Below is the account of a caller to LBC 97.3fm on 27/7/13 to Petrie Hosken.
From LBC - "A caller who claims to be a former nurse at ATOS - the company tasked
with assessing people for Disability Living Allowance* by the government
- gives Petrie Hosken an uncomfortable insight into how assessments are
made."
Nurse: Worst position I ever worked in - more like factory work. Had daily quotas
of 26 bundles of files - 18 files of clients to a bundle. I worked on
my own on the computer. Results were quantified before started -
results were what they predicted.
Nurse: Questioned why can't DWP employ its own nurses & doctors?
Doctors employed by Atos are 95% foreign doctors, who cannot get work in
NHS. Others are retired/ semi retired GPs. All doctors are very well
paid. Doctors are not allowed to examine patients. Shambolic.
Petrie: Are you surprised by number of Appeals?
Nurse : Not surprised. The result is told to you before you look at the files. Everything is predetermined
Petrie: Are you encouraged to turn clients away from the benefits system?
Nurse: Nurses did the file work - did not meet the patients. Told how many had to be turned down.
If not you had a kind of disciplinary. The doctors did not examine the
patients. Nurses and doctors are workers with no regard to their
clinical skills. You belong to Atos, who treat their staff horrendously.
Petrie: This is appalling. You have to have Targets?
Nurse: Absolutely
Petrie: You turn people away despite their health conditions?
Nurse: uh huh
Petrie: How does it make you feel?
Nurse: Awful ( She left after 9 months working for Atos, having been a nurse for 30 years)
It is the most unsatisfying job. Joined to make a difference.
Petrie: So decent people leave - replaced by others who need a job and don't have your moral compass?
Nurse: I was told by Deputy Director at the Atos centre, who is a
doctor " Sally if you want to work here you'd better throw your
principles out the window."
Nurse: Said she left Atos after 9 months, having been a nurse for 30 years.
*Atos currently carry out the Work Capability Assessments on behalf of the Government for Employment and Support Allowance claims and have recently been awarded a contract to assess disabled people for the new Personal Independence Payments.
Transcript of Audio by @FordCarole [with thanks to @tinkerkitten4 ]
Source: http://www.lbc.co.uk/listen-ex-atos-nurse-tells-her-story-75493
The WOW Petition - 100,000 signatures captured. Next #WOWdebate2014 to stop the War on Welfare
Showing posts with label ATOS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ATOS. Show all posts
30/07/2013
10/05/2013
The Atos Inquisition
Guest post by Henry Benedict Tam @HenryBTam Author of the blog Question the Powerful
There was a time when the Spanish Inquisition hunted down those with the ‘wrong’ beliefs and made them recant their heresy. Now the British Government has rekindled its spirit, but with the aim of confronting the sick and the maimed so as to make them recant their disability.
Imagine you have been struck down by an illness, and according to your doctor, you will no longer be able to carry out work that would earn you a wage in today’s economy. For a time, you draw solace from the fact that you live under a state that maintains a genuine safety net for all, and you will not be left jobless, homeless, or having to beg for charity to keep you alive.
But then a Conservative-led Government comes along and decides that the best way to deflect public attention from its refusal to curb the excessive powers of the corporate elite is to serve up scapegoats. So it tells two and a half million people incapacitated by diverse forms of illness and injury that it will no longer pay any attention to what the doctors who have actually dealt with them have to say. Instead, it brings in the corporation, ATOS, to light the flame of recantation.
ATOS Inquisitors, armed with the mandate to interrogate and declare as many disabled people as undeserving of public support, have plunged countless vulnerable people into the deepest despair.
Examples of ATOS callousness and incompetence abound. Calling themselves ‘assessors’, they ask those summoned to appear before them questions such as “how long have you had Down’s Syndrome?” or “when did you catch autism?” A middle-aged woman, registered blind, was simply told that her benefit would be withdrawn. In another case, a 24-year-old epileptic, who was subject to grand mal seizures, had his benefit cut after he was ‘assessed’ to be fit for work. Just three months later, after living in fear that he could not pay his rent or buy food, he had a major seizure and died. People with debilitating and terminal cancer have also been told they had to surrender their benefits.
