32 die a week after failing test for new incapacity benefit

[ttosca]

By Nick Sommerlad on April 4, 2012 11:00 PM in Health

More than a thousand ­sickness benefit claimants died last year after being told to get a job, we can reveal.

We've highlighted worries about the controversial medical tests for people claiming Employment Support Allowance which are being used to slash the country's welfare bill.

The Government has boasted that more than half of new ­claimants are found "fit to work" - failing to mention that over 300,000 have appealed the decision and almost 40% have won.

Instead, employment minister Chris Grayling (below) says this ­"emphasises what a complete waste of human lives the current system has been".

Chris-Grayling.jpg

Here's another waste of human life.

We've used the Freedom of Information Act to discover that, between January and August last year, 1,100 claimants died after they were put in the "work-related activity group".

This group - which accounted for 21% of all claimants at the last count - get a lower rate of benefit for one year and are expected to go out and find work.

This compares to 5,300 deaths of people who were put in the "support group" - which accounts for 22% of claimants - for the most unwell, who get the full, no-strings benefit of up to £99.85 a week.

We don't know how many people died after being found "fit to work", the third group, as that information was "not available".

But we have also found that 1,600 people died before their assessment had been completed.

This should take 13 weeks, while the claimant gets a reduced payment of up to £67.50 a week, but delays have led to claims the system is in "meltdown".

Mr Grayling admitted last month that 35,000 people are waiting longer than 13 weeks. Commenting on the deaths of ­claimants, a Department for Work and Pensions official said: "It is possible that the claimant had already closed their claim and then ­subsequently died, meaning that these figures may be ­overestimating the true picture."

Of course, they're bound to include some people who died of ­something completely unrelated to their benefit claim.

David-Groves.jpg

But there are plenty of tragic cases - such as that of David Groves (above) who died from a heart attack the night before taking his work ­capability assessment.

The 56-year-old, from Staveley, Derbyshire, worked for 40 years as a miner and telecoms engineer but stopped on doctors' orders after an earlier heart attack and a string of strokes. His widow Sandra said: "When Dave was called in for a medical, he felt like he was back to square one.

"He was in a terrible state by the day he died. It was the stress that killed him, I'm sure."

Stephen Hill, 53, of Duckmanton, Derbyshire, died of a heart attack in December, one month after being told he was "fit to work", even though he was waiting for major heart surgery.

Citizens Advice told us it has found "a number of cases" of people dying soon after being found fit for work.

"There seems to be a clear link between the cause of death and the condition they were suffering from that led to the claim," said Katie Lane, head of welfare policy.

"We have always supported the idea that people who could work and want to work should be helped to do that. But we are seeing a lot of seriously ill and disabled people being found fit for work.

"We have serious concerns about whether the test used to decide if people are fit for work is the right test."

The work capability assessments are carried out by private firm Atos, on a £100million a year contract.

The firm made a £42million profit in 2010 and paid boss Keith Wilman £800,000, a 22% pay rise on the previous year.

The response to our FOI request:

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request of 16 February 2012. You asked:

Can you please provide me with the number of ESA claimants who have died in 2011?

Can you please break down that number into the following categories:
? Those who are in the assessent phase
? Those who have been found fit to work
? Those who have been placed in the work related activity group
? Those who have been placed in the support group
? Those who have an appeal pending

The table below provides data on the numbers of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants where the Department holds information on a date of death being recorded in 2011 and whose latest Work Capability Assessment (WCA) date (or activity towards assessment) was before the end of August 2011, the latest data available.

In total, between January 2011 and August 2011, some 8,000 claims ended and a date of death was recorded within six weeks of the claim end. This represents about 1% of the total ESA caseload in May 2011 (the latest caseload data available). The table below shows the position of these claims when they were closed.

Those in the Support Group receive unconditional support due to the nature of their illness, which can include degenerative conditions, terminal illness and severe disability.

Note it is possible that the claimant had already closed their claim and then subsequently died, meaning that these figures may overestimate the true picture. Care should therefore be taken when interpreting these figures.

