Incapacity Benefit / Employment Support Allowance / WCA - useful links

4/04/2011 12:18:00 pm BenefitScroungingScum 8 Comments

http://dwpexamination.myfreeforum.org/Tribunal_service_nobbled__about484.html complaints about ATOS Origin phoning people up and persuading them to drop appeals

" In fact, the objective of the exercise has nothing to do with sparing claimants – a better decision making process would do that much more effectively. The reality is that the DWP are desperately trying to reduce the embarrassing 40% success rate for ESA appeals and the TS are equally anxious to reduce the overwhelming flood of ESA hearings with which they cannot cope. IB and ESA appeals have risen from 19,600 in the first quarter of 2009 to an astonishing 99,200 in the third quarter of 2010."

http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/is-the-governments-new-benefits-policy-fit-to-work-or-shirking-its-duties/6186

It is my considered opinion that at this moment in time we are on the verge of succumbing to elements of the same self-serving propaganda that "legitimised" the mass persecutions of Nazi Germany in the 1930s and early 40s.
http://www.sayer.abel.co.uk/MES-Nnazi.html

"I have been advocating for a while the free enterprise solution of the Poor Law. Benevolently applied of course, the Boards of Guardians could satisfy the localisation agenda, the family doctors could ration the gruel and leg irons for the deserving poor and the stone breaking from the undeserving Incapacity Benefit work dodgers will fill all of those potholes.

Sorted vote Con-demn ( Daily Mail Comment )

it's always worrying when you start agreeing with Vanessa Redgrave , the reality is that they are both extreme in their own way , politics also goes in circles , they can meet each other round the back .

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=24468

"" Exclusive: ‘Sick firm told us to catch out disabled people'


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.

Mortuary inmate found fit for work by ATOS Origin because they can lie down for more than 30mins.

Cant sit or stand but thats not in the new ESA assessment so thats all right then......

to be fair .....someone in a Coma was actually passed....after a Tribunal but ATOS Origin marked him down as failing to attend " assessment " .......a ATOS Origin Manager was seen going round a terminal cancer ward taking down all the names .......£40 per recall

Comment by Grev Williams on a obscure Social Networking Site

" I worked for the old DSS. Targets were all. Targets, targets, targets. I ended up working as a Fraud Investigator for them. Believe me, the "fraud" we were forced into in order to meet targets was sickening. Constant pressure from over-zealous one track mind management had a real effect on how we did our job. 7 out of my 8 colleagues were divorced (as a result of job pressures) and I ended up having a nervous breakdown. I was sacked after 18 months sick on grounds of inefficiency! The management then, as it is now, was a disgrace. From what little contact I have with ex-colleagues things have gone from bad to worse to a farce. I fear a whole generation of these managers, institutionalised and corporatised, will need to be flushed through thye system before anything changes. It cerytainly isn't going to get better with the Tories at the helm.

What they should have done with Grev is get ...irony of all ironies , get the shady ATOS Origin to medically retire him , rather than a knee jerk ...he's slipped through the net - had too much time off , sack him !

....that is a atypically very poor " management " ....treat people in a humane way and they'll be less likely to give the DWP problems by splitting ranks ?

.....However there have been a few cases when the DWP & Royal Mail have got ATOS to medically retire people , then when the ex member of staff has applied for benefits , they've been failed as " malingerers " by ATOS .

There's a few ATOS horror stories about the IB " assessment " initiative in Burnley doing the rounds ...a Blind Person was told to use a torch and bring a guide dog into work , someone else was asked if he was cured of HIV by a " doctor " ...a lady was asked if her son had been cured of Downs Syndrome ...Glasgow ATOS " Health Centre " is now known as Lourdes on account of the Biblical Miracles in curing the sick and the lame that go through their doors .

A prospective doctor was told that they only do functional assessments not Occupational Health according to a Scottish Newspaper report .

Another of Grev's

" I don't neccesarily agree that there is a problem with fraud. By who's estimate? We have no way of knowing how many people make fraudulent claims. Politicians of all stripes have conjured figures out of the air. The question of "fraud" has to be very carefully weighed against the beneficial effects of an effective welfare safety-net. When is a problem of sufficient magnitude to render it worthy of scape-goating and urban myth mongering? One fraudulent claim? A few thousand? tens of thousands? We once had a functioning system where people were dealt with as people not units. It worked well until Thatcher and her hawks got hold of it. It now appears to be driven by asumption and guesstimates to no-ones benefit but the Treasury's and those managers who meet their targets. We need to get away from even acknowledging there is a problem with the benefits system. When it works it is a marvelous thing and to accomodate the notion there is a problem with those who claim benefit is Political Stockholm Syndrome. "