For those who managed to find help to appeal against ATOS, a third have had their assessments overturned. But many are too stressed or isolated to mount a challenge. Justice can only prevail if the entire inquisition regime is cast aside. The National Audit Office has investigated and found ATOS work to be unsatisfactory. The British Medical Association has asked for the assessment system to be scrapped.
But the Government is not relenting for one moment, even if people are dying from the fear and reality of losing what little money they had hitherto relied on to stay afloat. The Government is bringing in even more stringent inquisitional criteria to cut the provision of life-saving benefits. Meanwhile, they reward ATOS so handsomely that its chief executive is given a £1 million bonus.
If the ATOS Inquisition had featured in a dystopian novel about what a rightwing government might do, it would be decried as irresponsible scaremongering. Sadly it is all too real.
[To learn more about the Employment & Support Allowance (ESA), take the ESA Quiz. Note: the number of people claiming benefit as they are unable to work has not actually risen since 1997]
There was a time when the Spanish Inquisition hunted down those with the ‘wrong’ beliefs and made them recant their heresy. Now the British Government has rekindled its spirit, but with the aim of confronting the sick and the maimed so as to make them recant their disability.
Imagine you have been struck down by an illness, and according to your doctor, you will no longer be able to carry out work that would earn you a wage in today’s economy. For a time, you draw solace from the fact that you live under a state that maintains a genuine safety net for all, and you will not be left jobless, homeless, or having to beg for charity to keep you alive.
But then a Conservative-led Government comes along and decides that the best way to deflect public attention from its refusal to curb the excessive powers of the corporate elite is to serve up scapegoats. So it tells two and a half million people incapacitated by diverse forms of illness and injury that it will no longer pay any attention to what the doctors who have actually dealt with them have to say. Instead, it brings in the corporation, ATOS, to light the flame of recantation.
ATOS Inquisitors, armed with the mandate to interrogate and declare as many disabled people as undeserving of public support, have plunged countless vulnerable people into the deepest despair.
Examples of ATOS callousness and incompetence abound. Calling themselves ‘assessors’, they ask those summoned to appear before them questions such as “how long have you had Down’s Syndrome?” or “when did you catch autism?” A middle-aged woman, registered blind, was simply told that her benefit would be withdrawn. In another case, a 24-year-old epileptic, who was subject to grand mal seizures, had his benefit cut after he was ‘assessed’ to be fit for work. Just three months later, after living in fear that he could not pay his rent or buy food, he had a major seizure and died. People with debilitating and terminal cancer have also been told they had to surrender their benefits.
For those who managed to find help to appeal against ATOS, a third have had their assessments overturned. But many are too stressed or isolated to mount a challenge. Justice can only prevail if the entire inquisition regime is cast aside. The National Audit Office has investigated and found ATOS work to be unsatisfactory. The British Medical Association has asked for the assessment system to be scrapped.
But the Government is not relenting for one moment, even if people are dying from the fear and reality of losing what little money they had hitherto relied on to stay afloat. The Government is bringing in even more stringent inquisitional criteria to cut the provision of life-saving benefits. Meanwhile, they reward ATOS so handsomely that its chief executive is given a £1 million bonus.
If the ATOS Inquisition had featured in a dystopian novel about what a rightwing government might do, it would be decried as irresponsible scaremongering. Sadly it is all too real.
[To learn more about the Employment & Support Allowance (ESA), take the ESA Quiz. Note: the number of people claiming benefit as they are unable to work has not actually risen since 1997]
22/03/2013
The Lump Hammer Approach to the Work Capability Assessment
Explaining an invisible illness to someone isn't easy at the best of times. When you suffer from a mental health condition, it can be difficult and traumatic to translate the troublesome thoughts and feelings running through your head into words. People tend to be alarmed by behaviour and ideas that they can't relate to themselves and you soon learn that it's probably better to keep your personal horrors hidden from your friends and family and make up more acceptable excuses for yourself when you don't feel well. Mental health professionals generally know that people feel stigmatised and frightened to open up. That they're scared of speaking out because it can be confusing and upsetting and there are no simple solutions. They tread carefully at first on tip-toes around you. Little by little they build a professional relationship based upon the solid foundations of your trust. A good therapist offers a sensitive ear to your troubles and waits patiently until you feel stable, comfortable and ready to share your inner depths. They listen and put you at your ease....
