In defence of ATOS

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/31/disabled-cuts-paralympic-games-atos?newsfeed=true

Now, before I get sent straight to the naughty step or similar, let me explain why I have found my self in the weird position of defending ATOS.

Last night, as we watched the 2 damming programmes about the work capability assessment, there was one key thing that kept screaming at me. ATOS are not the bad guys, well yes, they are bad and evil and whatnot but as dispatches showed last night they are simply enacting policies set out by governement.

ATOS are not medical experts, but IT experts. The government picked them because of their IT system and their promise of effeciency, and getting people off benefits, which was the governments target. At first it was wrapped up in the cosy ideology of getting disabled people into work, but now it has become more overtly about saving money.

The private companies are profiteering from peoples suffering, but it is the government that is letting them do it. If ATOS wasn't there, there would be hundreds of other companies to take their place, and potentially doing worse things to disabled people, but with more support from the government.

The government dont care who carries out their dirty work, whoevers cheapest and will save them the most money will do. The health professionals dont mind who employs them, they will still get paid. The problem has been and always will be the corrupt policies of Employment and Support Allowance that has ended up with 25% of ESA claimants that had been found fit to work are neither back in employment nor receiving benefits (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/31/disabled-people-benefits-panorama?CMP=twt_gu) and if we forget that then we are in danger of misdirecting our anger.

Targeting the paralymics and ATOS as the article at the top suggests is going to happen will, as far as i can see stop people like you and me from being able to access ATOS for our benefit. Now I know this might be a good thing, but any slowdown in my ESA process will only stress me more. I would like my decision ASAP and if I have a medical on the dates of the protests then I will not be impressed at an anti ATOS party being around to 'support' me. It will harm the reputation of ATOS and implicitly link them to the failures of the WCA, which is simply not true, this is government policy, not ATOS policy. If the government has any sense, they will simply turn around and give us what we want, IE. sacking ATOS, but simply replacing them with another private, profiteering company with the same aims and objectives and so the cycle begins again.

Dont you see? ATOS are not the problem here, the law and the whole system is the problem.

links related to #onthesick and #panorama.

hi.. keeping all the links together. first the links to the tv shows (probably only work for a while)

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/episode-guide/series-117/episode-1
channel4 dispatches-britain on the sick

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01lldrc/Panorama_Disabled_or_Faking_It/
bbc panorama - disabled or faking it

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/articles/britain-on-the-sick-reporter-feature
Britain on the Sick: Reporter Feature

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jul/27/disability-benefit-assessors-film?newsfeed=true
Atos assessors told to keep disability benefit approvals low, film suggests. (firday 27th july)

GP applied for job with Atos assessing whether benefit applicants were fit for work, and secretly filmed his training
 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2180833/Off-sick-decade--acne-cough-The-astonishing-cases-885-000-benefit-claimants.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Off sick for a decade... with acne or a cough! The astonishing cases among 885,000 benefit claimants

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9436969/Disability-tests-sending-sick-and-disabled-back-to-work.html 
Prof Malcolm Harrington, the government appointed adviser on testing welfare claimants, admitted the work fitness test was “patchy”.


 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2181480/Paralympics-just-genuinely-disabled-able-achieve-compared-scroungers.html
The Paralympics will show us just how much disabled people can achieve, and shame despicable benefits cheats


 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2180899/Flawed-disability-tests-send-genuinely-sick-unable-work.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Flawed disability tests 'send those who are genuinely sick and unable back to work'

http://benefitscroungingscum.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/panorama-disabled-or-faking-it.html  Panorama has revealed evidence of disabled or sick people being cleared as fit to work by the Government’s Work Capability Assessment in spite of medical advice given by their own GPs.

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2012/jul/30/tv-review-panorama-disabled-faking?newsfeed=true  review of disabled or faking it.

http://oxfordstudent.com/2012/07/29/atos-healthcare-still-profiting-from-misery/ Whilst the Olympic opening ceremony, quite fairly, glorified our National Health Service, it is nonetheless worth remembering the real state of affairs for a significant number of Britain’s sick.

 http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/staggers/2012/07/work-capability-assessments-fightback  Encouraging news out of the High Court on Thursday for opponents of the loathed Atos' work capability assessments (WCAs) : the court granted permission to two disabled people for a judicial review to challenge the operation of WCAs.

