Tuesday 8 March 2011

What's wrong with ATOS Disability assessments then?

1) ATOS assessors do not have to be medically trained

2) ATOS tell assessors they are dealing with "claimants" not "patients" they teach assessors that they are "not in a caring profession"

3) ATOS decisions are appealed 39% of the time, with up to 70% of appeals upheld at costly tribunals. Tribunals are costing the country £11 Million per year (120,350 weeks of ESA payments)

4) ATOS CEO earns £626,000 per year of tax payers money - enough to pay ESA for 6,849 weekly payments for those in genuine need.

5) ATOS use a tick box computer system to do their assessments. Most illnesses and disabilities do not conform to tick-box responses.

6) ATOS are finding people with illnesses as severe as terminal cancer, advanced Parkinson's fit for work. Others have died before a tribunal can be completed.

7) ATOS were paid £150 Million (£150,798,434.69 to be specific) between April 2009 and April 2010 by the government. This would pay for 1.64 MILLION weekly ESA payments. 


8) ATOS staff are given just 5 days training before they are considered capable of assessing complicated conditions


9)ATOS call centre has just 57 call handlers to manage up to 2000 calls a day. Calls are continually left unanswered leaving claimants frustrated and frightened. 


10) ATOS have a monopoly on sickness and disability assessments. Only their view counts. 

14 comments:

  1. And they say they wanna SAVE money!!!!!!!

    they should SACK ATOS and ask out *(^(%^ing Doctors/Neuros/Specialists!!!!

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  2. I think it would be interesting to get Eoin's view on this there may indeed be a loophole here in where it may be coincided null and void in the European courts as the atos staff are not medically qualified in which is supposed to be a medical assessment

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    1. Wonderful! and who is it that you think employ the people that work in courts? hm begins with G ends in T!

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  3. There is still a slim chance that the harsh new work capability assessment, due to come into force on 28 March, will be struck down. The House of Lords’ Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee has raised the alarm about the new WCA, warning that ‘there are serious concerns about the effect on already vulnerable people’ if the new test is introduced.

    The role of the committee is to ‘draw the special attention of the house’ to any statutory instrument which it considers to be flawed or inadequate. In this case the committee has said that they that the new regulations “give rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House and may imperfectly achieve the policy objective.”

    The committee’s concerns may lead to a debate in the House and, should a prayer be raised against the statutory instrument, it is possible that it could be thrown out in its entirety.

    Amongst the concerns that the committee say they have been warned of are:

    “the current Regulations are premature and that piecemeal change will cause more harm than good”;

    “there is insufficient data from the initial trial of the migration of Invalidity Benefit [sic] claimants to ESA to be clear whether the changes proposed will be an improvement”;

    “the WCA system has not bedded in fully and the operation of the system needs to achieve greater consistency before further changes are added”;

    “the current changes may not maintain the distinctions set out in the Act between the two levels of capability and may over-estimate many individuals' actual ability to work”;

    “there are serious concerns about the effect on already vulnerable people from repeatedly changing the WCA eligibility descriptors”.

    Much of the report by the committee is based on hard-hitting submissions made to it by a range of voluntary sector organisations, including:

    Disability Benefits Consortium
    MIND
    MS Society
    RNIB and Action for Blind People

    We are grateful to Alban Hawksworth of RNIB for drawing our attention to this report.

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  4. Lib Dems are showing compassion to the disabled by funding the NHS. Anyone who genuinely cannot work, after we've abolished benefits, can stay in a psychiatric hospital.

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  5. Who is this clown posting annoyingly as i say sue you might have to have posting anonymously removed sad to say ?

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  6. probably just to get another /wrist reaction out of you, fourbanks. I'm sure Sue can handle her own blog.

    It will be interesting to hear how the reading went yesterday and whether the numbers of ATOS's profits got brought up as a balance to the "savings" they think they're going to earn by cutting DLA by 20%

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  7. It's a darned witch hunt - take away support and expect people to cope looking for jobs.

    If they cope, they were clearly a cheat all along.

    If they don't cope, hurrah, they have proved their "innocence".

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    1. Well I suppose you could call it a witch hunt, but I would rather think it is more a hunt to cut the population level down myself. You'd think if this is what they are doing then really why can they not do that in a slightly quicker way really. But there you are, clearly sadistic these ATOS people that much is rather evident!

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  8. blog is too gud... nice article i agree with your post and thanks for giving information.....

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  9. Thanks for explaining that. I've quoted your post on idlefoundation.net, let's get rid of these idiots.

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  10. That's the problem though, it is the Government that our employing the ATOS, did you read the report? So really, if they are employing ATOS then why would they not be entering it and accepting it? Because they will, because its the Government that is employing them. The crime rates already begun to rise and don't be surprised when it drastically rises beyond belief because how else is anybody supposed to survive if they have their benefits taken away from them? Even if they are not well enough and deemed apparantly fit to work, how are they going to get a job? There isn't any jobs to get, because they are taking those away as well, and frankly I think it is some kind of sick experiment on their behalf to see who survives, and who don't.

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  11. If you think about clearly and logically this is their way of trying to cut the population down because it has got too high. Thats what it is, well, what I believe it is and what I think it is. And if you use your logic, this was gonna happen at some point.

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  12. Having been through the 'Process' of assessment by Atos - I was taken off Incap. Ben. in 2009 by a total monster who dared to call himself a 'doctor',he was a liar, guilty of malpractise, intimidated me,humiliated me in relation to one of my health problems and I went to appeal. I won the appeal within minutes, as the Doctors at the appeal are totally Independent and want to see justice served, no-one need fear the appeal process. This time round i.e. December 2011, it was even worse - I didn't even get a 'medical' and was assessed capable of working by a nurse!!!!

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