Work capability assessments: the fightback
Disabled people win right to judicial review.
By Kate Belgrave Published 29 July 2012 9:33
Work and Pensions minister Chris Grayling (Photo: Getty Images)
Encouraging news out of the High Court on Thursday for opponents of the loathed Atos' work capability assessments (WCAs) : the court granted permission to two disabled people for a judicial review to challenge the operation of WCAs.
Represented by the Public Law Project, the claimants argue that WCAs discriminate against people with mental health problems. Says the Public Law Project's Ravi Low-Beer, the reasonable adjustment they want is for the onus to be on the Department of Work and Pensions “to make sure they have medical evidence from medical practitioners from the beginning of the process,” for ESA applicants with mental health issues.
Most people will know WCAs as the face-to-face interviews and brief physical tests that are conducted by Atos healthcare to assess people's eligibility for the Employment and Support Allowance.
As things stand, says Low-Beer, WCAs are conducted by Atos healthcare professionals who are not mental health experts. “At present,” the Public Law Project says, “the DWP do not routinely ask for expert medical reports from an applicant’s community-based doctor.” Interviews are often hurried and people must be able to explain their problems in detail. The claimants contend that not everyone with mental health problems is always in a position to do that – it may be, says Public Law, that “conditions fluctuate in seriousness, or [people] cannot easily talk about their disability” - which means people can be found fit for work with less than their whole stories told. That, says Low-Beer, pushes people who may already be struggling into a notoriously stressful appeals process.
“For some people, having to negotiate an appeal is an agony. It causes a tremendous amount of distress. It's a confrontation with the state that they're ill-equipped to endure.” For those reasons, says Low-Beer, medical evidence should be available and considered at the beginning of the process, and it should be up to the DWP to make sure it is. Last year, the Public Law Project and the Mental Health Resistance Network began to meet to consider a course of action around the problem.
Now, they have one. It's certainly a slap in the face for the government – and for a despised assessment process that has long been mired in strife and acrimony. Sites like Broken of Britain, AtosVictimsGroup and Jayne Linney's have grown and grown as people have looked to rein in an assessment process that they say is imprecise, unfair, fails to account for medical evidence and even to reflect discussions which take place in Atos assessment rooms. The Guardian has reported “hundreds of thousands of people” flooding to contest decisions made against ESA eligibility as a result of these assessments: “a 56% rise during 2010/11 in the number of people appealing rulings that they are fit for work,” and an overloaded tribunals system to boot. “Since the system was trialled at the end of 2009, at least 390,000 people have gone to appeal. Tribunal courts have been forced to open on Saturdays and to increase staff by 30% since January 2010 to deal with the backlog.”
God knows I've talked to people who've been stuck in it. People I've interviewed with mental health problems and bad experiences of WCA include Paul*, from Cheshire, a man who'd worked for nearly 40 years, but who suffered from severe depression and had made a suicide attempt when his department was restructured and his job changed. He told me that "there was no sympathy all,” at his WCA: “They even got my date of birth and my medication wrong. They said I went out shopping and visiting my brother - none of which was true. I can't go out of the door on my own.” Atos found him fit for work – a decision which was, like many, overturned on appeal. He almost didn't get there – he was so stressed by the thought of the appeals process that he did not want to go through it. In the end, he only appealed because his wife insisted and helped him with it.
A Newcastle man with schizophrenia, Steve*, also failed in his application for ESA. He told me that few questions were asked in his assessment about the impact his schizophrenia has on his life and his ability to cope. He was found fit for work and needed the help of his community mental health team to go through an appeal.
*Surnames withheld
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37 comments
People really need to Google the company ATOS, they carry out work capability assessments for the DWP and therefore the government, I have found stories to shock even the hardest of welfare bashers, there are suicides, people in HOSPITAL, told they have been found fit for work & had their benefits stopped, ATOS don’t take into account any medical evidence when deciding if people are fit for work, the system at the moment is reminiscent of 1930’s Germany.
Danny Shurmer, 60, received the letter from ATOS healthcare firm working on behalf of the Government as he recovered in the intensive care unit of Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital. Mr. Shurmer said: ‘I was in intensive care when my daughter came in with the letter. I was shocked. Even the consultant could not believe it. ‘THIS IS WHAT IS GOING ON, people need to know. BENEFITS STOPPED FIT FOR WORK !!.
