Work Capability Assessment Needs Fundamental Redesign, Say MPs

Work and Pensions Select Committee Media Release:

The flaws in the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) system are so grave that simply “rebranding” the assessment used to determine eligibility for ESA (the Work Capability Assessment (WCA)) by appointing a new contractor will not solve the problems, says the Work and Pensions Committee in a report published [yesterday].

The Committee calls on the Government to undertake a fundamental redesign of the ESA end-to-end process to ensure that the main purpose of the benefit – helping claimants with health conditions and disabilities to move into employment where this is possible for them – is achieved. This will take some time, but the redesign should be completed before the new multi-provider contract is tendered, which is expected to be in 2018.

 

In the meantime, the Committee recommends a number of changes which should be made now, to help ensure that claimants receive an improved service, and that the outcomes for claimants are more appropriate.

read the rest of this article: http://welfarenewsservice.com/work-capability-assessment-needs-fundamental-redesign-say-mps/

read the full report of the Parliamentary committee on ESA and the Work Capability Assessment here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmworpen/302/30205.htm

Atos Throws In The Towel

Thanks to the Work Test Whistleblower for posting this article examining Atos’ sudden announcement today that it is pulling out of the Work Capability Assessment Program early.

Yesterday afternoon, the Financial Times announced that Atos wants to pull out of the WCA programme.

Here are the nuggets I picked out.

1. There appears to have been no prior press release from Atos on the subject, which suggests that the news was fed directly to the Financial Times – an overtly pro-business paper, which today wrote that “The thrust of [the PM’s welfare reform] effort is socially just and economically warranted”. Other papers have been obliged to quote the FT.
2. The headline was “Outsource group seeks exit from UK £500m benefits contract after death threats“, while the first two paragraphs cite “death threats against staff”, and criticism from “opposition Labour MPs” that made the political environment “untenable”, as the reasons why Atos was “forced” to exit the WCA programme.
3. Not only does Atos want out of the contract, it wants out early. It said that it has been trying “for several months” to agree an earlier exit than planned with the DWP.
4. Atos also said that the WCA itself was “outdated” and “not working”.
5. The DWP had nothing to say on the matter.

Blimey!

Here’s my take on it:

• The writing style of the piece was nearly identical to previous Atos press statements, which suggests that it is an accurate reflection of Atos’s true position.
• Concern about staff safety might be one of the reasons for quitting but I doubt it is the main one.
• There certainly has been criticism from Labour MPs, but in this context I think the term is shorthand for anyone who has actively opposed the WCA or the role of Atos in delivering it. The bad light that Atos has been painted in (and painted itself in) over the WCA is very likely to have been a significant factor in its decision to quit.
• The wish to leave early isn’t adequately explained.
• The admission that Atos thinks the WCA isn’t working is unusually frank.
• It looks like the DWP didn’t see this one coming!

What do I think lies behind it all?

1. The DWP’s veiled threat to exclude Atos from future government contracts appears to have provoked a counterattack that has caught the DWP off guard.
2. The intended message seems to be: ‘This contract is dangerous, unpopular and uses a process that doesn’t work’.
3. Other outsourcers who might be eyeing up the WCA contract will undoubtedly pick up on this, if they didn’t think it already.
4. Remember, less than a year ago, the DWP and Atos were best buddies working hand in glove. Then something happened between them – something big, something bad…

Ding ding!
Seconds out, round three!

21st Feb 2014: http://worktestwhistleblower.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/atos-quits.html

if you are desperate like I was, please dont give up, Just hold on.

From the Facebook page ‘Atos Miracles’

 

“A single Dad, with Ankylosin Spondylitis and PTSD goes to an ATOS medical in early October. After being spoken to rudely for having no I.D, he is informed that his appointment has been cancelled anyway, so he will just have to wait. After struggling to walk down the longest corridor ‘ever’ seen to the assessment room, he has a flashback/anxiety attack and pushes over the ATOS assessor while trying to get out.

Do ATOS-A) apply some common sense or reg 29 or 35 and put him in the support group?

B)Put him in the Work Related Activity Group because life long illnesses go away in 12 months, dont they?

C)Declare him fit for work as the assessment wasnt completed, getting his money stopped a week before xmas. And try to have him prosecuted for assault?