...which is far from the reality of the work capability assessment. The face-to-face assessment has all the sensitivity of a blunt lump hammer bashed against your skull to knock the answers they demand right out of you with thumping great whacks. No moment is given to recover from your upset here my friends. Your time is their money.
The face-to-face assessment was scheduled to be done at my home because of the nature of my illness. It was a huge relief that they had accepted and believed my difficulties demanded it. My last assessment was just twelve months ago and despite having a long-term history of chronic anxiety conditions, more therapy than Ruby Wax (not possible) and a poor prognosis, following a fit to work decision and a battle, I was placed in the work related activity group. Thank the Holy Lord and mother nature herself that no one from the jobcentre has ever contacted me. I could not have coped if they had.
The Atos health care professional was not the person named on the letter. When he arrived my heart sank. It was the same man as last time. The same man who twisted and manipulated my answers and wrote a work of fiction about me on his report. I hadn't been expecting a fair or reasonable assessment however. At least this time I knew not to trust. I had been dreading it. Effectively two months had been wiped from my life with worry and stress. I couldn't think of anything else. The apprehension grabs you by the guts and twists them until you're curled up in a quivering foetal ball. I could barely function for fear of what was going to happen next. Suffice to say the night before sleep had eluded me. By the time he arrived in the morning I was ragged and a little bit delirious.
Ten whole minutes of rapid fire questions followed. Barely time to catch my breath, yet alone my composure, which crumbled when he asked me to describe a panic attack. Despite enduring possibly thousands of panic attacks, right there and then under this pressure my mind was a blank vacuum of emptiness. I just couldn't think and hot tears swelled in my eyes so I had to cover my face with my hands. My thoughts dried up, my throat constricted, my voice cracked and words would not come. He was perched on the end of the settee tapping his pen. I noticed him turn his wrist to look at his watch.
"Did I take medication?" I shook my head and told him, no. His scribbled with his pen and I hastily added that I didn't take medication because the side effects had been intolerable and in the past had made my condition significantly worse. I noticed that the pen didn't write this clarification down on paper.
"Did I ring the doctors myself?" I had to think for a moment, "sometimes" I said. I'm familiar with my GPs surgery and it's probably the one place on this earth that I'm not too afraid to ring. Had he asked if I rang the hairdressers, or the dentists, or the DWP, I would have said no, never, because I am too anxious.
"Do I go there by myself?" I do yes, because it's literally around the corner, takes less than a minute to reach by car and you can park right outside the door. "So you walk to the doctors yourself?" he enquired and started to write the answer down before I had started to speak. "No! I am taken there!" because I can't walk that far without panicking. Once again, his pen lay still in his hand.
Two sheets of A4 paper were completed, and with that he opened his briefcase, placed the forms inside and clipped it shut. He said that I didn't need to see him out, and with that, he was through the door and gone, leaving me huddled on the chair feeling stunned and bewildered, as if I'd just been violated in some way. It was over so quickly I didn't really know what to feel. Certainly I was relieved that it was done and dusted, but if that was a credible and fair assessment to reflect a fifteen year history of a crippling mental health condition, I am very worried. I have no idea if he's read my detailed forms and the assessment was a mere formality, or if he's made up his mind already to find me fit to work.
Once the dreaded (white) envelope of doom arrives, you have exactly four weeks from the date it was issued to complete and return the ESA50 forms contained inside. What these forms fail to mention is that for each question you complete, you will awarded a set amount of points from zero to fifteen. You need at least 15 to "pass". However which way you finally get to the stage where you're given the benefit you are legally entitled to, be that as a direct result of the assessment, by a reconsideration of a fit to work decision, or at an independent tribunal, it is extremely disconcerting to feel that you have succeeded in "passing the exam" because someone with no medical training acknowledged the severity of your illness. It really does feel as if your illness is on trial.
How Atos will interpret your answers is something of a mystery. The questions are vague and ambiguous and perhaps in the majority of cases, bear no relation to the real life limitations to work your condition poses. People who are mostly housebound and need someone to support them to go outside cannot score enough points on that particular activity to be awarded the benefit. People who are not aggressive or violent every day, but only some days, cannot score enough points to be awarded the benefit. Okay, so there is a clause which states that if work will cause you or others harm there is some discretion in the decision making process. The problem in reality, is proving to them that is the case. In order to try and understand what was actually being asked of me, it took me almost the whole month to complete the few answers I believe might possibly be relevant to my mental health condition. It is a miserable experience, and utterly demoralising and soul destroying to have to go over and over the very worst aspects of your ill health. By the end of the process you're emotionally battered and more unwell than when you started.
