Protest against RM"" Health Care"Profesionals " ATOS Origin

[norbert]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011 ... y-benefits" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"'The medical was an absolute joke'

The government's reform of the disability benefits system has angered claimants, who say the new tests fail to identify why they can't work. Amelia Gentleman reports on the fallout of Cameron's war against 'sicknote culture'
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http://www.whywaitforever.com/dwpatosveterans.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Disgraceful treatment of Forces Veterans

Garry Hollingworth of Langwith worked for the Royal Mail as a postman. He was off work for ten months with a serious heart condition. Royal Mail employed Atos to carry out a medical assessment on Garry. They concluded that ‘His mobility is restricted up to a few minutes by breathlessness, angina and leg pains’. They went on to say ‘Mr Hollingworth remains unfit for work in any capacity and I doubt he will be able to work again. There is no foreseeable return date and no adjustments that would facilitate his return at this stage’.

The Atos report stated that not only is he permanently incapable of carrying out the duties of his present post but also working for any other employer. They concluded that he would meet the criteria for medical retirement.

Weeks later, Mr Hollingworth had to attend a Work Capability Assessment, a requirement when claiming the new Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have a multi million pound contract with Atos Origin to carry out work capability assessments with those claiming ESA.

Imagine Garry’s surprise when he was sent a letter by Atos telling him he did not have a limited capability for work. He had received 0 points (15 are required to claim the benefit) which means he would have to claim Job seeker’s allowance which is £65.45 as opposed to £96.85 on ESA. Mr Hollingworth appealed the decision and was then given 6 points. The Derbyshire Unemployed Workers’ Centres (DUWCs) helped him put in a new claim as his condition had worsened. Garry has had a fresh medical via Atos and has now been given 9 points. He will appeal the decision again.

The DUWCs have two more Royal Mail workers and one NHS employee who have all faced medical retirement at the hands of Atos only to be given 0 points when trying to claim the benefit to which they are entitled. One of these workers is still awaiting her appeal.













Tony Elliott Tony Elliott: 'I was thinking, "I'm a human being, me"'. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

In the windy courtyard of a new glass-fronted office development, several dozen protesters, many in wheelchairs, spent an afternoon last month shouting angry chants against the government's reform of disability benefits. "We can't work! We can't play! What do they want us to do? Die?"

The protest was held in front of the London headquarters of the low-profile but powerful French-owned company Atos, responsible for a new and controversial computerised test used to judge whether benefit claimants are genuinely sick or merely skiving.

A surprisingly large number of police officers were on hand, and swiftly erected barriers around the protesters. Inside, employees in suits huddled at the window, peering down at the commotion. Protesters waved banners in the shape of coffins, marked with the slogan "Atos doesn't give a toss". A man warned through his megaphone: "We are being kettled. Disabled people are being kettled."

Given the intensity of anger among disability charities towards the reforms, many more of these demonstrations are expected in next few months, and senior members of the government are known to be anxious about the reaction of these groups to the looming change.

The automated Atos assessment is the focus of particular fury and alarm. Over the next three years, one and a half million people will have to undergo this new test. A complex computer program will help a team of "disability analysts" to rule on who is sufficiently fit for work.

People who have had no contact with the benefits system are unlikely to have heard of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA). Anyone with disabilities or serious ill-health will probably already have a detailed knowledge of the test's workings and its many alleged disturbing idiosyncrasies.

Aside from the question of whether a computer-led assessment is the best way to analyse someone's fitness, charities are uneasy with this particular test, describing it as a blunt and unsophisticated tool.

Since its preliminary rollout in 2008, people with terminal cancer have been found fit to work, people with mental health problems have complained their condition is not taken seriously, people with complex illnesses report that the tick-box system is not able to cope with the nuances of their problems. A revised, even more stringent version introduced this month means that blind and deaf people will no longer automatically receive sickness benefit, and are unlikely to qualify for extra help finding work.

The test is central part to the reform of incapacity benefit, seen both by the government and disability campaigners as outdated and in need of major overhaul. From the end of this month, it will be launched nationwide and there is great nervousness about what will happen once people start being reassessed at a rate of 11,000 a week.

