Atos are just the hired help carrying out Department for Work and Pensions orders

Tragedy: Linda Wooton

Two weeks ago, the boss of Atos, Joe Hemming, told a stunned parliamentary committee the public was “satisfied” with the job his firm was doing when it assessed people for benefits.

Hauled before MPs to explain an assessment record so bad that in 2012 over 42% of appeals against the ­company’s assessments were upheld, the committee told him he was “living in a parallel universe”. The appeals alone have cost the taxpayer £60million.

Today, public outrage will spill on to the streets. Peaceful protests against Atos are taking place in over 140 places across the country, coordinated by g­rassroots disability campaigns such as Disabled People Against Cuts and Black Triangle. In the words of veteran Labour MP Dennis Skinner, protesters are calling for the Government to “abolish this heartless monster called Atos”.

Yesterday, it seemed as if their wish were already coming true, as news emerged in leaked documents that the Government is preparing to take away Atos Healthcare’s £500million exclusive contract to carry out fit-for-work tests on sick and disabled people.

Over the past year I have told heartbreaking stories in this column of people failed by those tests. In some of the cases, people have died after being found fit for work. People like Linda Wooton, a double heart and lung transplant patient from Rayleigh, Essex, who died just nine days after Atos declared her fit and said that her ­benefits should be stopped.

In other cases, people have been driven to ­foodbanks or to destitution. But apart from one whistle-blower, Dr Greg Wood, few Atos employees have spoken out.

This week I spoke to an anonymous former Atos employee – a senior ­physiotherapist – who told me she had resigned after just four weeks because she believed the system was rigged against disabled people. Speaking to her, I heard echoes of the letters and ­phone calls I receive every week from some of our society’s most vulnerable.

“The system is set up as if disabled people are trying to steal something from the Government,” she said.

“The patient was set up to fail. I’ve been a ­physiotherapist for 13 years and I can clearly identify people with different disabilities. But I wasn’t allowed to use my skills to assess them. Instead, I had to use a computer system with pre-assigned ‘descriptors’.”

Last year, the physiotherapist, who asked me not to reveal her full name as she has since rejoined the NHS, did 21 days of Atos training and then worked at the company for a further week as a trainee assessor. She was then offered a long-term contract, which she decided to decline.

“My work at Atos was the opposite of everything you are taught in the NHS. The mentality and the values. In the end, I felt I was being brainwashed into an Atos mentality – seeing claimants as thieves rather than sick and disabled people who needed support.

“One gentleman I saw had depression and had tried to commit suicide. I felt it was completely inappropriate for me to assess his case. And even when I was assessing patients with physical ­disabilities, I wasn’t allowed to use my skills as a physiotherapist – you just have to use the computer. They tell you not to touch the patient.”

The Work Capability Assessment is based on a points system, where sick and disabled people need to score points to qualify for financial help. “But the programme makes it very hard to award points, and the questions are ridiculous and humiliating,” she says. “In ­physiotherapy you would assess a patient for 60 to 90 minutes. At Atos, it’s 30 minutes. I was also asked to assess mental health patients as a ­physiotherapist, something I felt completely unqualified to do.”

Atos has now become a focus for public outrage. What the ­physiotherapist and other whistle-blowers actually describe is a systemic failure. But the system is not designed by Atos. It is designed by the Department for Work and Pensions.

The company’s statement about the protests says as much. “We absolutely respect people’s right to peaceful protest and we are aware that being assessed for benefit entitlement can be a difficult experience,” the company says. “However, lobbying against Atos Healthcare will have no impact on welfare policy.

“It is not, nor has it ever been, the role of Atos Healthcare to make decisions on who can or cannot receive benefits. We carry out assessments following strict guidelines and criteria written
by the Government.”

Atos is a private company carrying out tests designed by Iain Duncan Smith’s department.

At the moment they are also a highly convenient lightning rod for the ­catastrophic failures of his department – and the ways in which the Coalition government is destroying the safety net of the welfare state.