  http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/07/31/benefits-and-targets-sickness-and-disability-are-not-the-same/ Benefits and targets: Sickness and disability are not the same

 http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2012/07/government-urged-to-end-negative-rhetoric-on-benefit-claimants/ Government urged to end negative rhetoric on benefit claimants

 http://www.4rfv.co.uk/nationalnews.asp?id=148179#.UBftL3D8lKA.twitter  Disabled People Worry About ‘Benefit Scrounger’ Discrimination

 http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/07/31/tough-love-or-tough-luck-assessing-disability-benefits/ Tough love or tough luck: assessing disability benefits

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/31/disabled-people-benefits-panorama?CMP=twt_gu   Sick and disabled people are being pushed off benefits at any cost

As Panorama showed, the pressure on medical assessors to declare sickness benefits claimants fit for work is immense

 http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4463724/Lazy-benefit-cheats-give-people-like-me-a-bad-name.html

 Lazy benefit cheats give people like me a bad name

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2181365/Out--Boss-incapacity-benefit-crackdown-called-humanity.html

Out... Boss of incapacity benefit crackdown who called for more humanity

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19048294  Benefit cheats 'colour attitudes to disabled people'
 http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/122071 Pressure piles up on sick profiteers Atos

http://www.scope.org.uk/news/blogs/scope-blog/dispatches-wca scopes blog

http://benefitscroungingscum.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/q-when-is-target-not-target-when-its.html?m=1 when is a target not a target
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/steven-bick-doctor-claims-government-1172457#.UBZceS3hi1Q.twitter 'Driving disabled off benefits': Doctor claims Government has issued targets for 7 out of 8 to be reclassified as eligible for work

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19046447  Reviewer of fitness-to-work benefit tests to stand down

http://allbigideas.blogspot.com/2012/07/on-sick.html my review of on the sick

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/31/disabled-cuts-paralympic-games-atos?newsfeed=true
Disabled anti-cuts campaigners take the fight to the Paralympic Games

Activists to protest against sponsorship of the Games by Atos, the private firm that carries out government fitness-for-work tests

http://www.newint.org/blog/2012/07/31/atos-stories-plays/
Raising the curtain on Atos

 http://www.mirror.co.uk/money/personal-finance/32-disability-benefit-claimants-die-1197304
 A company that tests the sick and disabled for benefits told dozens of people they were fit for work – shortly before they died.

 http://mikesivier.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/disability-benefits-whos-really-faking-it/
Earlier this week, both Channel 4 and the BBC gave us new documentaries about the way disabled people’s claims for state benefits are assessed. On Channel 4, Dispatches offered “Britain on the sick“, while the BBC’s Panorama was entitled “Disabled, or faking it?”. Both are available to watch on the web at the following addresses:

 http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2012/07/tough-love-and-fitness-to-work/
 By some quirk of planning, Channel 4 and BBC Two ended up showing two very similar programmes last night about the mess of the assessments that determine whether a sick or disabled person is able to work.

on the sick..

on the sick was a whirlwind of television drama, and hopefully the primetime exposure that spells the end of the work capability assessment as we know and dread today.

It focused on Dr Bick, who went undercover to become an atos assessor. He learnt, and exposed what activists have been saying for months and years. DWP is forcing people off sick benefits and using ATOS to do it.

I think thats the main point. This is not just ATOS, this isn't just a dodgy company out to get disabled people. This is a systemic and endemic attack on disabled people who are incapable of defending themselves against the reforms that were originally designed to support people into work, but as the tv showed tonight has turned into a farce, where only certain types of cancer are entitled to benefit, and if you can push a button, you can work.

What sort of country are we living in? Where people are considered fit to work if they are facing cancer, or severe life limiting illnesses. As the quote goes, the sign of a civilised society is how you support the most vunerable

Getting rid of ATOS will not work, reforming and tweaking the benefit will not work. Only a complete re think of the entire benefit itself will actually work.

As Sue Marsh said, How terminally ill do you have to be to be considered ill enough for benefit?

Lets hope this is the beginning of the end.

DWP strikes again... 77,000 drink and drugs addicts on disability benefits

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9436799/77000-drink-and-drugs-addicts-on-disability-benefits.html

as per usual the DWP have released damming figures attempting to justify the need for reform, and yet again, they have spectacularly failed to do so. In the above link a set of statistics have been cobbled together to claim that over 77,000 people claiming disability benefits because of drugs or alcohol.