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Thank goodness for the Public Law Project's judicial review. Their meticulous work has finally set the wheels in motion to make corrupt government officials pay serious heed and realise their equally corrupt WCA will be definitively exposed as the most inhumane process, causing massive mental strain and suffering, since the Nazi concentration camps. This together with the GP's unanimous vote to have the WCA scrapped should make the whole country realise the evil of a government that tries to make itself look good by making financial cuts, depriving genuine claimants of the money they need to live on and by association castigating these claimants as fraudsters by declaring them fit for work. In my opinion a campaign should be set up for the government to compensate all the victims, who have successfully appealed wrong decisions about their work capability, for the huge mental stress and exacerbation of their illnesses caused by having to go through the WCA and subsequent appeal.
Yet surprisingly -given Lansley's reforms and prominence given to G.P.'s as responsible commissioning fundholders - that same GP's professional expertise is studiously ignored re-Incap. and DSA claimants in favour of costly and less medically proficient french private corporate 'Atos' assessors?
Further both Cameron (for his son) and Osbourne claimed full benefit entitlements and credits despite being inherited wealth millionaires.
Now we have Grayling's expenses - so given that tory policies are creating unemployment, illness and anxiety for those disenfranchised with known linked socio-economic long term health consequences to poorest -statistically historically health linked to poverty- and that A4E and Emma Harrison have current investigations for alleged fraud in carrying out publicly funded duties of private for profit outsourced contracts.
The conclusion is that increasingly both policy and consequential justice are double standards and exclusive ly weighted in benefit to the wealthy cronies and personnel of the coalition administration.
Given new effectual 'gerrymandering' registration requirements that effectively disenfranchise the new class of mainly young transient or soon to be homeless and welfare.hb and tenure changes - are precisely the causality for both societal and individual health breakdown - whose redress is similarly thwarted by both legal aid and citizen advice dracoian cuts for the ppor , sick and vulnerable - since obviously 'legal profit' justified by consensus neo-liberalism has taken priority over any vesteige of equality in egalitarian true positive liberty meaning.
When the olympic are over and these these measures are corrected and tribunal courts returned to usual volume, those unemployment figures aren't going to look so neutral.
Grayling is as bad as the rest of them - ATOS are merely the willing accomplices - tools of corruption. Their pretence of no arbitrary targets is farcical - like they know there is one million who are not really too ill to work - or that 12-13% of seriously ill people should be in the support group.
"They said I went out shopping and visiting my brother - none of which was true. I can't go out of the door on my own."
The catch 22 of benefit reform for mentally ill people.
Support is meant to assist you to leave the house, engage with people and make your life as normal as possible.
If you use the support as it is intended, which in turn helps you to stay well enough to avoid costly episodes and hospitalisation, you are then considered ineligible for the support, leaving you vulnerable to relapse, further hospitalisation and incidentally vastly increased cost to the taxpayer (if that is your main concern).
The societal cost of these yob-mind reforms is massive and just being exchanged for (proposed) deficit reduction, which of course we are yet to see....
National interest?
Hmm...
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But, Grayling has got a miracle cure. Chancellor of the Exchequer.
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Over the last 15 years or so I have as part of my work carried out research on the effectiveness of almost all of the Government's back to work schemes, including the New Deal and Pathways to Work and in my experience there are very few people who don't want to work. There are some who don't want the work that is available and given the low pay and poor quality of much of this it is not an unreasonable position, but the vast majority of them would take a decent job which paid enough to marginally increase their quality of life. In addition most of the interventions intended to help them get back to work were no more than sticking plasters, with little real training content.
The reality is that there are very few jobs available particularly in these straightened economic times and in the geopgraphic areas where unemployment is most severe. The truth is that 30 years of laissez faire economics has created a divided Britain, between North and South and between those in work and those without.
While there may be some who claim incapacity benefits unfairly the current exercise seems likely to impact on a significnat number who are genuine and isn't really intended to get anyone back to work but merely to cut the benefit's budget.
What we need is decent skills training that gives the person a real chance to improve themselves and their income whilst at the same time making a contribution to the economy.
