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Did You Suspect As Much?
A Doctor who was employed by ATOS has said that it's methods are unfair.
Dr Wood has criticised some of the tests which he says contain "dubious concepts and shaky reasoning".
He claims assessors are told that if a claimant can walk from the kitchen to the sitting room, it proves they can walk 200m (650ft); and if a person can dress themselves once during the day that is proof they have enough concentration and motivation to hold down a job.
Dr Wood has criticised some of the tests which he says contain "dubious concepts and shaky reasoning".
He claims assessors are told that if a claimant can walk from the kitchen to the sitting room, it proves they can walk 200m (650ft); and if a person can dress themselves once during the day that is proof they have enough concentration and motivation to hold down a job.
Answers
@ Jim. No one should argue that each case not be assessed on its own merits when brought to appeal. But we can still draw some significant conclusions from the large number of appeals against assessments being upheld by the court - and that is that the basis upon which ATOS are making their assessments appears flawed; unduly restrictive. One cannot help but...
10:01 Fri 17th May 2013
@ Jim. A misunderstanding and careless typing on my part.
I was reading Sandys question as how many of those cases taken to appeal are overturned, rather than how many of the total decisions are actually appealed.
Hence the confusion... Even taking into account your revised figures though [and again sorry for thickheadedness - but why 40% of 75%? why 1/3 of claims - this concatenation needs a line by line breakdown :)] That still represents a large number of people unfairly assessed at the great personal cost and anguish to them, and to the public purse - again ,from the Express
"Appeals against the decisions are costing the taxpayer £50million a year"
No idea how accurate their figures are, by the way - just taking them at face value from the report...
I was reading Sandys question as how many of those cases taken to appeal are overturned, rather than how many of the total decisions are actually appealed.
Hence the confusion... Even taking into account your revised figures though [and again sorry for thickheadedness - but why 40% of 75%? why 1/3 of claims - this concatenation needs a line by line breakdown :)] That still represents a large number of people unfairly assessed at the great personal cost and anguish to them, and to the public purse - again ,from the Express
"Appeals against the decisions are costing the taxpayer £50million a year"
No idea how accurate their figures are, by the way - just taking them at face value from the report...
I can't independently verify the figures -- not sure any newspaper has yet asked the DWP to provide a full breakdown -- so you'll have to take them on faith, since the source is someone close to the DLA part of Welfare.
Why such a still large number of successful appeals? That's not really clear, and you may need to analyse each case separately rather than draw conclusions from the figures as a whole. Some people just blatantly exaggerate their disability anyway, and I believe these probably account for the many unsuccessful appeals.
Perhaps the courts and ATOS simply disagree on what counts as "too unfit to work". There's long been a suspicion that there are "too many people on DLA", so the government tries to tighten up the criteria for qualifying for it. Perhaps they are tightening things too much. But each appeal brought to court needs to be looked at separately.
Why such a still large number of successful appeals? That's not really clear, and you may need to analyse each case separately rather than draw conclusions from the figures as a whole. Some people just blatantly exaggerate their disability anyway, and I believe these probably account for the many unsuccessful appeals.
Perhaps the courts and ATOS simply disagree on what counts as "too unfit to work". There's long been a suspicion that there are "too many people on DLA", so the government tries to tighten up the criteria for qualifying for it. Perhaps they are tightening things too much. But each appeal brought to court needs to be looked at separately.
@ Jim.
No one should argue that each case not be assessed on its own merits when brought to appeal. But we can still draw some significant conclusions from the large number of appeals against assessments being upheld by the court - and that is that the basis upon which ATOS are making their assessments appears flawed; unduly restrictive.
One cannot help but think that the government have set ATOS these parameters entirely to save money by denying as many DLA claims as they can get away with. Meanwhile, many disabled individuals are subject to extra hassle and mental anxiety, and the cost to the taxpayer in resources time and money continues to mount.
We definitely should be looking to weed out those wrongly claiming the benefits - gaming the system, as it were. But when so many genuine claimants are seemingly wrongly asssessed, then you have to conclude that the assessment criteria are too restrictive.
No one should argue that each case not be assessed on its own merits when brought to appeal. But we can still draw some significant conclusions from the large number of appeals against assessments being upheld by the court - and that is that the basis upon which ATOS are making their assessments appears flawed; unduly restrictive.