Well, actually daily telegraph, i think you added up 2 and 2 and got 77,000. These are the stats they used, released by the DWP.

"34,410 people were receiving Incapacity Benefit because of drug or alcohol problems and another 21,890 are getting Employment Support Allowance, the new form of the same benefit"

"Another 21,350 received Disability Living Allowance."

These are 2 completely seperate benefits, payable for different things, and can be paid at the same time. DLA is non means tested, and payable whether a person is in work or not. Incapacity and ESA is an out of work benefit.

Further down the article they state that these figures are based on people whose primary conditions are drug or alcohol dependency, implying that the rest of us scroungers are downing drugs and drink to cope with our lives.

However, the DWP have seemingly made a number of errors with the release of these stats. 21,890 people are claiming ESA because of drink or drug dependency.That is to say that the new 'tougher' benefit tests, as administered by ATOS and shrouded in controversy are still classing drink and drug dependancy as serious enough for benefits. I say that carefully, not wanting to use deserving, but erring on the entitled to side.

So, either the DWP are stating that their own reforms are flawed because they have allowed these people with these impairments on to the benefit, or they are stating that drug and alchol dependancy IS serious enough to warrant entitlement to sickness benefit. Either way, its not really getting the message across they want is it?

my favourte bit of the article is this though...

"Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has said that lax checks have allowed many undeserving people to claim the benefit, and promised to overhaul it"

Last time I checked, benefits were not based on who deserved it, and who didnt, but on who actually needed it, and could prove they were entitled to it, via a set of stringent tests and evidence gathering. 

pretty packages tied up with string...

Well, after 4 weeks of hell I have finally completed the dreaded ESA50. It is well and truely my own form, as I have printed out each answer and attached it to the relevant section (seeing as most of my replies are 3 pages long it was appropiate to do this i think). I have hopefully idiot (and DWP and ATOS) proofed it. I have written my name and national insurance number on each page, written on the form that I have attached my answer and written such helpful things as please open and please turn over on the relevant pages... but I am still fully expecting one of the answers that literally took blood sweat and tears to write to be lost somewhere along the way when its being read by multiple strangers in the next few weeks.

I have attached 5 pieces of medical evidence, I have pleaded and begged with them not to have a medical and why im a deserving candidate for the support group. I even used all those undisabled words such as suffer and cant and condition. Well, i had to play their game. But for the record, its experiences not sufferes, its despite of not cant and impairment not condition...

As its due in tomorrow I now have the interesting conundrum of trying to get it back to them. Helpfully, in the first letter they sent me, they enclosed an evenvelope. However, they seem to fail to comprehend that a disabled scrounger whose been given a form to detail how much they cant deal with paperwork and forms might lose this envelope and despite their helpful letter to me reminding me of the deadline last week, didnt enclose any hint of how to send it back, should i have lost the envelope.... which i have...

Cue another amuusing problem. The ESA50 experience has left me in extreme ammounts of distress and barely able to function over this last 4 weeks. So trying to get the information that I need to get this sent back is pretty impossible. The advice that the letter says is to simply ring them if you have any problems, or need an extension for that matter. When I am not well, I can't use the phone, which was surprise surprise a question on the old PCA (now gone from the ESA50). So the DWP are well aware that some people just cant use phones, and that this problem gets worse when a person is not well. Lets send the scrounger the most hellish paper based torture method imaginable and then force them to use the phone should they need any help. Im going to have to go in to their office to see them and hope they can help and not just point me in the direction of a phone...

I have tied their lovely form together with a lovely red ribbon for them, so I hope they appreicate that. It was tempting to put kisses on it, but I think that might have been pushing it. I should enclose an official looking letter from myself reminding them they have 4 weeks to make a decision on my claim now, see how that makes them feel... (and pigs will fly if i get something in 4 weeks, its taken them nearly 52 weeks to send me the form in the first place)

One week to go...

As the lovely people from ATOS reminded me I have one more week to fill in my ESA50. Although 4 weeks isn't really long enough and I am currently going through hell trying to force myself to fill it in, I dont have a choice. You see the lovely, thoughtful people at atos will extend the deadline for you, if you ring them up. Seeing as I cant actually communicate on the phone when Im in a bad way, and if anyones tryed filling in one of these things they will know that every time I pick up the pen to write it will suck more energy and take me more effort to write than the hardest university essays, im not doing so well at the moment.

