Sick firm told us to catch out disabled people

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=24468" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The ruthless Tory drive to remove thousands of seriously ill and disabled people from benefits was exposed this week as a nurse employed to assess them spoke out to Socialist Worker.

Jean, a former employee of Atos Healthcare in Scotland, exposed a process she described as a “sham”. Atos is a multinational firm contracted by the Department for Work and Pensions to screen patients.

“I worked for Atos as a ‘disability analyst’ thinking I would be helping vulnerable people to access their benefits,” she said.

“I soon discovered that nothing could be further from the truth. The rules laid down by the bosses are designed to catch people out.”

Jean says that anyone deemed capable of looking after themselves or a child, however difficult they find it, is judged to be capable of work and taken off benefits.

“If you turn up to your claimant interview in nice clothes, you’ve failed,” she says.

“If you turn up washed and with your hair neat, you’ve failed.

“And, if you turn up with your kids, you’ve failed.”

She described the way that claimants with serious lung ­diseases were regularly assessed as capable of work because they could sit in front of a computer and type.

“We’re not supposed to ask about how they would get to a workplace, or whether they have special medical equipment that would make daily travel difficult.”

Bosses are so keen to process claimants quickly that staff are given just 45 minutes to assess people and write up a report about them, says Jean.

Multiple

“While training, we worked with actors who pretended to have just one serious illness. We then had to assess and report on them.

“But in real life, people often have multiple health problems.

“How are you supposed to assess all of them, and the impact they have on a person, and then write up a full report in just 45 minutes? You can’t.

“And, because it is not done properly, thousands of people are losing the benefits they are entitled to.”

After more than 20 years in the NHS caring for patients, Jean says she could not carry on working for Atos and left shortly after she started.

“The job was making me sick,” she said. “It’s against my principles to treat people with long term illnesses in such a disgusting way, so I had to give it up.

“People go into those interviews and talk openly to you because you are a nurse and they trust you.

“Then your skills are used against them, to take away their benefits and destroy their lives.

“I can’t be a part of that.”

© Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original.

[scum_opg]

.. and this is the same firm who decide if we are considered fit to work...
doesnt fill you with confidence does it...!

[belle smith]

Funny that top politicians have all the admiration in the world for the NHS right up until the point they want to asses people receiving diability allowances.
Then all of a sudden the NHS can't be trusted to do it and they contract it out.

[Post Off]

This woman deserves a social-hero's medal -- for all the people she is standing up for, and who have genuinely worked most of their lives (or at least some of 'em) trying to earn an almost half-decent wage.

So this, basically, is Great Shiton, where the government is sh*tting on all and sundry who might upset their great recovery. Well, fugg you, you fugging bastards! God, and I thought the Labour Party were total scumbags of the highest order.

It almost makes me want to get off my fat arse, buy some rocket launchers, and go shoot the crap out of all those tory-lib-dumb-scums. God, I miss my old steel toe-caps! :dcfo :ncfo :vcfo

...Maybe if I was still in the red caps, I could borrow the keys to their arsenal, and go kick a lot more, er... arse!

[belle smith]

So this, basically, is Great Shiton, where the government is sh*tting on all and sundry who might upset their great recovery. Well, fugg you, you fugging bastards! God, and I thought the Labour Party were total scumbags of the highest order.

This is the previous Labour goverments policy, being continued by the present goverment.

[Darren Bent]

Government is better of getting more work available for young people to do and get them to earn money. But where are the jobs. If they do less money spend on dole money, more money from income tax and spending.

Some sick people could do telesales and working on computer at home, but that is not the point.

[kingofmcr]

these are conservatives ..what did you expect ..fairness for all ? ..i bet they dont pursue tax dodgers in the same way ..

[stokes11eg]

If only more of those in health care took this stance------ how some of these medical people can do what they do is beyond me, and as someone pointed out where are the jobs? Very few employers will take on disabled people regardless of what the law says. I applaud this lady!

[steven100]

So this, basically, is Great Shiton, where the government is sh*tting on all and sundry who might upset their great recovery. Well, fugg you, you fugging bastards! God, and I thought the Labour Party were total scumbags of the highest order.

This is the previous Labour goverments policy, being continued by the present goverment.

Properly started by the Labour government less extreme but taken that wee bit further by the Tories/Tories parties.

[scum_opg]

dont get me wrong i can understand and fully support them trying to weed out the fraudulant claimants...
but lets be honest how can they decide if someone is "fit" in a 45 minute window.... when it takes a GP or other medical profesional hours and hours over days, weeks and months of care to treat, diagnose and ultimatily decide whether a patient is fit to work...

i have a mate who worked for RM.. (he jumped before he was pushed due to health issues) who has spent the last 2 and a half years on benefits due to his doctors diagnosis... he is seeing his GP twice a month, a psychiatrist monthly and a psychotherapist weekly, and is on some (as he describes them) "heavy" anti depresants, anti psychotics, and sedatives... he got called along for one of these interviews because they were unhappy with some questionare they had him fill out... in his sort of case who is a better judge of whether he is fit to work between a GP (and 2 other dpctors) with an intimite knowlege of his situation/condition... or someone reading a basic file based on a questionare who spends less than an hour judging him...