The oncoming catastrophe of ATOS and PIP

I’m not sure that there is anyone who hasn’t heard of ATOS or the work capability assessment (WCA) but for many they have been the bane of their lives for a long time. Having personally seen the problems that the WCA assessment has caused my fellow sufferers it was with dread that I filled in my own forms not that long ago. However when I voiced my fears and reticence I was greeted not with the sympathetic noises and comments that I had been dishing out to them in hopes that it would help but with a more universal feeling that things were better now.

 

But has it gotten any better?

No quite frankly it hasn’t, (see early posts) but still my friends were sure it was better now.  I was rather disappointed in them, however virtually from the start the WCA and Atos have been writing reports and ‘working on things’ and making improvements so should I really be that surprised that people believe that things have improved?

I however am less concerned about how things look and am willing to go and look at what is happening. Let me draw your attention to the disability benefits consortium report- Response to WCA independent review - Year 3 call for evidence September2012 A report that is almost universally negative in content. Some of the highlights from the 350 welfare rights advisers that were surveyed.

• The most positive response in the survey was that 37% of respondents had noticed a greater use of the reconsideration process (although 57% had not) and 39% believed this had led to fairer outcomes (although 45% disagreed)
• Almost 75% disagreed that they had “been more likely to seek advice from the customer's chosen healthcare professional”. 
•  Over 65% disagreed that they had “given greater weighting to additional medical evidence”.
• Almost 70% disagreed that they had “given more weight to the free text box on the ESA50 where applicants can describe how their disability affects them”.

I’m not going to go through any more because it is quite depressing how little change has been affected.

So now that the papers are reporting

’ that reports by Atos assessorswere of unacceptably poor quality’.

I am not surprised and although the article was quick to point out that this does not mean the decisions were wrong it does not look good for them. Their inability to keep accurate records is to my mind a major flaw however it is not the only one (see this article in the guardian) It is to my amazement that despite the lack of improvement and the almost universal call for it to be scrapped that the Government is still looking to bring something new to this assessment. With the chronic problems of accurately assessing people for their fitness for and re training of staff I doubt that any number of new ‘somethings’ is going to improve the current debacle of the WCA. And regardless of whether Atos have the capacity to do what they are being asked after their staff have been retrained they are using a test that is not fit for purpose.

But having successfully achieved the status of ‘full support’ on ESA without attending a WCA my attention is now turned towards the next huge event in my calendar…

DLA change over 

because unlike many who are still campaigning about ESA I am already considering ATOS’s failure on ESA as indicative of what may come next with PIP and it frightens me. In fact it terrifies me. The current deferral of the start of the change over, won not that long ago, has not alleviated my worry as the ongoing battle with ESA has shown that there is no mercy, there is no sympathy and there is no stopping it. 

With such a debacle as WCA still ongoing is it at all reasonable to start the change over process for DLA ?

 This is not to say that the fight to rectify the WCA is not needed but just that there are other problems looming and it as well to consider them as well and I think it is about time that they consider delaying this reassessment until we have the WCA sorted out.