Hundreds of thousands hit by benefits backlog

Hundreds of thousands of people have been affected by a benefits backlog, the government has said.

More than 700,000 people are waiting for assessments for employment and support allowance (ESA), it said.

Minister for Disabled People Mike Penning blamed the delays on Atos, the contractor carrying out controversial fitness-to-work tests. Atos has said its staff have been “vilified” and abused for doing what was asked of them by ministers.

Asked in Parliament about implementation of benefits reform, Prime Minister David Cameron said changes should be carried out “in a way that works well” rather than to an “artificial deadline”. He was responding to a question by Labour MP Katy Clark, who asked why the majority of those who had applied for the personal independence payment (PIP) had yet to receive a decision.

PIP started to replace the disability living allowance from April 2013.

An official from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) told MPs that Atos, which has agreed to end its contract early, “couldn’t deliver the quality at the capacity we want”. However, a DWP spokesperson later said Atos was “now processing more cases than come in” and the backlog was falling. The DWP said the total backlog stood at 712,000 people. Of these, 394,000 are new claimants for ESA and 234,000 are existing ESA recipients whose reassessments as to whether they are still entitled to the benefit have been delayed. A further 84,000 are people still on incapacity benefit who have not yet been moved over to ESA.

Mr Penning said the government had failed to meet its own deadline of moving these people onto the new benefit by April. They are still awaiting assessment.

 

read the rest of this BBC News story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27796739

DWP’s decision to abolish the Independent Living Fund overturned

• UPDATE – this article is misleading. It refers to a decision made last year but since overturned by the government.

• read more here
  

  Very Sorry but the ILF has not been saved ….. yet.

• Baker & McKenzie
• May 27 2014

The Court of Appeal, in Bracking and others v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions found that the Department of Work and Pensions’ (“DWP”) decision to close the Independent Living Fund was not lawful, overturning the High Court’s decision of April 2013.

This successful judicial review is a useful and interesting demonstration of how strictly the courts will consider whether or not a public body has complied with its Public Sector Equality Duties (“PSED”) imposed by the Equality Act 2010 (“EA 2010”).  There must be hard evidence that the decision maker has fully complied with the requirements contained in the legislation, specifically the duties under Section 149 in relation to advancing equality of opportunity for those who share a relevant protected characteristic.

 

Read the details of this court decision here:  http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=fb37d01b-56cf-4a04-8d8c-f9098b2666dd

Bedroom tax – a right right to family life as parents and daughter both win appeals

I would like to get a message across to benefit Decision Makers.

From the Facebook page ‘Atos Miracles’

I would like to get a message across to benefit Decision Makers.

Imagine having to wake up every day in severe pain and confusion only to find there is no electricity, gas or food and you have prepayment meters and no one else at home to help you.

No money through wrong decisions or sanctions.

You may say there is other help for these people,WRONG,income support is only if you have children,in some areas the Council after checking may provide up to 2 £70 payments per year but how the hell can you sort these out in these situations no electric,money,you cannot leave your home and by the way the mobile phone got cut off ages ago.

I and perhaps many others have been through this and during Winter,so please Decision Makers think carefully before denying benefits.

Mark Wood: Had Food Phobia, Starved To Death After Atos Decision

Same Difference

A “VULNERABLE and fragile” man starved to death four months after most of his benefits were stopped and he was left with just £40 a week to survive on.

Atos Healthcare – which assesses peoples’ ability to work on behalf of the Government’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) – ruled that 44-year-old Mark Wood, from Bampton, was fit to work.

But at an inquest into his death, Oxford Coroner’s Court heard testimony that Mr Wood was far from fit to hold down a job.

Weighing just 5st 8lbs when he died of malnutrition in August last year, Mr Wood had obsessive compulsive disorder, Aspergers syndrome, phobias of food, pollution, paint fumes, and social situations, and cognitive behavioural problems.

His GP Nicolas Ward told yesterday’s proceedings: “He was an extremely vulnerable and fragile individual who was coping with life.