WCA Outcome at most recent assessment and number of claimants with a recorded date of death

Assessment not complete 1,600
Work Related Activity Group 1,100
Support Group 5,300
Total 8,000

All figures have been rounded to the nearest 100.

Data on the number of ESA claimants that have died following a fit for work decision is not available, as the Department does not hold information on a death if the person has already left benefit.

The Department does not hold information on the number of claimants who died whilst an appeal was in progress.

We then asked for:

The total Employment and Support Allowance caseload figures most comparable with the ones in the FOI request, eg Jan-Aug 2011, showing how many ESA claimants are put in support group, WRAG group, fit to work or claim ended.

Clarification on whether these figures are only new ESA claims or whether they include the transfer from Incapacity Benefit?

Clarification on the six-week cut off figure - why was that selected?

We were told:

As at August 2011 there were around 730,000 people receiving ESA. In the three quarters Jan-Sep 2011, 380,000 people left ESA. It is not possible to provide the further detail you request.

These figures only cover new ESA claims - claims from IB recipients are not included.

The six-week figure is used routinely within the department when looking at where people go after leaving benefits.

However, there are more figures on the outcome of Work Capability Assessments on the DWP website here and here.

blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2012/04/32-die-a-week-after-failing-in.html

On the issue of ESA/IS/JSA

There are three possibilities:

a) That the system is designed to not pay people anything and leave people in destitution (on the basis that it is means tested and if people have income or substantial capital then they are not given means tested benefits).
b) That the rules are badly written and although a) is not true, the rules leave people in destitution.
c) That the rules follow the design, but there are individual cases that are being handled wrongly.

I can guarantee that a) is not true. I believe that b) is not true as well, but that requires a detailed consideration of the cases under c).

Yes Universal Credit replaces IS, but the outcome should still be that people receive support.

John if you walked into the Guardian office or the office of any workfare provider (a lot of the disabled and ill are already on workfare) you would be laughed out of the place with that statement.
Also what about the fact that MANY Atos buildings arent fully accessible to people in wheellchairs.
Atos also do assessments for employers.
There have been cases where an employee has been found unfit to work,by Atos on behalf of the employer. Then the person has to claim ESA. Then they have been sent for assessment by the DWP and lo and behold when working for the DWP Atos have then found the same person fit for work.
There have been several cases like this john.
Whoever pays the piper names the tune!

Having failed to be unfit enough for ESA I was told to go to the Job Centre or to contest their decision.

Trouble with these options, they require energy and coherent thought from me.

My limit is posting on MN not filling out forms that are pages long or getting myself 10 miles down the road for an apointment :(

It's taken me 8 months to get the forms from them so here goes, maybe I'll be one of the 40% they accept are to I'll to work and they've made a mistake

d) No one gives a fuck.

The system used to be joined up. JSA was for people who could work fulltime. Incapacity Benefit was for people who due to illness couldn't work fulltime.

Some people entitled to IB were indeed able to earn their living, in a suitable role for a suitable employer, being paid a suitable rate (necessary if they couldn't do 40 hrs/wk).

Those who weren't able to find such roles were supported by IB.

The new threshold for ESA is much lower than "can earn their living". Someone took the joined up system, rolled part of it back leaving a gap... and then buggered off.

When you ask, "What is supposed to happen to people in this gap," you get a deafening silence - broken only by a faint high-pitched whine from apologists like john who don't know the facts but want to Belieeeeeve.

I'm also not sure ATOS is the problem, the Dr I saw told me she had a check list of things to test, but hat she could see I was ill and would put that on the form

I actually think more people should be worried about this. It only takes for someone terminally ill with NOTHING to lose being told they are fit to work and it might not only be a suicide.

My mum who is 56, who had been declared unfit to work 10 years ago due to severe mental health problems and worsening mobility problems recently had one of these interveiws and has been declared fit to work, which led to a review of her dla which she subsequently lost despite being granted it for life.
I have appealed all decisions on her behalf, but the stress has taken its toll and her mental health has got worse and I am becoming increasingly worried. She doesn't see the point in fighting the decisions or in doing anything else.
If i wasn't here I don't want to think what would happen and can understand how that number will climb. Mental health is a disease that can silently kill and its tests like these that can fuel the fire when mental health is not recognised as such.