The other companies in the running to take over the WCA include such names as G4S, Serco, A4E and Capita Group. Campaigners fighting for change doubt that anything about the WCA is likely to improve.

Interestingly, last night an Atos spokeswoman described the WCA contract as “outdated”, saying that in its current form it wasn’t working for “claimants, for the DWP or for Atos ­Healthcare”.

With that statement, at least, millions of sick and disabled people will ­wholeheartedly agree.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/atos-just-hired-help-carrying-3160423#ixzz2tmZMylZ9
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Get the Tory scumbags out now.

Well, yeah...

That will be the WCA designed and introduced under the last Labour government.

BigAndy9 wrote:Well, yeah...

42% of appeals won.

A damning indictment on this awful regime.

"news emerged in leaked documents that the Government is preparing to take away Atos Healthcare’s £500million exclusive contract"

- so the 'scumbag tories' are sacking them....

Tess. wrote:"news emerged in leaked documents that the Government is preparing to take away Atos Healthcare’s £500million exclusive contract"

- so the 'scumbag tories' are sacking them....

After they were employed in the first place by the Golden Labour party as well

Catman wrote:

BigAndy9 wrote:Well, yeah...

42% of appeals won.

A damning indictment on this awful regime.

No, a thorough and fair process for the benefits claimant and more importantly, the people who fund the system.

Tess. wrote:"news emerged in leaked documents that the Government is preparing to take away Atos Healthcare’s £500million exclusive contract"

- so the 'scumbag tories' are sacking them....

To be replaced with something far worse, no doubt.

The whole concept of private companies being involved in this should be scrapped.

Let the GP's and consultants decide who is fit for work, and who isn't.

Bastards.

Catman wrote:

Tragedy: Linda Wooton

Two weeks ago, the boss of Atos, Joe Hemming, told a stunned parliamentary committee the public was “satisfied” with the job his firm was doing when it assessed people for benefits.

Hauled before MPs to explain an assessment record so bad that in 2012 over 42% of appeals against the ­company’s assessments were upheld, the committee told him he was “living in a parallel universe”. The appeals alone have cost the taxpayer £60million.

Today, public outrage will spill on to the streets. Peaceful protests against Atos are taking place in over 140 places across the country, coordinated by g­rassroots disability campaigns such as Disabled People Against Cuts and Black Triangle. In the words of veteran Labour MP Dennis Skinner, protesters are calling for the Government to “abolish this heartless monster called Atos”.

Yesterday, it seemed as if their wish were already coming true, as news emerged in leaked documents that the Government is preparing to take away Atos Healthcare’s £500million exclusive contract to carry out fit-for-work tests on sick and disabled people.

Over the past year I have told heartbreaking stories in this column of people failed by those tests. In some of the cases, people have died after being found fit for work. People like Linda Wooton, a double heart and lung transplant patient from Rayleigh, Essex, who died just nine days after Atos declared her fit and said that her ­benefits should be stopped.

In other cases, people have been driven to ­foodbanks or to destitution. But apart from one whistle-blower, Dr Greg Wood, few Atos employees have spoken out.

This week I spoke to an anonymous former Atos employee – a senior ­physiotherapist – who told me she had resigned after just four weeks because she believed the system was rigged against disabled people. Speaking to her, I heard echoes of the letters and ­phone calls I receive every week from some of our society’s most vulnerable.

“The system is set up as if disabled people are trying to steal something from the Government,” she said.

“The patient was set up to fail. I’ve been a ­physiotherapist for 13 years and I can clearly identify people with different disabilities. But I wasn’t allowed to use my skills to assess them. Instead, I had to use a computer system with pre-assigned ‘descriptors’.”

Last year, the physiotherapist, who asked me not to reveal her full name as she has since rejoined the NHS, did 21 days of Atos training and then worked at the company for a further week as a trainee assessor. She was then offered a long-term contract, which she decided to decline.

“My work at Atos was the opposite of everything you are taught in the NHS. The mentality and the values. In the end, I felt I was being brainwashed into an Atos mentality – seeing claimants as thieves rather than sick and disabled people who needed support.

