ATOS are currently recruiting more staff to help meet Government targets to force more people off disability benefits to reduce the public debt problem caused by banks gambling in the financial markets. The process is driven by cost cutting not objective medical opinion. The most vulnerable in society are being made to pay for the greed of others and the inevitable booms and busts of capitalist economics.
Medical professionals, including physiotherapists, with no experience of mental health problems, for example, are only given a matter of days training before making assessments of claimants. They are paid substantially more than NHS doctors and nurses for leaving their ethical concerns at the door. ATOS claim that they do not make the decision as to whether someone can work and have their benefits reduced, but that the decision is made by the DWP from their report and that performance targets are based simply on the number of claimants seen in a day. However they admit that if a medical professional passes all claimants for disability benefits it will not go unnoticed.
This information has been reproduced from The Crutch Collective formerly Anti Benefit Cuts Glasgow
The Blog of Knitted Fog 
Posted by Lonestar Braveheart on June 21, 2013 at 10:28 am
I just don’t get where the government is coming from with this one. Don’t they trust the NHS doctor’s assessments? Doctor’s who have often built a working relationship with their patient are more likely to know whether they’re fit for work or not. Where’s the long term view? Forcing people back to work is not likely to improve their health and I imagine will often result in their condition deteriorating, won’t making people sicker cost more in the long run? It just doesn’t make any sense.
Posted by knittedfog on June 21, 2013 at 12:23 pm
Hi There,
I’m long past trying to find any sense except money. Perhaps we are nearer the workhouse than we realise!
Posted by HypermobileHobbit on June 21, 2013 at 3:04 am
It’s just depressing that people at the bottom are paying for the mistakes of the highly paid. I maintain that if I can make two people live on less than £11k per year, then nobody needs to be paid as much as bankers get.
I wish, really wish it could be different. But as long as politicians are from wealthy privileged backgrounds, they will have little or no respect for the struggles that most of us go through on a day-to-day basis.
I am now facing having to get a job because there’s no way I will pass an ATOS assessment, because I am completely physically able to work – until something dislocates. How likely is it that I’ll get a job when I mention that I dislocate? I’ll have to be pretty damned charming at interview!
Thankfully, there are enough articulate advocates pushing this into the mainstream. Enough shouting and perhaps we won’t be so overlooked anymore?
Posted by knittedfog on June 21, 2013 at 8:16 am
I whole heartedly agree about the £11K a year – If we all were paid the same, we would work for a community, not a business!
I’d like to urge all UK residents to void their voting slip. Perhaps then we could really have a say in our lives.
I wonder if you could apply to be politicians aid?
Thank the universe for advocates.
Posted by HypermobileHobbit on June 21, 2013 at 2:56 pm
I’m not sure I’d want to be a politician’s aid really. They seem to be ignored and blamed a lot.
Posted by HypermobileHobbit on June 21, 2013 at 3:05 pm
I’m not sure I’d want to be a politician’s aid, I’m not sure anyone would want to be. They seem to do all the dogsbody work and get all the blame for their politician’s mistakes!
I’ve been in favour of voting reform for years. This system simply isn’t working.
Posted by knittedfog on June 24, 2013 at 9:44 am
I agree about politicians aids. bring on the reforms.
Posted by paultmill on June 20, 2013 at 8:18 pm
It’s time to hold them accountable for the suffering they have caused
Posted by Disability first? | paultmillington on June 20, 2013 at 8:17 pm
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Posted by Stolen innocence 2012 of United Wheeldom on June 20, 2013 at 8:13 pm
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