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Disability Benefit Assessments
If you want a recipe for getting people on to IB, we've got it:
you get more money and you don't get hassled. You can sit there for the rest of your life.
And it's ludicrous that the disability tests are done by people's own GPs -
they've got a classic conflict of interest and they're frightened of legal action.
- David Freud, Investment Banker and Welfare Advisor to the last Labour Government
and current Undersecretary at the DWP,
Daily Telegraph 02/02/2008
With the above quote from Government welfare advisor and investment banker David Freud it is hardly surprising that the press call the nation "sicknote Britain". The problem is his statement simply isn't true. Disability tests are not made by GPs. The reality is long term claimants are regularly assessed by doctors contracted by the Department of Work and Pensions. Claimants initially turn to their GPs to be signed off. This lasts for six months when the claimant is then tested by a medical expert on behalf of the DWP. The tests are then made on a regular basis by the contract doctors. These tests were called Personal Capacity Assessment and were rigorous enough. It was decided to introduce a new benefit in October 2008 to replace Incapacity Benefit, The priority is to get people back to work come what may. This benefit is called the Employment and Support Allowance and the Work Capability Assessment was introduced along side it. The Work Capability Assessment is even tougher than the PCA and many claimants who previously would have expected to be eligible for disibility benefits now find they are now no longer eligible.
Just one in six incapacity benefit claimants 'is genuine' as tough new test reveals TWO MILLION could be cheating
Kirsty Walker, Daily Mail 20/10/2009
The shock Daily Mail headline above indicates the success the Work Capability Assessment is having in preventing potential claimants from receiving benefits, which is a popular measure with the public. But here is the other side of the story from the Citizen Advice Bureau:
Bureaux evidence shows that the assessment process is not working. Many
seriously ill and disabled people are being found fit for work and therefore ineligible
for the support of the benefit designed specifically to help them.
Citizen Advice Bureau report Not Working
The assessment has hit people with mental health problems hardest. Its simplistic focus on particular tasks, rather than listening to the claimant, simply doesn't take into consideration the manner in which people with mental health problems have varying degrees of problems from day to day, which make it impossible to hold down regular work. Part of the problem is that the assessments are being made at breakneck speed by a for-profit corporation ATOS Healthcare. Their profit is performance related and is measured by the rate of assessments they fail. This encourages ATOS to fail as many claimants as possible regardless of the harm it causes the claimant. This Guardian article shows how ludicrous some of the failed assessments are: Flawed benefit system classifies terminally ill man 'fit for work' Now, one of the key architechts of the Employment and Support Allowance, Paul Gregg, Professor of Economics at University of Bristol has criticised the way the Work Capability Assessment is failing too many claimants.
The idea that there was always a massive scrounger culture here was always misplaced...
It is not just about being harsh or tough on people.
It is that too many people are likely to be put on JSA, which is not designed to help people with serious health problems,
and not enough people are getting into the ESA zone were there is a specially designed programme for people with health problems.
Radio 4 Today interview with Paul Gregg
The new Work Capability Assessment is unfit for purpose. |