Yes, you guessed it, its C. Apparently if you have a heart attack mid assessment that is non compliance too, as it cannot be entered into the computer. So screw you IDS and ATOS. A genuine THANKYOU to Sussex Police who refuse to prosecute and have shown more understanding and empathy of Mental Health issues than ATOS ‘medical’ staff. And Thankyou to Southern Water who unexpectedly sent a water meter rebate yesterday, and saved XMAS for 3 great children.Happy xmas everyone, and if you are desperate like I was, Please dont give up, Just hold on.

The Demise of the Work Capability Assessment?

From the blog of Dr Greg Wood, an ex Atos doctor and whistleblower, 18th Dec 2013

Today the DWP announced the demise of the Work Capability Assessment – not in so many words obviously, that’s not how they operate; but its new Disability and Health Employment Strategy has been published on its website. In it, the DWP claims that in future it will focus on removing the obstacles that prevent people with long-term health problems from finding a job and keeping it. This is in marked contrast to the approach used up until now, where a doctor or a nurse was asked to make a clinical assessment of the person’s disabilities and then to attempt to estimate the likely degree of difficulty that individual might face in an unspecified, hypothetical workplace. With this shift in direction, the DWP has sounded the death knell for this disastrously implemented quasi-clinical examination.
The new strategy document only talks about disabled people who are in a position to do some form of work; there is no suggestion that people for whom work is never going to be a realistic prospect – people with severe learning difficulties, for example – would be denied practical and financial support.
A ‘delivery paper’ will be published next year.
Although the WCA will probably stagger along in some form for a little while yet, this shift in focus – away from the functional impairment and onto the practical problems the claimant faces as they look for work – deserves a welcome, in principle at least. The question is: what is going to happen in practice?

http://worktestwhistleblower.blogspot.co.uk/#!/2013/12/wca-rip.html

Mind – But I’m here for mental health

Tyneside Mind have produced a powerful new film about the Work Capability Assessment (WCA). In the film, actors depict the experiences of people who are supported by Tyneside Mind and have been through the WCA.

Many people find the process of going through the WCA difficult and distressing, and this is very much reflected in the film.

The film contains references to suicide which you may find triggering, please watch carefully.

Many people continue to find the WCA process stressful, insensitive, inaccurate and unfair. It needs to change.

Investigating the real reason for the misery of ‘fit for work’ assessments

How Norms Become Targets

In this important paper Kaliya Franklin carefully analyses how it is government policy that has undermined the objectivity of the medical assessments used by the private medical firm Atos. While Atos have been the primarily been blamed for the high numbers of successful appeals against their assessments, Kaliya explains that the real cause of the problem probably lies in the system used by the DWP to manage its contract with Atos.

There seems to be no evidence that the norms themselves are based on any empirical evidence as to the real impact of disability on someone’s ability to work. The very low success rate in helping disabled people to find work suggests that these targets were artificially imposed by the DWP and serve only to save money by cutting the incomes of the poorest. Moreover, the process of setting norms and managing to those norms, further corrupts the assessment process and seems likely to have undermined its objectivity.

Today this is a grave problem within the use of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) process which is used to restrict access to the Employment Support Allowance and to assign people to either the ‘Support Group’ or ‘Work Related Activity Group’. Furthermore this norm-based methodology will damage any system of assessment in the future.

It should be a concern to all tax payers that:

1. Systems for the assessment of disability are being created that lack proper empirical foundations
2. These systems are managed in such a way that their objectivity is likely to be undermined
3. The process is becoming both more unfair, unreliable and expensive

Kaliya’s article draws on a wide range of evidence, including comments from sources who prefer to remain anonymous. The fact that professionals need anonymity should be an additional cause of concern.

Read and download the full paper below or here.

Author: Kaliya Franklin

Kaliya Franklin is a leading independent disability campaigner and is a member of the Spartacus network. Read her paper here: http://www.centreforwelfarereform.org/library/type/pdfs/how-norms-become-targets.html

Victory for welfare campaigners as DWP loses appeal against work capability assessment ruling

The Court of Appeal has upheld a ruling which found that the process used to decide whether hundreds of thousands of people are eligible for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) disadvantages people with mental health problems, learning disabilities and autism.

The original judgment, which was made public at an Upper Tribunal hearing in May this year, was the result of a Judicial Review brought by two anonymous claimants with mental health problems.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) immediately appealed against the judgment and the Judicial Review was put on hold. Now that the DWP has lost their appeal, the Judicial Review will continue. A final judgment is expected next year unless the DWP decide to take the case to the Supreme Court.

