ATOS Medical

[Empusa]

Link here

A report from the select committee on work and pensions has been published about welfare reform. Specifically work capability assessments (WCA) as they move people on to ESA from income support.

My personal experience is that the WCA is a farce, and although they are reporting huge numbers of people being deemed "fit for work", a huge amount of those are later overturned at tribunal.

Finally this awful practice of taking people off benefits when their health isn't enough that they can work is being taken notice of.

But what will they do about it?

For all of those who I'm sure will come on and tell us about their friend of a friend who is claiming fraudulently, that's a different issue.

We are talking about those who are genuinely disabled who are finding themselves not only without financial support, but also under suspicion. In my own experience the whole process took over 6 months.

That's 6 months of stress on top of the daily stress of disability. Stress and fear.

Surely we all agree that the most vulnerable in society should be protected? Not treated like criminals?

garlicbutter well done winning your appeal.

Tigerseyemum I am a GP and I too have heard many stories from patients where the ATOS examiner has written down complete lies - the patient says one thing and they ignore it and write down the opposite.

I tell every single one of my patients to appeal but it is affecting their mental health very badly - regardless of what the original condition might be. It must be costing the economy a fortune in extra appointments within the NHS, tribunals, advice organisations etc etc to support the poor people suffering this unethical treatment. These guys are dishonest - how can they live with themselves writing lies?????!!!!!!!

I use a wheelchair or stick. ATOS examiner wrote that I have no physical disabilities.

I went through the first stage of the complaints procedure, telling them they'd made an error (I thought simple admin mix up). ATOS responded there was no error.

I started the second stage, appeal to an external panel. ATOS wrote back immediately to say they would arbitrarily add points to my assessment so I would continue to get IB/ESA. To prevent the appeal.

Note they saw no new evidence, nor even met me again. They just tried it on until it became clear I wouldn't give up - and then backed down immediately.

Can you see why I take the statistics with a pinch of salt?

"I heard today - the tribunal allowed my appeal; I've gone from zero points to 15 on the same evidence the ATOS dipstick examiner had in front of her."

Same here. Well it was my DH's appeal.

We didn't have to give them fresh evidence, just make them read what they already had.

Some of the fun stuff we had written down.
On one line - "Patient has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome"
On the next - "Patient does not suffer with fatigue"

Kind of like saying "patient is blind", "patient can see perfectly"

There were many others. Another one which wound me up, we took DH's medication along, asked if they needed to see it, they said no. Then the report came back, "patient did not bring medication". Absolute bollocks.

garlic I don't know if you experienced this, but we got the initial "fit for work" letter and were told we could appeal. And had 7 days (I think) to do so, when we asked for the reasons DH was rejected they wouldn't tell us. So we wrote a general letter outlining all his issues, and just got a letter back telling us he hadn't sent any new evidence. Or replied to any of the points in the "fit for work" report - which they'd refused to send us.

This is probably the other reason many people drop out, we almost did. It seemed so hopeless. No idea what we would have done instead though. :(

Oh yes, and here's another point. DH and I are both on IS. However we are not allowed seperate claims. So when DH's IS was reduced, so was mine. Even though I had not been deemed "fit for work".

Strike anyone else as fair?

Oh garlic, thank heavens.

WT actual F? You are treated as better because your DH is?

They're creative, I'll give them that.

Yep. Ridiculous isn't it? But then they also stopped paying us altogether till we got our MP involved. So reducing my amount was the least of our worries at the time :( Took us 3 months to get paid again.

Three months! With no income. And probably no savings to fall back on because you can't exactly save on Income Support.

Some of these stories are horrendous
It is the fearthese assessments are having on people that makes my veins pop out in anger!

When I was on benefits (IS and JSA),I was sanctioned (incorrectly),and the hassle it caused me was no joke!

The following charity got me my incorrect sanction money back a year later! Even though they mainly deal in debt/evictions,they will take up DWP cases on your behalf. Some top lawyers giving up their time for free.
I do recommend them.

www.z2k.org/

It was horrible, and we'd just moved house as well, so what little savings we had went on a deposit. I couldn't afford to get to my physio appointments. :(

They forget it's real people's lives they are affecting, not just numbers.

niceguy2 - out of interest - do you receive child benefit and if so, would you be happy for that to be stopped?

Stopping additional money for a family on £42K has nothing like the impact of stopping someone's sole income.