One week left of this hell, and then I am sure it will be a long time for them to make a decision, or call me into a medical, which will be another period of hell to content with. I thought this was meant to be a lovely positive new approach, looking at what you can do instead of what you cant. But then, seeing as it feels like I can do so little at the moment (its the affects of this form, highlighting how bad your life really is) there wouldnt be much to write about.

Filling in the form, it has made me go through so many emotions. Feeling like I am not worth anything, and I cant do anything to even thinking that I am somehow lying and its really not all that bad. Never mind the medicals, atos should be laying on mental health counselors to help people cope with the stress of this process. To have to make myself so vulnerable, and so let strangers read and judge the most intimate and distressing parts of my life in order to get enough money to live on is utterly degrading. The doctors letters and medical information doeskin seem to be enough anymore and this form of almost torture seems to have been slipped in unnoticed by the public in the name of fairness. Well, if your average man in the street had to declare how many times they became incontinent and give a great amount of detail about the reasons why and how before they received income, there would be outcry. 

If you havent seen an ESA form or what they ask, I encourage you to grab a copy from the DWP website, google ESA50 form, its a revelation. And dont think that the questions they are asking relate in any way to the points you are being scored on, because they simply don't. There is a whole raft of information on what they actually mean and how to fill out the forms, if you know where to look that is. It doesn't surprise me that so many people are failing to get ESA when the questionnaire they send is so confusing. Take for example this one. It asks if you can go out on your own? Well, yes I can thank you very much. But then if you look at the sub questions it actually contradicts itself and gives away what it actually means. Can you go to somewhere unfamilar to you on your own? well my answer to that is no I can't. And thats just one question.

Perhaps, if these forms actually asked the questions the decision makers and the DWP actually wanted to know there would be less stress over the medicals, and more accurate claims happening. The medical examination is only one part of the process. The ESA50 is just as flawed, but doesn't seem to get as much attention. In the same way that people are fighting for an end to the WCA shouldn't we also be demanding a change to the ESA50 fit for work questionnaire?  to me, that in itself is not fit for purpose, ironically.

Choices about food...

This is a little different to my usual blog, but I hope its still interesting, and it is linked to disability...


5 weeks or so ago I ate whatever and whenever I liked. I knew, and accepted that I was overweight, but didnt really know what to do about it, or even if I wanted to, after all there was no harm in it right? I thought I was doing alright and that it was a choice that I was making to not really worry too much about food, or my lifestyle. That the reasons lay completely with me and the choices I made.

And then, I joined up to this slimming group, and it shocked me, and continues to shock me how hard it actually is to choose to eat healthy food, both indoors and especially when I am out. I have now got some control over what I eat and the choices I make, but it is really hard to do so.

Take for example mc donalds. I can still go in there, but am restricted to either a chicken nugget happy meal and diet drink (but then I have to be careful what I eat the rest of the day) or a salad, which is still not perfect. Its the same everywhere, even down to places like a sushi bar that tend to cook their stuff in the deep fat fryer. Sandwich shops that use mayo and butter etc etc.

Isn't it scary when even a kids meal from a fast food outlet is too high in bad stuff for a proper balanced diet? And its not like its hard to be healthy when I'm doing it myself. I can still have burgers and chips (cooked with cooking spray that is) and lasagne and pizza and even chocolate (little bits of that though :) There are alternatives to everything unhealthy, which makes them really healthy.

So, what is it then? If I can't go into town without having a meal in my bag ready prepared to keep myself from eating junk, then surely it can't be totally my fault as to how I used to eat so badly?

All this questioning and searching reminded me of something else that I know a lot about. The social model of disability. Basically stating that it is society disables us and that disability can be significantly reduced by adapting and changing the environment etc. All of a sudden the problem (and the solution) didn't actually come from disabled people themselves, but from wider societies deficit and inability to intergrate and include everyone.

So, relating the social model of disability to the bad food choices that are on offer in a typical town, then surely it isn't actually the people themselves but the environment and societies expectations and structures that are at fault? If Mcdonalds started providing healthy alternatives to their menu, or changed their cooking styles to reflect the need to be healthy then would things start to change?

People will still have the ability to make bad food choices, but by providing good food choices then it no longer becomes a restricted environment for healthy eaters. If the social model of disability has encouraged a change in societies attitudes to disabled people, then surely thinking about obesity in the same context would also encourage a shift in attitudes towards food and lifestyle?