ATOS Healthcare – are they ‘medically qualified & fit for purpose?’

Please Email us on stannsnews@yahoo.co.uk and tell us what you think, let us have your opinion on this subject.

Is the ‘Work Capability’ test used by ATOS Healthcare to determine whether disabled claimants are fit to work, flawed? Are the Descriptors used by ATOS assessors to score points to each disabled person, fit for purpose? Are ATOS employees who carryout Work Capability tests, medically qualified to do so?

Our website presently enjoys over 1,100 visitors a day and we receive a reasonable number of Emails from people, and these questions pop up many times.

We therefore thought it would be useful to air the ATOS discussion in the House of Commons from last September when most of these questions were debated. Chris Grayling MP was the government minister responsible for the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) at the time. He became Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice on 4^th September 2012. This was when Ian Duncan Smith took over DWP.

ATOS is a French medical company employed by the government to provide ‘work capability assessments’ for people presently on Incapacity benefit. ATOS describes its employees who carryout the assessments as a Health Professional, however, in the majority of cases the health professional is merely a trained nurse, someone who is an unqualified Doctor, and unqualified to carryout mental health assessments.

The work capability test involves the person being assessed filling in a form, and attending a medical provided by ATOS where a question & answer session takes place, followed by the blood pressure being taken, and several simple tests in which the individual is asked to turn his/her head from side to side, and touch there toes.

The ATOS assessor then gives the individual points, score 15 and you pass, and the disabled person is put onto Employment & Support Allowance. Score less then 15 and they immediately go onto Job Seekers allowance. In this case the disabled person losses over £30 per week

In many instances the disabled person is also hit by the government’s Bedroom Tax which is a further loss of £14 per week.

The government criteria used for the Capability Test which is used by ATOS has been strongly criticized by MP’s of all parties, especially the Mental Health descriptors on which points are scored.

The government has said that they are looking at these descriptors in order to make changes to make them farer for the disabled; however, the Conservatives have failed to make any changes. As a result 40% of disabled people assessed by ATOS “to be fit for work” are winning their case before the Tribunal Service, and immediately being put back onto their disabled benefits.