To be found too unwell or incapacitated to work, individuals need to clock up 15 points during the 45-minute one-to-one assessment. If, for example, you can't pick up a £1 coin with either hand you get 15 points. Cannot learn or understand how to complete a simple task, such as setting an alarm clock? Also 15 points. Strangers have difficulty understanding your speech? Take six points.

Because of the way the questionnaire has been set, it is much harder to be classified as unfit for work under the new test than previously and, as a result, the reform is expected to save the government £1bn over five years. In pilots of the test, 30% fewer people have been found unfit for work and 70% fewer people have been found eligible for the full-rate unconditional support benefit. Already people have been told they don't qualify for benefits in much greater numbers than anticipated in government projections.

The test did not identify the array of problems that make life complicated for Matthew Hutchings, 36, and awarded him just six points, not enough to qualify for the benefit. Smiling and shy, he sits quietly as his parents Ray, a retired accountant, and Diane, a teacher, explain that he has had lifelong speech and language problems, is probably autistic, and has always had difficulties with grasping simple tasks.

"People have problems understanding him, he has problems with his speech, with his understanding and with his confidence. But it is a hidden thing, until you know him well. He's very vulnerable," his mother says.

When he was called for his disability test, his father accompanied him. "The assessment was farcical for someone like Matthew – it was all: Can you sit down? Can you stand up? Can you pick something up? He can do all those things, but that's not what the problem is," Ray says. "They asked if he could cook. I explained he couldn't, but that he was able to heat something up in a microwave. In the report they said he could cook."

His father appealed immediately against the judgment and six months later the case went to appeal. The tribunal judge ruled that Matthew was not capable of work, and awarded him 15 points.

The Daily Mail describes the new system as a "tough new test to weed out the workshy"; much media coverage of the revised test portrays claimants who are found fit for work as "scroungers" who have been "trying it on to get sickness benefit". Disability charities argue that, on the contrary, the government has tweaked the parameters of the test so that many severely ill and disabled people simply no longer qualify.

At the end of each session, the computer program generates a 25-page report summarising the person's general state of health, and fitness for work. People with severe health problems who have been given zero points say that they have told their assessors what was wrong with them, and been met with a computer-says-no response.

A man who has been registered blind since 2000 due to a hereditary degenerative sight condition was surprised to read his report's conclusion that "the client's level of disability would be expected to improve with time and appropriate treatment". "I'm losing sight all the time. When I complained, I had a letter that told me 'the information contained in the report is medically reasonable and appropriately justified,'" he says (he asked not to be named, to avoid complications with further claims). "It's meaningless. I've had no apology."

This is a problem that has exploded on to the desks of advice centres, MPs and charities around the country since the test was introduced for all new claimants of the benefit in 2008.

Some claimants say the tests are rushed and impersonal, carried out by staff who barely make eye contact because they are too busy inputting data into the computer. A government-ordered review acknowledges that the assessment has a lack of "empathy", describing the whole process as "impersonal, mechanistic and lacking in clarity", and recommended a string of changes. The Department for Work and Pensions promises that most of these changes will have been implemented by the time the retesting gets fully under way later this year, but charities remain unconvinced.

For disabled people or people with serious illnesses the prospect of having their health reassessed is causing growing unease and anger. This anger is directed both against the Department for Work and Pensions, which is continuing the reform of Incapacity Benefit started by the last government, but also against Atos, which is being paid about £100m a year to carry out the tests.
Tracey Oakley Tracey Oakley: 'I want to work, but who's going to employ me in this state?' Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

The benefits system is notoriously complex, but to understand the growing alarm of disabled people, you need to take in a few key points.

Since 2008, anyone claiming sickness or disability-related benefits for the first time has been required to take the Atos-administered Work Capability Assessment (WCA); from the end of this month, all existing incapacity benefit claimants will be reassessed using this test, as the old benefit is phased out and a new system, employment support allowance (ESA), is brought in.

If they are awarded 15 points, they will be moved on to ESA, which has two levels – the support group, where claimants are judged to be too disabled or unwell to be expected to work, and the work-related activity group, where claimants are deemed to be capable of working, provided they are supported into employment.

