Real Britain columnist Ros Wynne-Jones says people have died after being found fit for work - like Linda Wooton, whose benefits were stopped
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’.”
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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’.”
Read more...
