ATOS loses ESA & PIP Assessment Contract

melbury

tokenfield wrote: »

Surely you don't want ESA to go down the same road as IB did with 1000's of claimants being able to stay on that benefit for years simply because no real checks or assessments were carried out or people saw that being on IB was the easier option that claiming Unemployment Benefit?

Whenever I have stated this, people jump down my throat and insist that IB was just as hard to get and thoroughly monitored as ESA, which of course anyway who has claimed ESA knows is a load of cobblers and that is why many people being transferred from IB to ESA are worried;)

tokenfield

schrodie wrote: »

PS The longest you can be in the SG for is 3 years before reassessment.

Correct. I was in the SG for 3 years from Jan 2010 and then given another 3 years in Jan 2013. However I will be 65 next June, so the ESA will cease then anyhow to be replaced by my State Pension.

I had an assessment in Jan 2010 and qualified quite easily. The Jan 2013 review consisted of the ESA50 only which was enough to put me back where I was.

tokenfield

schrodie wrote: »

The reason why doctors carrying out assessments was changed to "any old healthcare person" being able to was purely cost. What atos did was devise their own computer software program to carry out these assessments. The one size invariant way LIMA works is totally unsuitable as has been found to be the case especially for mental health cases. Despite atos and their supporters saying that LIMA is only one aspect of the assessment process it is the main one that drives the assessment and produces the report the DWP DM rubber stamps.

Maybe but my experience of the ATOS assessment was quite the opposite. I have multiple physical disabilities as well as some mental health ones. The assessor's report covered them all in good detail.
I presume that the DWP did 'rubber stamp' mine as ATOS recommended SG for 3 years which is what I was awarded.

Widelats

melbury wrote: »

Whenever I have stated this, people jump down my throat and insist that IB was just as hard to get and thoroughly monitored as ESA, which of course anyway who has claimed ESA knows is a load of cobblers and that is why many people being transferred from IB to ESA are worried;)

No, as i remember basically anyone could have got IB they just needed a doctors note, not at all like getting ESA - i also remember lots of people drinking their benefits away in the pub every day, nothing wrong with them, i grew up in this kind of environment.

I blame the Thatcher era for the massive numbers of people on IB, and they are complaining now that the party is over for them, not all people i may add, lots of IB and ESA claimants are very genuine.

tokenfield

melbury wrote: »

Whenever I have stated this, people jump down my throat and insist that IB was just as hard to get and thoroughly monitored as ESA, which of course anyway who has claimed ESA knows is a load of cobblers and that is why many people being transferred from IB to ESA are worried;)

Of course IB was nothing more than a 'car park' for those that had any old illness and if they didn't they were put in there by the Jobcentre, taken off the 'dole register', having been advised to go to the GP and get a sick note for stress.

How do I know?

I claimed IB from 1996 to 2004 and not once did any department re-assess me or check if I was any fitter. They relied on the fact that I was receiving HRC & LRM of DLA (which was another ridiculously easy benefit to get in 1995). for life. It gave me a gateway so that nobody would check my ongoing IB claim. They just assumed that as I was getting the DLA, I must be ill.
It got to a point in 2004 that I became embarrassed with the way I was just being handed money every week when I knew I could, if I wished, go back to work full time.
My conscience got the better and closed the IB claim down and didn't reply to any of the DWP's requests when they were trying to review my DLA. Surprisingly and even though I never returned the DLA review forms, they made a decision based on previous medical reports and stopped the HRC award but carried on with the LRM award indefinitely!

I then went back to work until 2009 when I then decided that I didn't like the new system of 'meeting targets'. It wasn't the way I did my job - the results were more important. So I jumped ship, took my pension and claimed ESA.

So yes IB was a complete joke - there were as many awarded it that were genuine as there were scroungers who didn't deserve it.

I agree, those that are worried about the transfer over to esa will probably be those that can see an end to 'easy street' and for the first time someone is going to delve into their 'sickness' a lot more thoroughly.

schrodie

tokenfield wrote: »

Maybe but my experience of the ATOS assessment was quite the opposite. I have multiple physical disabilities as well as some mental health ones. The assessor's report covered them all in good detail.
I presume that the DWP did 'rubber stamp' mine as ATOS recommended SG for 3 years which is what I was awarded.