Mark Hoban, the minister for Work and Pensions would have you think the reason why at least 40% of fit to work decisions are overturned at appeal is because additional medical evidence was presented to back up the claims. I challenge the minister to obtain his medical history within this narrow time frame and see if he can do it without having to pay. The maximum your GP surgery can charge for copying your medical records is £50, which is precisely the sum that I was charged. I contacted the GP surgery the day I received the forms. I was told to put my request in writing. That letter was delivered to them within hours. It took six weeks to get hold of some of the documents, but they had missed off everything from 2005 to date. That afternoon, I confess, I cried.
I hope that the clerk at the DWP who makes the final decision does read the two inches thick paper documentation to support my claim. Frankly, I couldn't flip a coin one way or the other to tell you what their decision will be. The major problem with the work capability assessment is that the outcome is so completely uncertain. People keep telling me that they have their fingers crossed. Some have their toes crossed for me too. Isn't that the point after all? No one can second guess what the decision will be. It's a test based not on facts, or evidence. It's more a game of chance which gambles with your sanity and your desperate need for support and a subsistence income. I wait anxiously to learn if they pull my ticket out of their tombola machine. Wish me luck?
If anyone is feeling alone and worried about their own assessment please contact Jane on twitter @WOWpetitionchat
There is an excellent interactive guide to the complex work capability assessment written by a specialist benefits advisor at http://ilegal.org.uk/thread/7049/mlinteractive-guide-completion-esa-50
If you would like to share your own experience please contact us. We will be delighted to hear from you.
Above all, we demand that this degrading and unfair assessment process is stopped as soon as possible. Please give your support by signing and sharing the petition...
...which is far from the reality of the work capability assessment. The face-to-face assessment has all the sensitivity of a blunt lump hammer bashed against your skull to knock the answers they demand right out of you with thumping great whacks. No moment is given to recover from your upset here my friends. Your time is their money.
The face-to-face assessment was scheduled to be done at my home because of the nature of my illness. It was a huge relief that they had accepted and believed my difficulties demanded it. My last assessment was just twelve months ago and despite having a long-term history of chronic anxiety conditions, more therapy than Ruby Wax (not possible) and a poor prognosis, following a fit to work decision and a battle, I was placed in the work related activity group. Thank the Holy Lord and mother nature herself that no one from the jobcentre has ever contacted me. I could not have coped if they had.
The Atos health care professional was not the person named on the letter. When he arrived my heart sank. It was the same man as last time. The same man who twisted and manipulated my answers and wrote a work of fiction about me on his report. I hadn't been expecting a fair or reasonable assessment however. At least this time I knew not to trust. I had been dreading it. Effectively two months had been wiped from my life with worry and stress. I couldn't think of anything else. The apprehension grabs you by the guts and twists them until you're curled up in a quivering foetal ball. I could barely function for fear of what was going to happen next. Suffice to say the night before sleep had eluded me. By the time he arrived in the morning I was ragged and a little bit delirious.
Ten whole minutes of rapid fire questions followed. Barely time to catch my breath, yet alone my composure, which crumbled when he asked me to describe a panic attack. Despite enduring possibly thousands of panic attacks, right there and then under this pressure my mind was a blank vacuum of emptiness. I just couldn't think and hot tears swelled in my eyes so I had to cover my face with my hands. My thoughts dried up, my throat constricted, my voice cracked and words would not come. He was perched on the end of the settee tapping his pen. I noticed him turn his wrist to look at his watch.
"Did I take medication?" I shook my head and told him, no. His scribbled with his pen and I hastily added that I didn't take medication because the side effects had been intolerable and in the past had made my condition significantly worse. I noticed that the pen didn't write this clarification down on paper.
"Did I ring the doctors myself?" I had to think for a moment, "sometimes" I said. I'm familiar with my GPs surgery and it's probably the one place on this earth that I'm not too afraid to ring. Had he asked if I rang the hairdressers, or the dentists, or the DWP, I would have said no, never, because I am too anxious.