“Something pushed him or affected him in the time before he…

View original post 686 more words

Sometimes ATOS and the DWP get it right

From the Facebook page ‘The |People vs the Government,  DWP and ATOS’

ive been claiming ESA since July 2013,on the 4th of feb 2014 i had my assessment, today i received a letter dated the 14th Feb 2014, stating that ive been put into the support group and back dated till middle of October 2013. on checking my bank account the money was already there… in total shock… this site has helped me so much i want to thank you for all the support and to let you know that sometimes they do it right… feeling very very lucky

Leaked Evidence Shows DWP Set Quotas For ‘Fit For Work’ Assessments

Same Difference

Cross posted with the permission of the brilliant campaigner Kaliya Franklin, who wrote the report.

 

Why are so many sick and disabled people being failed by the Work Capability Assessment and who is to blame?

1. The contract between DWP and Atos Healthcare specifies all costs and solutions MUST be based around an artificially imposed ‘statistical norm’ for the Support Group of 11% (which has since been allowed to rise slightly). This ‘gears’ the whole WCA system to deliver that ‘desired result’.
2. The manner in which the audit system is used within Atos Healthcare, including whistle-blower evidence of ‘punitive auditing’, means there is insufficient latitude for assessors to freely use their professional judgement about an individual’s true fitness for work.

The Work Capability Assessment (WCA), used to determine eligibility for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), which replaces Incapacity Benefit, has been dogged with problems since its inception. Department…

View original post 1,105 more words

GPs charge disabled up to £130 to appeal fitness-to-work decisions

Doctors are charging sick and disabled people up to £130 for medical evidence to appeal decisions about their fitness to work, The Independent has learnt.

NHS GPs are telling patients they will only provide the necessary details to challenge controversial Work Capability Assessments if they pay. Others are refusing to help at all.

Citizens Advice say in many areas GPs are helping with an appeal only if patients pay a fee of between £25 and £130. There are also reports from 15 of its centres that family surgeries are refusing to provide evidence at all.

GPs who refuse to help – or charge increasingly high fees – argue that writing up medical evidence takes up time when they could be helping patients.

But Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: “Charging sick and disabled people more than £100 for medical evidence beggars belief. This process is clearly failing.”

A lack of evidence from doctors will make it more difficult for people to navigate what experts say is an already “flawed” system. The Work Capability Assessment, which is currently conducted by the private company Atos Healthcare for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), has already been beset by criticism.

More than 600,000 of the 1.8 million assessments carried out by Atos since 2009 have been the subject of an appeal, at a cost of £60m. Around a third of the appeals succeeded.

After an investigation by the DWP, which found that two in five of Atos’s written reports were not fit for purpose, the company will no longer have a monopoly to carry out the assessments.

The shadow Employment minister, Stephen Timms, said: “This is further evidence of the Government’s failure to manage the Work Capability Assessment, and it is disabled people who pay the price. The Government must urgently rebuild a system that is fit for purpose.”

In East Staffordshire, many patients are turned away by their GPs when they request support, while others are charged up to £130. Dawn Green head of East Staffordshire CAB, said: “We’ve noticed a massive increase in those asking for help. It seems almost everyone with mental illness gets no score.”

In Wigan, patients have been refused help, or, in some cases, charged up to £115. Four surgeries in Sunderland have refused to provide evidence, while in Wyre Forest, Worcestershire, patients are typically charged between £25 and £40. In Sydenham, south-east London, some surgeries have refused to provide evidence, while others charge up to £40 for letters only two or three lines long.

In north Devon, people can be charged between £50 and £100. In Knowsley, Merseyside, patients are refused help or charged between £45 and £75 for basic evidence. In Plymouth, GPs tell patients they cannot provide the service. Two surgeries in Islington, north London, have refused to provide evidence, while others have charged up to £70.

A spokeswoman for the British Medical Association said: “We have GPs across the country whose workload is ultimately increasing because of a fundamentally flawed work capability assessment.”

Atos said yesterday: “It is simply wrong to say that Atos are the reason for successful appeals. We are sorry when we do not meet our own high standards but can reassure that a ‘C’ grade report does not mean the assessment was wrong and there are checks and balances throughout the system so that the correct decision on benefit is made.”