Hubbard that's horrid for you and her :(

Holy fucking shit

You can be simultaneously deemed fit to work and not fit to work?

Too fit for ESA and not fit enough for JSA?

Kafka eat your heart out.

Got it in one, AThing.

Well folks hasn't this fucking government realised if we refused to look after our disabled loved ones we could finacially scupper this country, ofcourse they know we wouldn't WE LOVE THEM and we will carry on but we must fight on. BTW my DS6 cost £5000/week age 5 in residential care. We are saving this country between us £millions

the figures in the original post are highly infammatory but completely meaningless when looked at in perspective.

Man declared unfit for work because of history of heart attacks has a heart attack and dies - therefore it's the fault of the government.

Declared FIT for work, nancy!

I don't think they are inflammatory - that implies that they are exaggerated or embellished.

I do agree with John that the figure missing is what the background death rate is and how this differs - and whether the deaths are related to the conditions that they were claiming for.

However whichever way you cut it the fact is that people who have been declared fit for work by an organisation who is paid to find people fit for work, and who then drop dead on fairly short order, doesn't inspire confidence in the original "fit for work" assessment.

No matter the OP, the rest of the thread is interesting and pretty bloody eye-opening.

Clearly some of the people declared fit to work are not - but the report seems to be suggesting that the stress and anxiety of being interviewed/declared fit killed them.

Based on those figures 8 out of 8000 sick people died - sounds pretty normal to me. In fact it sounds quite low.

I get the point that they were badly assessed but, equally, it's misleading to say anything other than their pre-existing conditions killed them.

I took the point of the report to be that people who were being declared fit to work were dying fairly shortly afterwards - which would indicate that those people were not, in fact, fit to work. ie there is a problem with the system. The fact that the assessments are being carried out by a private company who are paid favourably for positive results (ie declaring people fit to work) may have something to do with this.

Where do you get 8 out of 8000, and what figures are you using to compare to "normal"? Have you taken into account the timescale (3 months)? I'd be interested to understand your calculations.

that's how I interpreted the figures given - i might be wrong - it's all very badly compiled and unclear.

I don't have figures for what's normal and, more importantly, neither do the authors of this report.

I'm just saying it doesn't sound extreme to me.

Nancy I don't understand how you can come to the conclusion that it sounds like a normal death rate when you don't know what the death rate is from the figures given and you don't know what the death rate is in the background population.

Nancy -I think you are missing the point and agree with Sardine I took the point of the report to be that people who were being declared fit to work were dying fairly shortly afterwards - which would indicate that those people were not, in fact, fit to work.

Surely that's the gist of the article: that these people clearly weren't 'fit for work' and something is very wrong with the assessment process.

For the work related activity group, I make it 1,100 deaths out of 800,000 people in a period of 8 months. That is 2 per 1000 per year (I think) rather than 1 per 1000 as you state. I think that 2 per mille is actually quite high, certainly as compared to the general population, but you would need to take sex and average age into account to get a true picture.

I am worried that my sums might be wrong

But my point is you can't just glance at that and say "it looks normal" without doing some calculations and also accessing appropriate figures to compare against.

I would be very surprised if many people could estimate correctly the number of deaths per 1000 people per annum in the UK for a specific group of people (eg people assessed as fit to work by atos).

I suspect all our sums are wrong - because the report has been compiled in a very amateurish way.

I get that the people were wrongly assessed as being fit for work. I GET IT - i have said that three times now - but the report also clearly tries to suggest (especially in the case of the man with the heart condition) that the stress of being re-assessed killed them off. Clearly it didn't.

Nancy the report was compiled by the Government Department who responded to the FOI. Presumably that means the DWP.

I am surprised that you think they are "amateurish".

I would also still be interested to understand how you worked you 8 in 8000 out and what you took into account when you came to that figure. I suspect mine is wrong as I didn't think about it too hard, and may have misunderstood the timescales and/or sizes of populations. Why do you think yours might be wrong? Did you correct for it being less than a full year?