"Do I go there by myself?" I do yes, because it's literally around the corner, takes less than a minute to reach by car and you can park right outside the door. "So you walk to the doctors yourself?" he enquired and started to write the answer down before I had started to speak. "No! I am taken there!" because I can't walk that far without panicking. Once again, his pen lay still in his hand.
Two sheets of A4 paper were completed, and with that he opened his briefcase, placed the forms inside and clipped it shut. He said that I didn't need to see him out, and with that, he was through the door and gone, leaving me huddled on the chair feeling stunned and bewildered, as if I'd just been violated in some way. It was over so quickly I didn't really know what to feel. Certainly I was relieved that it was done and dusted, but if that was a credible and fair assessment to reflect a fifteen year history of a crippling mental health condition, I am very worried. I have no idea if he's read my detailed forms and the assessment was a mere formality, or if he's made up his mind already to find me fit to work.
Once the dreaded (white) envelope of doom arrives, you have exactly four weeks from the date it was issued to complete and return the ESA50 forms contained inside. What these forms fail to mention is that for each question you complete, you will awarded a set amount of points from zero to fifteen. You need at least 15 to "pass". However which way you finally get to the stage where you're given the benefit you are legally entitled to, be that as a direct result of the assessment, by a reconsideration of a fit to work decision, or at an independent tribunal, it is extremely disconcerting to feel that you have succeeded in "passing the exam" because someone with no medical training acknowledged the severity of your illness. It really does feel as if your illness is on trial.
How Atos will interpret your answers is something of a mystery. The questions are vague and ambiguous and perhaps in the majority of cases, bear no relation to the real life limitations to work your condition poses. People who are mostly housebound and need someone to support them to go outside cannot score enough points on that particular activity to be awarded the benefit. People who are not aggressive or violent every day, but only some days, cannot score enough points to be awarded the benefit. Okay, so there is a clause which states that if work will cause you or others harm there is some discretion in the decision making process. The problem in reality, is proving to them that is the case. In order to try and understand what was actually being asked of me, it took me almost the whole month to complete the few answers I believe might possibly be relevant to my mental health condition. It is a miserable experience, and utterly demoralising and soul destroying to have to go over and over the very worst aspects of your ill health. By the end of the process you're emotionally battered and more unwell than when you started.
Mark Hoban, the minister for Work and Pensions would have you think the reason why at least 40% of fit to work decisions are overturned at appeal is because additional medical evidence was presented to back up the claims. I challenge the minister to obtain his medical history within this narrow time frame and see if he can do it without having to pay. The maximum your GP surgery can charge for copying your medical records is £50, which is precisely the sum that I was charged. I contacted the GP surgery the day I received the forms. I was told to put my request in writing. That letter was delivered to them within hours. It took six weeks to get hold of some of the documents, but they had missed off everything from 2005 to date. That afternoon, I confess, I cried.
I hope that the clerk at the DWP who makes the final decision does read the two inches thick paper documentation to support my claim. Frankly, I couldn't flip a coin one way or the other to tell you what their decision will be. The major problem with the work capability assessment is that the outcome is so completely uncertain. People keep telling me that they have their fingers crossed. Some have their toes crossed for me too. Isn't that the point after all? No one can second guess what the decision will be. It's a test based not on facts, or evidence. It's more a game of chance which gambles with your sanity and your desperate need for support and a subsistence income. I wait anxiously to learn if they pull my ticket out of their tombola machine. Wish me luck?
If anyone is feeling alone and worried about their own assessment please contact Jane on twitter @WOWpetitionchat
There is an excellent interactive guide to the complex work capability assessment written by a specialist benefits advisor at http://ilegal.org.uk/thread/7049/mlinteractive-guide-completion-esa-50
If you would like to share your own experience please contact us. We will be delighted to hear from you.
Above all, we demand that this degrading and unfair assessment process is stopped as soon as possible. Please give your support by signing and sharing the petition...
09/02/2013
20,000 People Have Signed The WOW Petition
*** 20,000 ***
The WOW Petition has over 20,000 signatures!
A huge thank you for signing and sharing this urgent and important petition. The good news is that we are on target to reach our goal of 100,000 signatures.
During a television interview for ITN, Margaret Hodge MP, chair of the Public Accounts Committee revealed that the Department for Work and Pensions have figures of the deaths of 1300 people who are known to have died after being found "fit to work". MPs have acknowledged that the department is causing "misery and hardship" to benefit claimants. Government ministers are trying to defend a broken system. They must accept and take responsibility for allowing harm to be inflicted on sick and disabled people by the work capability assessment which is not fit for purpose, and the suffering caused by the cuts to benefits and care services that target people when they are most vulnerable.
