The Atos doctor wrote that she Cried during the assessment and that she was nervous, timid and was very quiet when spoken to. The overall summary he wrote was that she was fine in the Interview.

They was other bits what didn't really make sense, When asked "Do you go out to the pub?" She said "No I haven't been for 5 years to a pub" The Atos doctor wrote She often goes out to socialize.

When asked "Do you go shopping?" She said "No my boyfriend does it for me as I have problems going out alone" The doctor wrote Goes out with boyfriend to do shopping. No problems shopping.

How can this be a fair assessment in anybody's eyes, Was it the doctor who simply misunderstood or did he make his own assumptions?

I will just add she failed the Atos Assessment and has just had her appeal, we was around 10 minutes in the appeal and she was awarded Esa, Let me also add that NO NEW EVIDENCE had been introduced at the appeal. The Judge came to the decision based on exactly the same evidence that the Atos doctor had to look at.

Now please tell me how that is a fair assessment?

A quick edit for anyone thinking I am having a go at the Atos doctor, I am not. I believe the computer puts in a stock answer at the end of a sentence in the reports...Eg.. The Atos doctor wrote that she Cried during the assessment and that she was nervous, timid and was very quiet when spoken to. The overall summary he wrote was that she was fine in the Interview. In that the Atos doctor reported the truth right up until the bolded bit, I think the doctor has wrote his observations (which remember was the truth) then the computer gave a stock answer that she was fine, hence 0 points for any of the social descriptors.

I don't believe the Atos doctor lies, I believe it's the computer's stock answers that are weighed to fail a person.

You're right about that.