“One gentleman I saw had depression and had tried to commit suicide. I felt it was completely inappropriate for me to assess his case. And even when I was assessing patients with physical ­disabilities, I wasn’t allowed to use my skills as a physiotherapist – you just have to use the computer. They tell you not to touch the patient.”

The Work Capability Assessment is based on a points system, where sick and disabled people need to score points to qualify for financial help. “But the programme makes it very hard to award points, and the questions are ridiculous and humiliating,” she says. “In ­physiotherapy you would assess a patient for 60 to 90 minutes. At Atos, it’s 30 minutes. I was also asked to assess mental health patients as a ­physiotherapist, something I felt completely unqualified to do.”

Atos has now become a focus for public outrage. What the ­physiotherapist and other whistle-blowers actually describe is a systemic failure. But the system is not designed by Atos. It is designed by the Department for Work and Pensions.

The company’s statement about the protests says as much. “We absolutely respect people’s right to peaceful protest and we are aware that being assessed for benefit entitlement can be a difficult experience,” the company says. “However, lobbying against Atos Healthcare will have no impact on welfare policy.

“It is not, nor has it ever been, the role of Atos Healthcare to make decisions on who can or cannot receive benefits. We carry out assessments following strict guidelines and criteria written
by the Government.”

Atos is a private company carrying out tests designed by Iain Duncan Smith’s department.

At the moment they are also a highly convenient lightning rod for the ­catastrophic failures of his department – and the ways in which the Coalition government is destroying the safety net of the welfare state.

The other companies in the running to take over the WCA include such names as G4S, Serco, A4E and Capita Group. Campaigners fighting for change doubt that anything about the WCA is likely to improve.

Interestingly, last night an Atos spokeswoman described the WCA contract as “outdated”, saying that in its current form it wasn’t working for “claimants, for the DWP or for Atos ­Healthcare”.

With that statement, at least, millions of sick and disabled people will ­wholeheartedly agree.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/atos-just-hired-help-carrying-3160423#ixzz2tmZMylZ9
Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook


Get the Tory scumbags out now.

Spot on Phil,

You'll get a plethora of RWhinge cretins whining on about benefit cheats which represent 0.7% of total benefit expenditure! but they'll remain silent on bankers bonuses, tax evasion and the £11 trillion swilling about in tax havens.

BigAndy9 wrote:

Catman wrote:

42% of appeals won.

A damning indictment on this awful regime.

No, a thorough and fair process for the benefits claimant and more importantly, the people who fund the system.

Well you wouldn't say that, you are a disgusting little slime ball, the majority of your posts attack the poor and the vulnerable.

Crawl back under your rock.

scrat wrote:

Catman wrote:

Tragedy: Linda Wooton

Two weeks ago, the boss of Atos, Joe Hemming, told a stunned parliamentary committee the public was “satisfied” with the job his firm was doing when it assessed people for benefits.

Hauled before MPs to explain an assessment record so bad that in 2012 over 42% of appeals against the ­company’s assessments were upheld, the committee told him he was “living in a parallel universe”. The appeals alone have cost the taxpayer £60million.

Today, public outrage will spill on to the streets. Peaceful protests against Atos are taking place in over 140 places across the country, coordinated by g­rassroots disability campaigns such as Disabled People Against Cuts and Black Triangle. In the words of veteran Labour MP Dennis Skinner, protesters are calling for the Government to “abolish this heartless monster called Atos”.

Yesterday, it seemed as if their wish were already coming true, as news emerged in leaked documents that the Government is preparing to take away Atos Healthcare’s £500million exclusive contract to carry out fit-for-work tests on sick and disabled people.

Over the past year I have told heartbreaking stories in this column of people failed by those tests. In some of the cases, people have died after being found fit for work. People like Linda Wooton, a double heart and lung transplant patient from Rayleigh, Essex, who died just nine days after Atos declared her fit and said that her ­benefits should be stopped.

In other cases, people have been driven to ­foodbanks or to destitution. But apart from one whistle-blower, Dr Greg Wood, few Atos employees have spoken out.

