'Despite cross-party condemnation last week over the way thousands of sick and disabled people have had their benefits axed after the private company Atos wrongly found them fit to work, the government is trying to sneak in new measures which will make the problem worse.
It has tabled amendments to employment and support allowance legislation which, academics and campaigners say, will lead to even greater suffering by the genuinely ill.
Plans include a withdrawing benefit if an assessor decides that a claimant's ability to work would be improved by aids, such as guide dogs, walking sticks or prosthetic limbs - whether or not the claimant has access to them or can use them. Atos assessors already have the power to carry an "imaginary wheelchair test" when they decide that a person could work if they used a wheelchair - even if they do not have one.
Under the changes people will also lose benefit if an assessor decides that adjustments could be made for them in the workplace - whether or not those changes have been made. The amendments also include plans to consider physical and mental health problems separately, instead of looking at the combined effects of mental and physical health on a person's ability to work. As is common knowledge, some diseases impact on both mental and physical health, and treatments for one can severely impact on the other.
The changes, due to take effect at the end of the month after no public debate, have been condemned in a briefing by the think tank Ekklesia, which says they fly in the face of "coalition claims to be protecting and supporting sick and disabled people in a climate of austerity, cutbacks and hardship."
MP Tom Greatrex, a critic of Atos, said: "The fact that people can be assessed as fit for work on the basis of an imaginary guide dog, without taking any account of the availability of guide dogs and the time taken to train both dogs and users, highlights just how far the DWP seem to be prepared to go to find people fit for work without the support they need to make work a reality."
Last week the Commons heard of many cases where patients had died, or committed suicide, after being assessed as fit for work following "a demeaning process that was making sick people sicker". Under coalition proposals there will be many more such cases.
It has tabled amendments to employment and support allowance legislation which, academics and campaigners say, will lead to even greater suffering by the genuinely ill.
Plans include a withdrawing benefit if an assessor decides that a claimant's ability to work would be improved by aids, such as guide dogs, walking sticks or prosthetic limbs - whether or not the claimant has access to them or can use them. Atos assessors already have the power to carry an "imaginary wheelchair test" when they decide that a person could work if they used a wheelchair - even if they do not have one.
Under the changes people will also lose benefit if an assessor decides that adjustments could be made for them in the workplace - whether or not those changes have been made. The amendments also include plans to consider physical and mental health problems separately, instead of looking at the combined effects of mental and physical health on a person's ability to work. As is common knowledge, some diseases impact on both mental and physical health, and treatments for one can severely impact on the other.
The changes, due to take effect at the end of the month after no public debate, have been condemned in a briefing by the think tank Ekklesia, which says they fly in the face of "coalition claims to be protecting and supporting sick and disabled people in a climate of austerity, cutbacks and hardship."
MP Tom Greatrex, a critic of Atos, said: "The fact that people can be assessed as fit for work on the basis of an imaginary guide dog, without taking any account of the availability of guide dogs and the time taken to train both dogs and users, highlights just how far the DWP seem to be prepared to go to find people fit for work without the support they need to make work a reality."
Last week the Commons heard of many cases where patients had died, or committed suicide, after being assessed as fit for work following "a demeaning process that was making sick people sicker". Under coalition proposals there will be many more such cases.
Source: Private Eye