If they don't score 15 points, they will be moved on to the regular jobseekers' allowance. This is around £25 a week less than incapacity benefit, and will leave people with their income cut by just over a quarter. This lower benefit also lacks the immediate, intensive support for getting back to work that ESA is designed to provide.

The new benefit is based on the principle of looking at what people are able to do, rather than concentrating on what they cannot do – a principle that disability campaigners mostly support. The theoretical goal is to help people who have some level of sickness or disability find appropriate work, rather writing them off as unfit in perpetuity.

The problem lies partly in the peculiar outcomes of the Atos test. In Chesterfield, Matthew Hutchings's MP, Toby Perkins (Labour), says this issue has occupied much of his time since he won his seat last May. "The evidence from people that I am seeing is that people that are clearly not fit for work are being identified as fit for work. The consequence of that is that poor people are £25 a week worse off."

Large numbers of people who have been through this test have been so amazed at being found fit to work that they have formally appealed. Tribunal judges are overturning around 40% of cases they see and this high level of success at appeal is interpreted by charities as proof that the original test is flawed.

Some charities also argue that the government has failed to appreciate how few jobs are available for people with disabilities or health problems, and point out that if people with health problems are moved from incapacity benefit of around £91 a week to jobseeker's allowance at £65 a week, but stand little chance of actually finding work, the net result is simply to impoverish them.

Staff at the Derbyshire Unemployed Workers' Centres in Chesterfield are supporting 400 people who are waiting to go to tribunal to contest their test findings. They have already helped Tracey Oakley, 40, a mother of three who used to work in a hospital kitchen. Sitting at her kitchen table, on two cushions, a walking stick to hand, she explains that she has been off work with severe back problems since 2008. Back problems are often cited as a sick-note culture phenomenon, an easy excuse for staying away from work, but it is very clear that Oakley is suffering.

She has had one operation on her back and is waiting for a second; in the meantime she is on high daily doses of morphine, diazepam and codeine. She is barely able to walk to the shops; her teenage children now do all the cooking because it is too painful for her to stand to prepare food.

Her doctor does not think she is fit to work, but she scored zero points in her assessment. "She bent me every way my body wasn't supposed to go. I was in tears by the end of it." Later a tribunal judge took only a few minutes to overturn the original decision. She has recently been through a second WCA, and is awaiting the outcome.

"When you get nought points, it makes you feel like you're lying," she says. "I've always worked, since I was 15. I want to work again but who's going to employ me in this state? It's very stressful."

The centres also supported a former mine worker who had heart disease following a heart attack, and had been told by his doctor to stop work, aged 59. He was awarded six points in his test, appealed against the finding, and was given enough extra points to qualify for the benefit. Five months later, he was called back for a new assessment, and complained of the frustration of having to go through the whole process again. He died of heart failure a day before the test appointment.

His family believe that the stress contributed to his death, according to Colin Hampton, co-ordinator of thecentres. "The government gives the impression that if everyone got up off their sick bed there would be jobs for them, but that is a load of bollocks, as everyone knows," he says. "This policy does not address the fact that there are no employers ready to take on people who have health-limiting problems. How many employers do you know who are willing to employ someone with a history of mental health problems?"
Paul Hadfield

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[Post Off]

I don't know where to start. This whole thing has and is a bloody nightmare. f**k you David Cameron, and your f***ing bag of Atos scum! How dare you put the lives of the many genuinely long-term disabled peoples, who's only wish is to stay pain-free, to be treated with dignity, or for that matter to f***ing believe in your own professionals' advice to whose judgment it was that allowed your peoples' this recourse to benefit after their long suffering -- just to weed out your f***ing perceived 'sick note culture'. You have no culture, apart from the petri dish, culture-sh*t that breeds between your ears. :dcfo

Of course there are those who would rather not work, but in all honesty only a mind of pure criminality and perverseness would use that as a recourse to claw back monies from a mostly vulnerable part of our society.

[DirtyHarry]

The rich are taking the pisss out of the working man/woman. They should be made stop dead in their tracks, litterally.

I have no time for the public school educated ruling class, not a second. Right now, the rich fear no reprisals, and that is to our everlasting shame.