[DeletedMember]

http://www.guardian....benefits-reform

The exerpt below is taken from the comments section below the article.

freetobeme says...
16 February 2011 12:40PM

I am one of thousands of genuinely ill and disabled people who are in fear of the corrupt assessment system in place, however there are millions more who are totaly unaware of what is happening now or is about to happen to them.

With regard to the WCA, which has proven to be so inadequate – Professor Harrington’s report on it has helped in a small way, but there are still some extremely worrying aspects to it. Add to that the fact that the government clearly state in their response that “In the Summer we announced a number of changes to the assessment, which will be put in place in March 2011”. Those changes include severely reducing the opportunity to score points for mental health conditions and drastically cutting the number of descriptors for physical health and come from an internal review done before the Harrington Report. If this is still to go ahead, as it seems it is, then it completely goes against Professor Harrington’s recommendations.

As well as this, many of the recommendations are not to be implemented soon enough – a huge number of ill and disabled people have already been badly assessed and the 10,000 people undergoing a WCA from March 2011 will be subjected to the same test despite evidence that it does not appropriately assess needs. Except that now it will be even harsher as Chris Grayling has stated that “…We are committed to a process of ongoing review and improvement of the WCA and believe that it would be inappropriate to delay implementation of other pertinent recommendations while we await additional recommendations.” (Hansard source (Citation: HC Deb, 20 January 2011, c883W)

So many thousands of people will be assessed without all the recommended changes in place. Inevitably this will lead to even more complaints and appeals and cost even more money. It must be remembered that these are not just numbers on a page or computer screen, but real people who will be put through untold suffering because of this.

A recent report from the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion says that ‘The changes recommended by Professor Harrington in his review of the work capability assessment (WCA) should take effect immediately or, if this is not possible, the reassessment of incapacity benefits claimants should be postponed.’

The DWP currently have a backlog of 29,700 complaints about ESA which have not yet been referred to a tribunal. The next highest backlog is for DLA complaints with 9,600 outstanding. Outstanding complaints about all other benefits administered by the department number just 19,750.

These figures were revealed by Maria Miller in October 2010. As many more people have since been put through assessments since then, it is reasonable to assume that the number has risen greatly. And this is before the proposed changes to DLA have even begun, and the new harsher WCA test brought in.

Yet despite this Atos Healthcare has been awarded a three year contract extension worth over £300 million by the DWP. Not only that, but Atos has now also been named on the commercial framework which will procure the Government’s new Work Programme. Does this not represent a conflict of interests – being paid to find people fit for work and then being paid again to find them the jobs you have just said they are fit to do.

The government persist in ignoring the advice and opinions of all the Disability experts and Charities despite their repeated attempts to convey their serious concerns about Atos and the WCA. See below a letter to Chris Grayling from The Papworth Trust, co-signed by 40 plus Charities.

http://www.papworth....10124105526.pdf

This test is being used currently for ESA, but if the government succeed in their planned abolition of Disability Living Allowance, it will probably be used for assessing people on their eligibility for it’s replacement “PIP”. Here is what Disability Alliance ( a membership organisation of over 200 groups and charities) has to say –

http://www.disabilit...reformpress.htm

And now the Doctors are also beginning to question it

http://www.bmj.com/c...mj.d599.extract

Ms Miller succeeded in completely ignoring 240 very specific and detailed questions about these issues on her recent Q & A - which should have been
Q & I (Ignore) so how dare she claim that our concerns " are based on a lack of detailed information of what we are talking about in terms of our reforms. People need to get the facts rather than speculation."??? Outrageous.

Is Ms Miller in La La Land or is she simply fully aware that what she is doing is wrong and going ahead anyway?

[DeletedMember]

Ditko, on 18 February 2011 - 04:18 AM, said:

The government persist in ignoring the advice and opinions of all the Disability experts and Charities despite their repeated attempts to convey their serious concerns about Atos and the WCA. See below a letter to Chris Grayling from The Papworth Trust, co-signed by 40 plus Charities.

http://www.papworth....10124105526.pdf

Were Rethink not asked to sign this letter?