A spokeswoman for the DWP said: “Since 2010 we have considerably improved the process, but anyone who disagrees with the outcome of their assessment can appeal, so it isn’t surprising that a number of people do.

by Emily Dugan in ‘the Independent’, 26th August 2013. Read more here:  http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/gps-charge-disabled-up-to-130-to-appeal-fitnesstowork-decisions-8785041.html

Local services count the cost of ATOS / DWP failings

Local charities and advisory services have told Virtual-Lancaster that they have been swamped with work resulting from the damage being repeatedly and routinely done to local sick and disabled people in need of state welfare benefits by Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) contractor Atos Healthcare.

The ‘Work Capability Assessments‘ regularly carried out on claimants by Atos are supposed to determine if people previously deemed sick or disabled by their GPs are in fact ‘fit for work’.  Atos’ tests have been described as ‘Not Fit For Purpose’ in a report published by North Lancashire Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), who give a series of of examples demonstrating the damage being done on a routine basis to the most vulnerable local people.

“A client came to the Bureau for help because he had failed his ESA medical.   He has learning difficulties, cannot read or write, has memory problems and suffers acute anxiety and panic attacks.  Because of the adverse finding at the medical assessment stage his benefits have been stopped causing distress and financial hardship, and associated stress.  He has been without benefit for several months because he did not understand about appealing (when he would have received reduced benefit), or that he should have put in a new claim for housing benefit and council tax benefit etc.”

Other cases cited in the report describe people in the terminal stages of illness or with obvious physical or mental illnesses that render them unable to work. Yet every single one had been assessed as ‘fit for work’ by Atos, and had their benefits stopped by the DWP.

CAB nationally responded to 97,000 requests for support on this issue alone in the first three months of 2012.

Local services for families, young people and the elderly have all been affected because so much local resource has had to be channelled into clearing up the chaos caused by Atos. Get Connected in Morecambe is a volunteer-led service set up to offer support and advice to a wide range of clients in Morecambe’s West End.  They have found much of their time spent instead in trying to meet need created by the DWP / Atos process, in particular for people with chronic mental health problems. Many have had their benefits stopped after being found ‘fit for work’ and then been unable to undertake, or indeed understand, the necessary steps for survival or to keep a roof over their heads.

Local award-winning charity Disability Online, set up to provide a range of advice and counselling services for local disabled people has also had to refocus most of its resource into assisting hundreds of vulnerable and desperate clients through an endless cycle of annual assessments and appeals – with an appeal success rate of over 90%.   Again, VL has heard from them of tragic cases where appeals have been allowed posthumously. (Necessary as grieving families must also cope with debts left from caring for a member with a terminal illness and no income).

Read the rest of the article on the Virtual Lancaster News blog here: http://virtual-lancaster.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/local-services-count-cost-of-atos-dwp.html      9th August 2013.

ATOS physiotherapists cannot give opinions on mental health assessments – official.

An important law decision raises questions about the use of health professionals on Atos Work Capability Assessments where they have no expertise on the claimant’s health condition

The case involved a claimant, with mental health problems, who suffered from depression and bouts of uncontrollable rage. An Upper Tribunal Judge held that the opinion of a physiotherapist Healthcare Professional (HCP) was only useful for recording what the claimant said and did during the medical/assessment. Any other was useless as evidence because of their lack of expertise of mental health conditions.

The ruling affects all ESA appeals where the severity and effects of a disabled person’s mental health is at issue and expertise in this field is required to give an adequate opinion. It may also affect claimants with a wide range of physical health conditions.

In addition, there is no logical reason why the Upper Tribunals’ conclusion should not apply to appeals relating to the points findings of a disputed Personal Independence Payment (PIP) medical report by Atos or Capita.

Anyone considering an ESA appeal, who disputes the health professionals’ evidence, may wish to consider challenging the HCP expert status in relation to their disability.

26th July 2013. You can view a full summary and a link to the decision at http://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/how-we-can-help/benefits-information/law-pages/case-law-summaries/latest-posted-decision-summaries