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Dispatches & Panorama programmes on ATOS disability assessments (30/7)

Well, that explains a lot.

Tests were ridiculous too - it doesn't matter where you can move your arms and legs when asked. What might matter more is whether can you move repeatedly, many times over the course on the day. No 20-minute test can establish, for example, whether you can concentrate for a whole day. And even if you could test someone on standing up for an hour and they could do it, it wouldn't show you that they might then be exhausted/in pain and unable to do anything the next day as a result of the exertion.
 
Minnie_the_Minx said:
That's all very well Greebs, but when one section of guidance (Mental Health) is over 80 pages long, not a lot of it tends to stick :D

My arms were fucked up, not so much from typing, but from scrolling through loads of other documents
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I realise that, but IMHO the only way to tackle it is in small bites. Too much at a time will be overwhelming, even if it doesn't wreck your arms and hands. BTW anything longer than 2 A4 pages gets downprinted. Far less tiring to read. Anyway, VP used some of the money from the OU's Disabled Student Allowance to pay for a laser printer (and the toner & paper for it), might as well use it. :D
 
yardbird said:
One thing that Panorama didn't mention about the appeals.
Someone is turned down at ATOS assessment then ATOS get paid.
At appeal the ATOS assessment is overruled but.....
ATOS don't have to pay any money back following their error!!
Click to expand...

It's true of just about all the outsourced public administration contracts. To a large extent because most of them are only seriously profitable if the provider can regularly fuck up big time with no penalty.
 
Greebo said:
No. And if I didn't, the chances are that a lot of other people don't know either.
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It was something that I wondered a long time ago and asked the MS Society and then others about it.
Lots of 'Surely not?'
It also gives ATOS a financial Incentive to turn down as many as poss.
 
Good that G4s is ousted. Bad that the same shit is ongoing even with changes to descriptors. Dice will still be firmly loaded in gettng people off benefit regardless of the 'tough love' *SPIT* rhetoric.
 
Cloo said:
Interesting blog here from Mind about working with DWP on descriptors for mental illness Obviously, they are wary of attaching their name to anything, but I can see why they would think it was worth at least trying. Doesn't sound as though they'll have much time to sort it though. Good luck to them anyway.
Click to expand...

The other thing with this is that they will be testing the new descriptors (and modifying them as they go along) to provide data/evidence for them to be changed.
Only IDS and Grayling have completely ignored all the evidence on workfare that says it doesn't work. So even if these tests come back and they say that the new descriptors give better outcomes, don't hold your breath for them to actually respond to that in the obvious and sensible way - especially if it means more people will get put into the support group.
 
Cloo said:
Interesting blog here from Mind about working with DWP on descriptors for mental illness Obviously, they are wary of attaching their name to anything, but I can see why they would think it was worth at least trying. Doesn't sound as though they'll have much time to sort it though. Good luck to them anyway.
Click to expand...
Best comment yet on that blog.

  • Saltley Gates replied on 2 Aug 2012 at 10:23
    "Are you going to be asking searching questions that demand answers from ATOS regarding the footage?
    Can we have a definitive comment on the specific failings the undercover footage exposed, i.e. no more than 12% to be put into the support group regardless?
    What about the misinformation we are given concerning these things?
    Can you trust them?"
    Great questions Concerned Citizen,but where are the answers from MIND?
    As someone who has worked for 30 yrs in Mental Health and seen the destructive effects of these WCA I too have a question.
    Why dont you stop trying acting as a pusher for these destructive policies? You should be organising a boycott not trying to find ways of making more profits for atos.
    It is shameful how MIND and other charities have bent the knee to this regime. I thought MIND was supposed to represent those with Mental Health difficulties not administer the Govts Work Programmes.
    It goes to show though how unrepresentative, undemocratic and unaccountable those running MIND and other so called Charities are.
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My bolding.
 
Greebo said:
I realise that, but IMHO the only way to tackle it is in small bites. Too much at a time will be overwhelming, even if it doesn't wreck your arms and hands. BTW anything longer than 2 A4 pages gets downprinted. Far less tiring to read. Anyway, VP used some of the money from the OU's Disabled Student Allowance to pay for a laser printer (and the toner & paper for it), might as well use it. :D
Click to expand...

good use for it.that's what i would have done had i qualified for it early enough to actually get anyhting
 
yardbird said:
It was something that I wondered a long time ago and asked the MS Society and then others about it.
Lots of 'Surely not?'
It also gives ATOS a financial Incentive to turn down as many as poss.
Click to expand...

wonder if this is how the gvt can claim they don't set targets. they incentivise the provider to set as low a target as they can get away with, while giving the gvt the deniability.
 
No, they can claim they don't set targets by calling these statistical norms - and it does make sense. If an HCP was saying 0% or 100% of the people they see was fit for work you'd think something was off there (especially if it was 100%) and want someone to look into it.
The problem here is that they've plucked a figure out of the air, rather than letting things develop and see what % is the statistical norm for HCPs finding people fit to work/WRAG/support group.
It's a number that is no doubt based on their financial aims for reducing IB/ESA claims or on some kind of faith that 11% is the right number for the support group because obviously most people on the sick are faking it, the daily mail said so.

e2a of course by setting the descriptors in the way they have it's designed to put as few people as possible in the support group so any statistical norm that comes out of it does not necessarily reflect the reality of the number of people who should be in the support group.. it's pretty telling that iirc 29% of people go into the support group even with the descriptors as they are.
I do think that IDS/Grayling actually believe the propaganda of the past many, many years about scroungers and think there must be loads of them, even though the evidence from the WCA process so far is that it's not true and where people were on IB who shouldn't have been it's because Thatcher used it as a way to reduce unemployment figures.
 
Greebo said:
I realise that, but IMHO the only way to tackle it is in small bites. Too much at a time will be overwhelming, even if it doesn't wreck your arms and hands. BTW anything longer than 2 A4 pages gets downprinted. Far less tiring to read. Anyway, VP used some of the money from the OU's Disabled Student Allowance to pay for a laser printer (and the toner & paper for it), might as well use it. :D
Click to expand...
What does downprinted mean please?
 
Greebo said:
Downloaded and printed more or less as soon as it's downloaded.
Click to expand...
Thanks. Does this mean that the DWP/Atos won't read more than two A4 sheets of extra information attached to an esa50 form or have I mis-understood?

Thanks
 
panpete said:
Thanks. Does this mean that the DWP/Atos won't read more than two A4 sheets of extra information attached to an esa50 form or have I mis-understood?

Thanks
Click to expand...
You misunderstood.

I meant that I find it too tiring to read anything longer than 2 pages of A4 when it's on a computer screen. Too much scrolling, flicker,and glare.
 
Greebo said:
You misunderstood.

I meant that I find it too tiring to read anything longer than 2 pages of A4 when it's on a computer screen. Too much scrolling, flicker,and glare.
Click to expand...
Thanks.
I find scrolling really hard too. Especially if I am reading a web page with two scroll bars, like in a frame.
I also can't concentrate to read really long and detailed articles.
 
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