Support is growing from charities, organisations and individuals. It is essential that you please continue to tell as many people about this petition as you can and ask them to sign. Together we can make a difference!
22/01/2013
Pat's Petition Goes to Westminster - How You Can Help
Will Labour Offer Any Protection to Disabled People?
Pat’s
Petition is going to Westminster to find out.
After weeks of waiting - sorting out the
logistics of travel to London - Pat's Petition finally has a date for meeting with Liam
Byrne MP, Labour's Shadow Work and
Pensions Secretary. Wednesday 6th February will see five of us at
Westminster.
This meeting could not be happening at a more
crucial moment in the long, sad history of this persecution. Because there is
so much visible distress and so much suffering is now happening in real time in
the public arena – before the eyes of the nation – people are beginning to see
through the spin and myths – and see the truth.
There were two very serious debates in
Parliament last week. In the debate called by Michael Meacher on WCA and ATOS - MP
after MP queued up to recite the litany of appalling cases that they had seen
in their surgeries. Thank you Michael.
In the debate in the House of Lords,
motion proposed by Baroness Hollis, Lord Freud showed once again that he does
not care.
The
Centre of Welfare reform also released a report this week, How the cuts affect disabled
people PDF.
So Pat’s Petition is going to Westminster to talk to
Labour. We are hopefully going to finalise arrangements for an Opposition Day
debate calling for a Cumulative Impact Assessment. Someone has to measure and
record this persecution. Looking the other way and saying it is all too
difficult is no longer an option.
This
night of a thousand cuts cannot carry on unchallenged. Disabled people, their
carers, families and friends cannot take any more. The financial stress is
overwhelming and the emotional stress is more than we can bear. The public are
on our side now that the myths are exploding and they can actually see what is
being done in their name.
So we are going to ask Liam what Labour will
do to help us.
What will Labour promise us to protect us?
How you can help
It is vital you lobby your contacts across
all Parties; stress how much you/your members need a Cumulative Impact
Assessment undertaken.
Send us a supporting statement a.s.a.p. no later than February 1st of why
you think so.
This will be shared across social media platforms so more people
can see your concerns.
We
will also print them to take with us when we meet with Liam.
We look forward to your response.
Pat
x
17/01/2013
Emotional MPs Discuss Anxiety and Hardship Caused by Work Capability Assessments
Atos told incontinent woman to ‘wear nappy’
Thousands of sick or disabled people have died after undergoing assessments to find out whether they were fit to work, the House of Commons was told today.
Atos, the firm contracted to conduct work capability assessment (WCA) tests for the Government, was condemned by MPs for “ruthlessly” pressurising sick and disabled people into returning to their jobs.
The debate was told of cases of people who had committed suicide after being stripped of their benefits under the process and of an incontinence sufferer who was told she could return to work wearing a nappy.
Former Labour minister Michael Meacher opened the debate saying that 1,300 people had died after being placed in the “work-related activity group”, for those currently too ill to be employed but expected to start preparing for an eventual return to work...
...Kevan Jones, a former Labour minister, said suicides of claimants who were found fit to work by Atos had been reported. “There are...a number of well-publicised cases where people have taken their own lives because of this system,” he said. “It is not too strong to say that this Coalition Government has blood on their hands for the deaths of those individuals.”
02/01/2013
How and Why The WOW Petition Started
We are an ever increasing group of ordinary people who are sick, disabled, carers, and the parents of disabled children, who all feel driven to act against the extraordinary pressure placed upon us by the UK coalition government's ideologically driven Welfare Reform Act.
The petition was the result of a democratic process. It did not come from one person, rather it evolved from the desperation of many. Together we asked anyone who was concerned about the impact of welfare reform to share ideas and suggestions. Some of them created draft petitions and together we worked on and amended them until they satisfied the needs and wants of the majority as best we could within the limitations of the e-petitions website. There was a vote and a winner was chosen. Actress and comedian Francesca Martinez supported our campaign and submitted the petition on behalf of all UK sick and disabled people.