Although there may not be appropriate jobs available (you could be too fit for work to get ESA, but still only able to do a subset of jobs) the point of being on JSA instead (which I believe gives you the same amount of money) is that you are actively *looking* for work, even if you can't find it.
a review could be necessary, can we get some real facts though on whether the number of people on disability increased over the last decade and whether there is a relationship between the amount of money you get from disability and the number of people claiming i.e. if the amount goes up relative to other benefits do the numbers claiming go up.
anyone actually done any research on this without any political bias one way or the other?
ok managed to find some statistics in 1992 there was 1 million people on disability allowance this year there are 3 million people.
so the number of disabled people has tripled in 20 years.
Disability benefits are actually only 20 years old. The people were there - the benefit wasn't.
Well done on your "research", your ten minute fumble around the interent is hardly going to stand up to scrutiny.
Latest con in the system - people who appeal the decision are told they can claim "hardship" or Job Seekers Allowance whilst the appeal is processed - if they claim JSA they are automatically deemed to have lost as they are seen to be declaring themselves fit for work as a job seeker. This fact is not pointed out to them at the time
I thought ESA was reinstated during the appeals process?
It is in general but only stated as "hardship" which implies a lower amount that you have to qualify for as per JSA which is 45%
"It's a relatively new benefit and we have an ageing population. A lot more people would have become eligible for IB no matter who was in government" This is left wing garbage. In glasgow the number of people on sickness benefits has increased 10 fold in the last 20 yrs.Perhaps the numbers may have increased very slightly but not ten fold.Iinstead the numbers went through the roof as we had people going onto IB and staying on it for years and years. It became a soft option and many people got it purely because they didn't want to try and find work. I am glad the atos reviews are being challenged as they have to be fair to people with mental health problems but the reviews as a whole should be welcomed. Unfortunately the left wing liberal idiots don't seem to have grasped that there is a problem in the first place. Having worked in DWP for many yrs and seen first hand the people who just do not want to work and see Ib as an easy option, i can assure them that there is.
GUILTY !...
This life-long scrounger does not want to work.
But...
It was a DSS (as it was then) Operative who pointed us towards health related benefits (IS, DB) after an altercation concerning our JSA claim !
Result ? - an easy life for five years, then nonsense (re-claim, assessment, appeal, re-claim, re-assessment, re-appeal...) !!
I hope you are sought out and sacked. As a DWP employee you are meant to judge each case on its own merits, something you seem utterly incapable of given your political leanings.
If you work for DWP you should not be posting your opinions here, if fact it is a disciplinary matter.
Glasgow does indeed have some of the worst health records for all categories of both physical and mental health in Western Europe. Therefor in a civilised society one would expect that there would be support available to reflect those in need.. Please don't refer to compassion for people who are very ill as left wing extremism.. I have worked as a nurse for many yrs in some of the most affluent and most deprived areas of the U.K and Europe and I do know a little bit about of this subject..
Left wing liberalism *
A very 'British' genocide.
Although not mentally impaired (doh!) oneself be on our third such appeal !
The system is a farce - ripe for the 'mickey taking'.
ATOS are imbeciles...
The 'civil' servants in the process are by their very nature lame of brain.
The ATOS personnel though are simply corrupt - they have targets to meet - resulting in a bonus if met or more if surpassed.
Claimants are simply their fodder.
I agree, let's see Yvette Cooper in the frame too for deciding people who can't walk can be assessed as if they have imaginary wheelchairs when she was the relevant SofS. But if we go back to the origins of all this we need to bring in Peter Lilley and Carol Black too so the idea really started with the Tories but got enthusiastically adopted by New Labour, Tory Lite in other words. It's becoming clearer and clearer that a huge part of the entire political spectrum wants to kill off the disabled rather then pay them what they're owed.
The number of people on Invalidity Benefit nearly doubled under NuLab: it was basically a way of legitimising dole fraud and giving Labour a client base.
Er... there is no Invalidity Benefit. If you're talking about Incapacity Benefit then you're probably right though about it doubling under Labour. It's a relatively new benefit and we have an ageing population. A lot more people would have become eligible for IB no matter who was in government. If we still had it under the Coalition then we'd probably be seeing it doubling again as a greater percentage of people then before are reaching the age where they're old and infirm. It's the natural order of things. It's only appropriate as people become unable to support themselves that as a society we provide for them financially so they don't die. That's the point, at least in part, of the social security system that we all contribute towards keeping in place. All of us that is except those in government and big business who deny society their contributions by hiding them in tax havens.
that's good news, but shouldn't there be a photo of james purnell looking evil, next to that one of grayling.
it was the last labour government that passed the law originally, lets not pretend otherwise.