The charities Rethink Mental Illness, Mind and the National Autistic Society intervened in the case to provide evidence based on the experiences of their members and supporters.

The case centres on how evidence is gathered for the controversial Work Capability Assessment (WCA), the process used to determine whether someone is fit for work.

Under the current system, evidence from a professional such as a GP or social worker is expected to be provided by claimants themselves. There is no obligation for the DWP to collect this evidence, even on behalf of the most vulnerable, apart from in some rare cases.

Gathering evidence can be very challenging for people with mental health problems, learning disabilities or autism whose health or condition can make it hard for them to understand or navigate the complex processes involved in being assessed.

As a result, those who need support the most are frequently being assessed without this important evidence being taken into account.

In May it was ruled that the DWP must do more to ensure this sort of evidence is collected and taken into account. This means the current procedure for the WCA puts some groups at a substantial disadvantage.

In a joint statement Rethink Mental Illness, Mind and the National Autistic Society said:

“Today’s ruling is a victory for welfare campaigners and marks an important step in our fight for a fairer benefits system.

“The judges in the original ruling independently confirmed what our members and supporters have been saying for years – the system is unfair for some of the most vulnerable people in our society and is failing the very people it is meant to be supporting.

“It’s fantastic that the Court of Appeal has upheld this judgment and we hope changes will be made quickly to ensure the system becomes fairer and more accurate.

“In light of today’s ruling it would be irresponsible for the DWP to carry on using these flawed assessments as they are. They must halt the mass reassessment of people receiving incapacity benefit immediately, until the process is fixed.

“We hope that the DWP will now take these concerns seriously and look to address the problems with the system rather than appealing again.”  

Rethink Mental Illness

From the Black Triangle Campaign, 4th Dec 2013: http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2013/12/04/victory-for-welfare-campaigners-as-dwp-loses-appeal-against-work-capability-assessment-ruling/

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

DWP quietly confirms ATOS isn’t working after all

For months the Department for Work and Pensions were insistent that the critics of the Work Capability Assessment – and ATOS in particular –were wrong; the Department instead said the system was gradually improving.

Now, one working day into the Westminster recess, the Department allows a major about turn to slip out. After years of condemnation from campaigners, charities and MPs, the DWP has finally admitted that the quality of some of the ATOS work is so poor that staff are going to have to be retrained and monitored more thoroughly. And, because the problem is endemic ATOS will be losing its monopoly of carrying out these assessments, with other providers picking up the slack.

Had this come out last week my colleagues and I would have been demanding that Iain Duncan Smith come to answer an Urgent Question on the matter in the Commons. But because MPs are on recess back in their constituencies, that hasn’t happened.

It turns out that while IDS and his employment minister Mark Hoban were telling MPs that all was well, they had in fact commissioned an urgent audit of ATOS in May because of concerns that an earlier smaller audit had thrown up.

We are now asked to believe that that the problem is only one part the process, not substance.

Minister Hoban now tells us that this doesn’t mean that the decisions have been wrong, rather ATOS don’t write very good reports on the individuals they are assessing. While the assessment is only part of the process of assessment, it is the DWP’s Decision Makers who wield much greater power.

But these reports establish whether or not a claim is allowed or refused. Decision Makers make their determination based on the Report they get from ATOS, and as we know, very few of ATOS’ recommendations are changed or overturned. If far too many ATOS reports are poorly written and presented, why should we have much faith in the quality of the recommendations?

by Sheila Gilmore MP, 25th July 2013: http://www.sheilagilmore.co.uk/

ATOS will remain the sole assessor until summer 2014, and, crucially there is no word from the DWP of any financial penalty for this slapdash work. The Government has rejected suggestions that the contractor should be penalised for poor performance, all the while of course saying performance was improving making this unnecessary. Instead it appears the Government will take on more costs as PriceWaterhouseCooper will be commissioned to develop better performance management systems. Who is paying what for this? Seemingly ATOS is also bringing in a third party. Are they getting more money from the Government?

The main reason given for bringing in more providers is a ‘capacity problem’. I think this has been an issue for some time. Disability Campaigner Sue Marsh, in an excellent article in the Guardian Comment is Free, points to the huge increase in numbers being dealt with by ATOS since the migration from Incapacity Benefit started, not to forget the DWP insistence on very frequent reassessments. As Sue points out it is perhaps not surprising that quality suffers.