The problem is that you have said that 'Everyone CAN do some work.' which means that according to YOU someone who is in the Support Group by virtue of being in a Persistent Vegetative State or a long term coma or having a severely mental and/or physical handicap can work?

schrodie

Widelats wrote: »

No, as i remember basically anyone could have got IB they just needed a doctors note, not at all like getting ESA - i also remember lots of people drinking their benefits away in the pub every day, nothing wrong with them, i grew up in this kind of environment.

I blame the Thatcher era for the massive numbers of people on IB, and they are complaining now that the party is over for them, not all people i may add, lots of IB and ESA claimants are very genuine.

Thatcher's mob placed many thousands on Invalidity Benefit and IB to keep the unemployment figures fro getting even higher than the 3 million her government had created, the IB hiding was continued under labour. However you needed to be assessed by a DWP doctor after being on the sick (I think ) for 28 weeks if you wanted to go onto (long term) IB.

sunnyone

Brassedoff wrote: »

Having posted on here 4296 times, you can clearly use a computer. I too am in a wheelchair. I have three people provide care for me, yet I converted myself from my former career, retrained myself. Took the plunge and re-entered into self employment, it took two years to get enough clients, but there are so many firms who cannot employ someone to do my role full time, but jump at the change to buy hours off me. I sell up to 60 hours a week and enjoy 80% full bookings!

If you are as caperble as you claim you would have looked at the full stats. of my posting history and not just the total which is posted alongside my name, I rarely post now due to my disabilities.

I use a computor for a few hours per week, I wish I could manage longer but I cant, I am a trier so I try to get as much PT/OT etc. as possible to improve my condition, even decades after my accident when my docs. say there is no chance of improvement.

You might be in a wheelchair but your upper body works, mine dosnt because I had scoliosis and other spinal problems pre crash and I have developed several conditions which pile on top of these since then such as RA in my hands, Dupatron cotracture (sp) and I also have a tumour in my none dom. hand.

Not everyone can work, I want to but Im too disabled to work.

schrodie

sunnyone wrote: »

Not everyone can work, I want to but Im too disabled to work.

According to tokenfield (who managed to get into the Support Group of ESA and apparently does "some work) 'Everyone CAN do some work.'

So by their logic if they're in the SG and "works" then everyone can!!!

Parva

tokenfield wrote: »

Of course IB was nothing more than a 'car park' for those that had any old illness and if they didn't they were put in there by the Jobcentre, taken off the 'dole register', having been advised to go to the GP and get a sick note for stress.

How do I know?

I claimed IB from 1996 to 2004 and not once did any department re-assess me or check if I was any fitter. They relied on the fact that I was receiving HRC & LRM of DLA (which was another ridiculously easy benefit to get in 1995). for life. It gave me a gateway so that nobody would check my ongoing IB claim. They just assumed that as I was getting the DLA, I must be ill.
It got to a point in 2004 that I became embarrassed with the way I was just being handed money every week when I knew I could, if I wished, go back to work full time.
My conscience got the better and closed the IB claim down and didn't reply to any of the DWP's requests when they were trying to review my DLA. Surprisingly and even though I never returned the DLA review forms, they made a decision based on previous medical reports and stopped the HRC award but carried on with the LRM award indefinitely!

I then went back to work until 2009 when I then decided that I didn't like the new system of 'meeting targets'. It wasn't the way I did my job - the results were more important. So I jumped ship, took my pension and claimed ESA.

So yes IB was a complete joke - there were as many awarded it that were genuine as there were scroungers who didn't deserve it.

I agree, those that are worried about the transfer over to esa will probably be those that can see an end to 'easy street' and for the first time someone is going to delve into their 'sickness' a lot more thoroughly.

A true hero indeed Andy. Quite how you are perceived as a trouble-making troll I shall never know, you are truly one of a kind.