One cannot help but think that the government have set ATOS these parameters entirely to save money by denying as many DLA claims as they can get away with. Meanwhile, many disabled individuals are subject to extra hassle and mental anxiety, and the cost to the taxpayer in resources time and money continues to mount.
We definitely should be looking to weed out those wrongly claiming the benefits - gaming the system, as it were. But when so many genuine claimants are seemingly wrongly asssessed, then you have to conclude that the assessment criteria are too restrictive.
On the flipside, around 70% of all claims are accepted in the first place, which is quite a lot, when you consider that (if the figures I quoted earlier are essentially correct) there are about 700,000 claims made for DLA per year. That's an awful lot of severely disabled people.
There are no official or unofficial government guidelines to deny claims whenever possible. This may be going on at a local level, of course, but if so it's hidden from the sight even of those on the inside.
Perception is important. Some cases include people claiming of constant pain in their knee, but they can sit down and stand up again with no difficulty. If people can walk from their living room to their kitchen with no trouble, is it that ridiculous to assume that they can't walk a fair distance further before any problems kick in? Two hundred metres sounds a bit arbitrary to me, but it's not totally an unreasonable extrapolation.
Most likely is the scenario I've suggested, which is that the government has tried to tighten the rules for qualifying for DLA in response to accusations that they were too loose before, and that at times they have got it right. The vast majority of decisions, though, are not overturned.
There are no official or unofficial government guidelines to deny claims whenever possible. This may be going on at a local level, of course, but if so it's hidden from the sight even of those on the inside.
Perception is important. Some cases include people claiming of constant pain in their knee, but they can sit down and stand up again with no difficulty. If people can walk from their living room to their kitchen with no trouble, is it that ridiculous to assume that they can't walk a fair distance further before any problems kick in? Two hundred metres sounds a bit arbitrary to me, but it's not totally an unreasonable extrapolation.
Most likely is the scenario I've suggested, which is that the government has tried to tighten the rules for qualifying for DLA in response to accusations that they were too loose before, and that at times they have got it right. The vast majority of decisions, though, are not overturned.
@Jim - I think it self-evident that the Government is attempting to control/ reduce the numbers of people claiming DLA. I am not objecting to that initiative - it is important that tax payers money - from us poor saps who acutally have to pay it, rather than say the corporations that avoid it - is paid appropriately, and not wasted by those cheating the system. So far, so uncontroversial.
It is the arbitrariness of some of the assessments that rankles though, as with the example you quoted. And, at least according to this one doctor in the article (and personal anecdotal evidence I have from 2 doctors who are friends/colleagues and who have performed ATOS assessments) some of those arbitrary criteria are simply too restrictive and have on some occasions over-ridden their own clinical judgement as to the eligibility of a claimant, to the detriment of the claimant)
And I take the point that the majority of assessments are accepted - 70%. But that means that 30% are contested -at great expense to the public purse and at great personal emotional cost to the claimant. So, if a system you had a hand in devising had a failure rate of 30%, what would you conclude? I know I would be looking again at the fundamental parameters and assumptions......
It is the arbitrariness of some of the assessments that rankles though, as with the example you quoted. And, at least according to this one doctor in the article (and personal anecdotal evidence I have from 2 doctors who are friends/colleagues and who have performed ATOS assessments) some of those arbitrary criteria are simply too restrictive and have on some occasions over-ridden their own clinical judgement as to the eligibility of a claimant, to the detriment of the claimant)
And I take the point that the majority of assessments are accepted - 70%. But that means that 30% are contested -at great expense to the public purse and at great personal emotional cost to the claimant. So, if a system you had a hand in devising had a failure rate of 30%, what would you conclude? I know I would be looking again at the fundamental parameters and assumptions......
Yes, the system isn't perfect. Probably never will be. I don't know enough of the details really to suggest improvements -- or why the system is apparently not working so often. It may just be that too often there is the scope for subjectivity, and that disability isn't black-and-white. The reasons why so many end up wrong according to the courts may not have an answer.
Either way, there are no specific targets to reduce the number of claimants nationally, and the present government is unlikely to listen too much to this criticism.
Either way, there are no specific targets to reduce the number of claimants nationally, and the present government is unlikely to listen too much to this criticism.