But actually, I do think Child Benefit should be universal - apart from anything else, the administration and enforcement costs of means-testing must nearly wipe out any savings.

I am on week 8 of the assessment phase of ESA. I am likely to have to have 2 operations in the next couple of months to remove both of my first ribs. I am dreading the possibility of having to go to the medical and then appeal :(

I'm really pleased to hear about those who won their appeals on this thread :)

Thanks for the support, I appreciate it :)

Yes, the system is utterly bonkers. It must be costing the government more - almost every claim has to go to appeal, plus there are shocking effects on claimants' health from anxiety & poverty, and GPs have to spend extra time reviewing patients for regular medical certificates. (I had one of those detective doctors, too, which has landed me with yet more paperwork to do for DWP.)

I didn't claim for the first two years or more of entitlement, thanks to very bad Jobcebtre advice and a disallowed claim when I finally applied. I had no idea they "always say no"; I thought ATOS did what it says on the tin. I ended up going through an agonising process of understanding how it owrks, feeling dis-entitled, and having to write a lengthy exposition of my symptoms at a time when I was already in an awful mental state. I was living on credit, which obviously didn't help either.

Am gobsmacked by some of the stories on this thread. Wouldn't it be more effective to put the ATOS money into the NHS and have HCPs do the examinations?

That z2k link looks really helpful, crazynanna. Hope I don't need them, but have bookmarked it!

"Wouldn't it be more effective to put the ATOS money into the NHS and have HCPs do the examinations?"

Quite.

And you are right about the cost, would be interesting to see how much the tribunals etc cost, compared to how much they save. Especially when you factor in the time GP's have to spend writing letters for patients to use at tribunal, the extra cost of looking after patients with mental health issues during the appeals process.

To me it sounds very much like a false economy.

Oh and emergency loans for those put onto reduced income on top of everytihng else.

garlicbutter you are very welcome

Ben10 it is a horrible process, but worth going through with. We had some really lovely people at our tribunal, which was a relief after all the stress. I could have hugged them!

Thanks Empusa. When should I expect my medical to be? Do they do it right at the end of the 13 weeks assessment?

I'm not sure, it was quite a while ago for us. They should send you a letter letting you know

but had and I quote: 'an interest in mental health'. She looked down upon my mother, making her uncomfortable and the whole experience unpleasant. My mother is has a severe case of bipolar

That makes no sense.

I have an interest in mental health. I have been managing my mother in law's severe bipolar for more than a decade and a half, so know a bit about it. However I am in no way shape or form qualified to access somebody with a diagnosis and make predictions about the extent to which they can work or not.

I think I'd go slightly nuclear if some bureaucrat thought they were better able to process MIL's needs and an abilities than a doctor.

Especially since said bureaucrat seems to have not one clue that the level of stress and fear they create with the above system has the ability to trigger somebody with bipolar into an episode.

The ATOS assessors are supposed to be "Health Care Professionals". So a dental nurse, midwife, etc, will be assessing a spinal injury or cancer patient (by answering multiple choice computer questions).

The decision is then made in another office by a purely administrative person with no medical knowledge.

I would question whether these "Health Care Professionals" are behaving within their professions' code of practice/ethics. I am going to start asking my patients to get their assessors' names and professional qualifications because the frank lies are really bothering me. If it is a doctor carrying out the assessment and they can be shown to have lied about what they have been told then a few complaints to the GMC might wake these guys up to the hazards of what they are doing. Similarly the Midwifery Council, RCN etc. If they realise they stand to lose their professional status and wouldn't be able to work if they are shown to be dishonest we might see some improvements in the assessments.

That's a good idea, Dunlurking.

Mark Steel wrote a strong article on this in today's Independent/i, too. He's messed up the terminology a bit, but his examples are good.

Cameron's "one in 14" refers to the 7% of ESA claims which ATOS puts into the suporrt group on first assessment. A further 37% are put into the work-related group. (Figures also from the Independent.) But 40% of ATOS assessments are overturned at tribunal! In itself, that's a massive indictment of this expensive system. We pay for that, then we pay another £40 million for the Courts service to compensate for ATOS's errors.

It's either cynical or stupid of Cameron to use the 1/14 figure to say that 93% of ESA claimants are scamming. He's not stupid, apparently, so his soundbite must have been issued in a deliberate attempt to further demonise people who are sick