The fitness to work test is not fit for purpose. The British Medical Association which represents GPs voted unanimously for it's immediate end because it is so detrimental to the health and well being of their patients. Those people who have worked and paid National Insurance contributions are having all of their benefits stopped after just 365 days because they have small savings or a partner who may only work part time. Many who have been through the flawed assessment process have long-term or debilitating conditions that will deteriorate and cannot be cured. They are being left high and dry without a penny in financial support and with no support to help them back to work. It's clear that the government has no intention of supporting those people towards re-employment. The result is that they are yet further isolated and removed from the work place. People are saying they feel like a burden on their families, that it's unfair when they've worked and paid their insurance contributions to support them in times of hardship, in some cases, for many decades.
People with mental health conditions find it especially difficult to endure the fitness to work test and many are being refused the benefit. We understand that three quarters of them will not have access to any form of treatment, and it's unsuccessful in three quarters of cases. To have to endure this harsh assessment year after year after year, only to be repeatedly found fit to work and go through the back logged appeals process cycle, is too stressful for some. People have committed suicide. There is a sense of fear from everyone. In April legal aid will be stopped. Even now it's exceedingly difficult to find a specialist welfare adviser. We know that professional advice helps people overturn wrongful decisions. This all coincides with the implementation of the new benefit Universal Credit and the change over from Disability Living Allowance to the new Personal Independence Payments. 500,000 are expected to lose their disability benefit, and with it their independence and dignity. People are saying that they will lose their mobility cars if they can move just 20 metres. Without their specially adapted cars they won't be able to leave their homes, attend hospital appointments and contribute to society at all.
If we can reach a hundred thousand signatures it would signify powerful public dissent which the media should pay attention to and ask the government why they won't. We will continue to correspond with backbench committee MPs and media and hope to make it general knowledge that government policy was forced through and not based on evidence, not supported by sick and disabled people and is causing immense suffering. This is a moral and human rights issue at heart.
Anyone can become sick or disabled without a moment's notice, and they do. Turn away and one day, you may find that these cuts are falling not only on us, but on you and your family.
I've
never felt so worried about my future or so completely insecure as I currently do.
That's why I supported the petition. Will you?
The petition was the result of a democratic process. It did not come from one person, rather it evolved from the desperation of many. Together we asked anyone who was concerned about the impact of welfare reform to share ideas and suggestions. Some of them created draft petitions and together we worked on and amended them until they satisfied the needs and wants of the majority as best we could within the limitations of the e-petitions website. There was a vote and a winner was chosen. Actress and comedian Francesca Martinez supported our campaign and submitted the petition on behalf of all UK sick and disabled people.
Another petition, called Pat's Petition after Pat Onions who is blind, and a carer, attempted to reach the 100,000 signatures required to potentially trigger a debate in the House of Commons. It was hugely successful and achieved just under 63,000 signatures with no funding or publicity. The deadline was drawing near and on social media an increasing sense of excitement. The target was in reach, but there was also a fear, that the pressing concerns of sick and
disabled people would be fobbed off or flippantly dismissed. If
Pat's Petition didn't succeed we had to do something to help ourselves
and within our limited means. It mattered that ordinary members of the public
cared and took notice. In fact the success of Pat's Petition has lead to an upcoming Opposition Day Debate and MPs will have to discuss the impact some the cuts to benefits and services are having on disabled people's daily lives.
We feel threatened by further welfare cuts since Pat's Petition ended. We dread the latest hate mongering headlines towards welfare claimants in the tabloid press, which invariably means the government is attempting to convince the public that it can target welfare claimants yet again for further cuts, conditions and sanctions to their essential social security. We again call for a Cumulative
Impact Assessment of all of the changes and cuts to benefits and
services before it is too late.
We
are sharing our stories with other sick and disabled people who are
finding their quality of life is being severely degraded. Sick and disabled people do want to work but the truth of the matter is, there is a woeful lack of real opportunity to fulfil our potential. People with illness and mental health problems are stigmatised and discriminated against by employers. When they do seek work that they feel they can cope with they discover the reality is that no one wants to employ them. Even during periods of economic growth employment opportunties are in short supply. To force these people into an overcrowded job market with the intention of 'helping them' is an ideological idea doomed to failure. The work
programme is not a viable solution for sick and disabled people. It begs the question, if the government are prepared to pay private companies to find placements for disabled people, why are they shutting the Remploy factories down where disabled people had permanent jobs? Only recently, a law was introduced which allows jobcentre staff with no medical training to force sick people to sign up for the work programme under the
threat of losing their benefits. These people have already undergone the
harsh work capability assessment. Even Atos has determined that they are not
fit to work. Can the government be so certain that their health will not deteriorate
even further as a result of being made to work? Is this fair treatment for a sickness benefit? We are afraid that ESA is becoming too much like jobseekers
allowance. We are sick, battling pain, exhaustion, chronic illness and mental distress on a daily basis. We feel we are now being vilified and punished too. We are not too lazy to
work.