In the last few months I have noticed, for example, that many more decisions are being made from a paper assessment rather than a face to face interview, especially in cases where people are being migrated from Incapacity Benefit. Now given the level of stress involved and all the criticism of the face to face interviews it may seem perverse to be critical when there are fewer.

One example I had very recently was a constituent sent a form to start the reassessment. She returned this in February. She heard nothing for several months and remained anxious. When she eventually got an answer to her enquiries in June it was to be told that she had in fact been reassessed on paper and was staying in the Work Related Activity Group. No change, but months of worry. Another constituent being migrated from IB got placed in the WRAG without a face to face. She appealed and got put into the Support Group. Others are just so relieved not to lose benefit altogether, and thankful to miss out on a face to face, that they do not appeal. But it can matter. A third constituent was in this position and it was only when told that he would lose benefit altogether after 12 months (because his contributory benefit ran out, and his wife had a part time job, he would not get any ESA). He was then out of time for an appeal.

There is now a considerable detriment to being in the WRAG instead of the Support Group – a lower level of payments and the time limit on the contributory benefit. So there can be a real disadvantage if the decision is made on a cursory look at the paper application, often without seeking out any additional medical n formation. Lack of capacity leads directly into poor quality recommendations

Would ATOS have won half the contract for Personal Independence Payment assessments had all of this come to light sooner? PIP roll out to new applicants began in June so it is early days yet. Yet in some parts of the country there already appears to be capacity issues. In bidding for the contract ATOS claimed to have 22 subcontractors lined up through which they would have 750 assessment centres. Recently it emerged they had only 8 subcontractors and many fewer centres, meaning people would have to travel further.

ATOS is only a small part of what needs to be changed with the ESA system. Claimants and government need improvements in the tests through higher quality, longer assessments; a reduction in the merry-go-round of repeated testing; and a long, hard think about what real support can be provided to help those who start making a journey back towards work. The return to work should be positive experience, not the punitive test it is now.

 

Written by Sheila Gilmore MP: http://www.sheilagilmore.co.uk/dwp-quietly-confirms-atos-isnt-working-after-all/

The fit-for-work test fails mentally ill people – not the other way round

I’ve seen myself how those with mental disorders are at a huge disadvantage in passing this test, which has to be changed

 

As a 76-year-old archdeacon and former vicar, I never imagined that in retirement I’d end up starting a fight with the government. But that’s exactly what happened this week, when I launched the I Agree With Dick petition, in conjunction with the charity Rethink Mental Illness. We’re demanding that the government stops using the work capability assessment to judge whether people with mental illness should receive benefits, until the test is improved.

This matters so much to me because I’ve been through the test with others, and have seen just how unfair it is. My son has bipolar disorder. Over the years he’s been in and out of hospital, and sectioned three times. He cannot live on his own, and when he’s tried to go back to work it’s only served to made his condition even worse. The benefits he receives help him get by from day-to-day.

But when he went for the government’s fit-for-work test, it felt like the odds were stacked against him against him from the start. We found that people like my son have to answer incredibly complex questionnaires about their physical health, but hardly get asked anything about mental illness. They are also expected to gather extensive medical evidence from their GP, psychiatrist and other health professionals, explaining why they are unfit to work.

Without this evidence, your benefits could be cut immediately. But if you’re hearing voices or going through a psychotic episode, gathering those kinds of documents is an almost impossible task. It means that people with mental illness are at a huge disadvantage and it’s simply not fair.

My son was lucky to have our help to fill in forms and gather medical documents. But despite all the evidence we presented on his behalf, he was found fit to work, meaning he had to start job-hunting or face losing his benefits. Thankfully we managed to appeal against that decision, but it was a long and stressful ordeal that took more than six months. I dread to think what would have happened to our son if we hadn’t been there.

There are thousands of other people going through the exact same thing right now who have no one to help them. I fear that they’ll end up in a terrible situation because they’re too unwell to fight their case.

And don’t have to just take my word that the benefits test is unfair. In May, judges came to the conclusion that the test puts people with severe mental illness at a substantial disadvantage, and that it should not continue in its current form. The government is now appealing that decision, but in the meantime it’s still using the test to assess about 6,000 people with mental health problems each week.

That’s why I can’t just sit by and do nothing, we have to keep pushing until the test is fixed. The lives of some of the most vulnerable and unwell people in our society could depend on it.

If you agree with me, please sign my petition, and help us keep up the pressure. Now is the time to stand up.

From ‘The Guardian’ 12th July 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/12/fit-for-work-test-mentally-ill, by Dick Acworth