This week I spoke to an anonymous former Atos employee – a senior ­physiotherapist – who told me she had resigned after just four weeks because she believed the system was rigged against disabled people. Speaking to her, I heard echoes of the letters and ­phone calls I receive every week from some of our society’s most vulnerable.

“The system is set up as if disabled people are trying to steal something from the Government,” she said.

“The patient was set up to fail. I’ve been a ­physiotherapist for 13 years and I can clearly identify people with different disabilities. But I wasn’t allowed to use my skills to assess them. Instead, I had to use a computer system with pre-assigned ‘descriptors’.”

Last year, the physiotherapist, who asked me not to reveal her full name as she has since rejoined the NHS, did 21 days of Atos training and then worked at the company for a further week as a trainee assessor. She was then offered a long-term contract, which she decided to decline.

“My work at Atos was the opposite of everything you are taught in the NHS. The mentality and the values. In the end, I felt I was being brainwashed into an Atos mentality – seeing claimants as thieves rather than sick and disabled people who needed support.

“One gentleman I saw had depression and had tried to commit suicide. I felt it was completely inappropriate for me to assess his case. And even when I was assessing patients with physical ­disabilities, I wasn’t allowed to use my skills as a physiotherapist – you just have to use the computer. They tell you not to touch the patient.”

The Work Capability Assessment is based on a points system, where sick and disabled people need to score points to qualify for financial help. “But the programme makes it very hard to award points, and the questions are ridiculous and humiliating,” she says. “In ­physiotherapy you would assess a patient for 60 to 90 minutes. At Atos, it’s 30 minutes. I was also asked to assess mental health patients as a ­physiotherapist, something I felt completely unqualified to do.”

Atos has now become a focus for public outrage. What the ­physiotherapist and other whistle-blowers actually describe is a systemic failure. But the system is not designed by Atos. It is designed by the Department for Work and Pensions.

The company’s statement about the protests says as much. “We absolutely respect people’s right to peaceful protest and we are aware that being assessed for benefit entitlement can be a difficult experience,” the company says. “However, lobbying against Atos Healthcare will have no impact on welfare policy.

“It is not, nor has it ever been, the role of Atos Healthcare to make decisions on who can or cannot receive benefits. We carry out assessments following strict guidelines and criteria written
by the Government.”

Atos is a private company carrying out tests designed by Iain Duncan Smith’s department.

At the moment they are also a highly convenient lightning rod for the ­catastrophic failures of his department – and the ways in which the Coalition government is destroying the safety net of the welfare state.

The other companies in the running to take over the WCA include such names as G4S, Serco, A4E and Capita Group. Campaigners fighting for change doubt that anything about the WCA is likely to improve.

Interestingly, last night an Atos spokeswoman described the WCA contract as “outdated”, saying that in its current form it wasn’t working for “claimants, for the DWP or for Atos ­Healthcare”.

With that statement, at least, millions of sick and disabled people will ­wholeheartedly agree.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/atos-just-hired-help-carrying-3160423#ixzz2tmZMylZ9
Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook


Get the Tory scumbags out now.

Spot on Phil,

You'll get a plethora of RWhinge cretins whining on about benefit cheats which represent 0.7% of total benefit expenditure! but they'll remain silent on bankers bonuses, tax evasion and the £11 trillion swilling about in tax havens.

This is all being fueled by that RW scum rag the Daily fucking fail Scrat.

Mr Catman, if there is a process in which all can appeal, and a good number of them are winning their appeals (but more fail that appeal), what is the problem?

Please don't call me names, this was a good debate up until then.

BigAndy9 wrote:Mr Catman, if there is a process in which all can appeal, and a good number of them are winning their appeals (but more fail that appeal), what is the problem?

Please don't call me names, this was a good debate up until then.

Because they cut your money, and require you to attend pointless interviews at the job centre while you are waiting for up to a year for your appeal to be held, and some have problems walking etc, and live miles away from the fucking job centre you moron.

have they got round to you yet cat.