The majority of cuts have not yet been implemented. Sick and disabled people who cannot work to increase their incomes will not longer see their ESA rise with inflation when food and fuel costs will rise disproportionately higher than their benefits. The average wage according to the Daily Mail is £441 per week. That is quadruple the amount that sick and disabled people receive in benefit income. We are not "scroungers". No one would choose a life of poverty and illness if the choice was theirs to make.
Some people are now saying they have letters from their local councils. That they are having to pay council tax from their benefit income and they may also be hit by the charge for having an additional room. They cannot afford this extra payment but there is nowhere suitable for them to move to, and that to do so would move them away from family and carers and support networks.
The majority of cuts have not yet been implemented. Sick and disabled people who cannot work to increase their incomes will not longer see their ESA rise with inflation when food and fuel costs will rise disproportionately higher than their benefits. The average wage according to the Daily Mail is £441 per week. That is quadruple the amount that sick and disabled people receive in benefit income. We are not "scroungers". No one would choose a life of poverty and illness if the choice was theirs to make.
Some people are now saying they have letters from their local councils. That they are having to pay council tax from their benefit income and they may also be hit by the charge for having an additional room. They cannot afford this extra payment but there is nowhere suitable for them to move to, and that to do so would move them away from family and carers and support networks.
The fitness to work test is not fit for purpose. The British Medical Association which represents GPs voted unanimously for it's immediate end because it is so detrimental to the health and well being of their patients. Those people who have worked and paid National Insurance contributions are having all of their benefits stopped after just 365 days because they have small savings or a partner who may only work part time. Many who have been through the flawed assessment process have long-term or debilitating conditions that will deteriorate and cannot be cured. They are being left high and dry without a penny in financial support and with no support to help them back to work. It's clear that the government has no intention of supporting those people towards re-employment. The result is that they are yet further isolated and removed from the work place. People are saying they feel like a burden on their families, that it's unfair when they've worked and paid their insurance contributions to support them in times of hardship, in some cases, for many decades.
People with mental health conditions find it especially difficult to endure the fitness to work test and many are being refused the benefit. We understand that three quarters of them will not have access to any form of treatment, and it's unsuccessful in three quarters of cases. To have to endure this harsh assessment year after year after year, only to be repeatedly found fit to work and go through the back logged appeals process cycle, is too stressful for some. People have committed suicide. There is a sense of fear from everyone. In April legal aid will be stopped. Even now it's exceedingly difficult to find a specialist welfare adviser. We know that professional advice helps people overturn wrongful decisions. This all coincides with the implementation of the new benefit Universal Credit and the change over from Disability Living Allowance to the new Personal Independence Payments. 500,000 are expected to lose their disability benefit, and with it their independence and dignity. People are saying that they will lose their mobility cars if they can move just 20 metres. Without their specially adapted cars they won't be able to leave their homes, attend hospital appointments and contribute to society at all.
Too many cuts and changes are happening at once. Those mentioned are but a few of the better known benefit cuts. It is quite overwhelming and everybody is terrified.
People on twitter are actually reporting deaths and suicides. It's
heartbreaking. Some, that close members of their families are having to
go into care homes because their care is said to be too expensive. These are people with wives and husbands, and children.
Who will listen? Who will
help us?
If we can reach a hundred thousand signatures it would signify powerful public dissent which the media should pay attention to and ask the government why they won't. We will continue to correspond with backbench committee MPs and media and hope to make it general knowledge that government policy was forced through and not based on evidence, not supported by sick and disabled people and is causing immense suffering. This is a moral and human rights issue at heart.
Anyone can become sick or disabled without a moment's notice, and they do. Turn away and one day, you may find that these cuts are falling not only on us, but on you and your family.
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