Is ATOS fit for purpose ?
Most of us at one time or another would likely have heard or read about the welfare state being abused in one way or another,be it a millionaire with a large property portfolio with multiple housing benefit claims with multiple aliases or the disability living allowance claimant who receives thousands of pounds per year due to extremely poor mobility yet is then filmed playing football,well,you get the picture BUT on the other side of the coin are many individuals who have through no fault of their own,found themselves very sick or chronically disabled and I then firmly believe in the welfare state principles and as a civilised society,believe these individuals should be looked after medically and financially but this is not the case and the system is fundamentally flawed.
This is a snippet from an article recently which highlights this...
Let’s say you work for Atos in one of its Assessment Centres in Lancashire.
Your job is to assess people on disability benefits to see whether they are fit for work.
A 58-year-old man, who’s done 30 years hard graft, comes in for a “Work Capacity Assessment”.
He is suffering from diabetes with multiple complications and mental health problems.
He is almost blind, with incurable damage to both his eyes.
He suffers from frequent hypoglycaemic attacks that often result in total loss of consciousness and sometimes hospitalisation.
He is often incontinent. He suffers from depression.
He relies on friends, carers and family to shop for him and struggles to cross a road unaided.
He has no feeling in his feet – another complication of his diabetes.
He has suffered with gangrene and over the winter he had badly burned his feet on an electric heater.
On the day of his assessment, his feet are bandaged.
Say you had all that information in front of you. Would you write on your piece of paper “Fit for work”?
When Zulfiqar Shah, from Blackburn, was assessed by Atos, his assessor gave him zero points. He needed 13 to qualify for benefits.
His family says the decision almost killed him – a diabetic who could no longer afford to eat.
“I told them I wasn’t afraid to work, but that at the moment I was not well enough to,” Zulfiqar says, quietly. “But they didn’t listen.”
When his sister Zahida, 46, picked Zulfiqar up from the assessment centre he was wearing only one shoe, not even realising he was walking with his bandaged, burned foot on the pavement.
“Any human being seeing him for five minutes could see that my brother was neither physically or mentally able to work,” Zahida says.
More on this story here: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-could-atos-class-sick-2162711
Paul
3 comments:
Copied from DCUK.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Copied from DCUK.
Just what's your problem sunshine, do DCUK have exclusive rights to the story?
For your information Paul read the article in the Daily Mirror which he has copied a pasted from the Mirror website. Paul also added his own comments which having viewed the cherubs post on DCUK are nothing like the words she used.
And don't forget: "Not all cherubs are angels."
Kind regards
Graham
Although I am occasionally accused of adding two and two together and getting five, I think that stories like this and Eddies post below about GP's charging to provide medical evidence plus the report a short time ago about medical records being sold off for a pound, all point towards a possible delegation of this work to another outside agency.
If your GP will not provide medical evidence about your condition who will? I think most of us assume that it is part of the unwritten contract between Dr and patient. If the requirements are too onerous for the GP then perhaps the requirements should be looked at. Maybe the body requiring the information ought to pay for it and deal directly with the GP?
We have also had the idea of paying for GP consultations resurrected. It all points to GP's wanting to outsource some of their current workload. Is this what was intended by the formation of the new CCG's?
If so it’s merely an extension and enlargement of the postcode lottery. Patients will no longer know what they can expect from their GP. I hope there are sufficient safeguards in place to ensure that putting power into the hands of local GPs means that patients actually do benefit.
Kath
Post a Comment