Is this fact or fiction? DWP/ATOS WCA

meandyou73

The following paragraphs shown below are from benefitsandwork.co.uk I am re-posting this on here for all to see.. If this is a 'scaremonger' attempt then please ignore it. I hope the more clued up peeps on here would be able to clarify if this is indeed a true fact or fiction.
Thank you.





DWP awards Atos £10 million IT contract for healthcare assessments

Category: Latest news
Created: Monday, 14 July 2014 17:30
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has awarded Atos a contract worth £10 million a year to continue providing IT services to support work capability assessments after it steps down as the main supplier next year.

Atos is due to exit its controversial DWP contract for health and disability assessments by February next year, instead of the original end date in August.

The French multinational has come under fire for the number of work capability decisions that have been overturned and the firm recorded roughly 163 incidents of abuse or assault on staff in 2013.

The firm announced its intention to walk away from the contract in February and the government confirmed that Atos would exit the agreement early in March.

However this new contract means the firm will continue to provide the IT for the assessments until at least 2016, with allowances for it to be extended until 2020.

The contract, which the DWP described as an ‘interim arrangement’, was negotiated and set up without any competition.

Read the story in full on computerworld

meandyou73

Due to my husband having to go through all of what the WCA entails I felt strongly enough to post this here.. Apologies if this turns out to be fiction and not fact.

missapril75

Ridiculous.
Potty.
Insane.
Insulting.
Incompetent.

It all sounds par for the course so probably genuine.

meandyou73

missapril75 wrote: »

Ridiculous.
Potty.
Insane.
Insulting.
Incompetent.

It all sounds par for the course so probably genuine.

:T That's a good statement.

tomtontom

ATOS IT Services largely operates separately from the healthcare arm of the business, so I would not be overly concerned that they have the contract. What I would question is the lack of competition for the contract and hence how cost effective it is - perhaps no one else wants to work with IDS?

epitome

I can't see why it wouldn't be true, I can't see why it is worth discussing.