More of ATOS playing the 'harrassed by militants' card.

[Esther12]

What a surprise that ATOS's biopsychosocial approach to disability assessments has led to the sick and disabled hating them. Of course, we all know that this is a reason to criticise the sick and disabled for not being more grateful.

This blog has a rather positive view of ATOS's comments imo:

The gloves have come off between Atos and the DWP!
To be honest, I couldn't believe it had gone this long. For months we've known that the contract with Atos had failed, long before we heard officially in March that they would be walking away from the detested "work capability assessments" or WCAs. I'd been hearing of wranglings and arguments, deadlocks and very unhappy bunnies in general. On both sides.

To keep that quiet for so long has been quite an achievement in itself.

But today, Atos start the long journey of rehabilitating their decimated public reputation, by finally telling their side of the story on - wait for it - BBC news no less! Now that the contract is broken, for the first time, they get to defend themselves and point out the failures that were never anything to do with them but all set in stone at the DWP. Let's hope that at the same time they acknowledge their own very considerable failings too.

However, today is the day when absolutely every voice in the Employment and Support Allowance debate are against the DWP. And doesn't that make everything so much tidier

http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blo...t-last-atos-turn-whistle-blower.html?spref=fb

Here's the BBC article cited:

Workers 'vilified'
Helen Hall, the firm's head of communications and customer relations, said more than a quarter of the firm's assessors had quit as a result of abuse they had been subjected to.

"They are professional trained people," she said. "They care about the job they do. They are doing a very good job of applying the legislation the government has laid out and despite that they are being vilified for it.

"The level of intimidation, the level of negative coverage about professional people...I'm not sure that's an issue that can be resolved by a new provider just throwing money at that."

A climate of suspicion had built up, she suggested, with many of those being tested wrongly believing that the assessors were not trained and would "treat them with contempt".

"What we have seen quite often now is people coming in for an assessment and they are actually saying at the end of it 'you've just been recorded on my iPhone and I am going to expose you on the internet'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27767779

lol at "They are professional trained people".

Also: "Atos officials said their staff were "vilified" simply for carrying out what was asked of them by ministers."

The thing is, what they were asked to do by ministers was morally repugnant, and they deserve to be criticised for their willingness to make money from it. They were classing people as fit to work when there was no realistic prospect of these people being able to find work, thus pushing them into poverty as well as ill health.

This blog has a more critical view of things:

the Atos propaganda machine, in the person of Helen Hall, the firm's 'head of communications and customer relations', was busy insisting to the media that fully 1 in 4 of their assessors had quit due to 'abuse' - by which I presume they mean having the reality of the impact on disabled people of the policies they were implementing pointed out to them by the disability movement as a whole. If pointing out the sheer, unbelievable stupidity of some of the Atos decisions ranks as 'abuse', then count me an abuser and proud of it!

http://wheresthebenefit.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/atos-put-boot-into-disabled-people-yet.html

 

[alex3619]

Where is the mention of abuse by ATOS' managers forcing their assessors to work to quotas?

 

[alex3619]

People who participated in atrocity, doing their job or not, are still culpable. I think an international human rights investigation is required ... not a UK one.

 

[Sean]

"What we have seen quite often now is people coming in for an assessment and they are actually saying at the end of it 'you've just been recorded on my iPhone and I am going to expose you on the internet'.

Turn the spotlight onto evil and watch the cockroaches scurry for cover.

It is quite clear that the only way we have to fight this evil shit is to ruthlessly expose it.

I mean, if they are doing nothing wrong, then what have they got to hide? Do it in full public view, ATOS and DWP, so we can all see what is really happening. If they really are doing their job properly, then they should welcome such exposure as it should clear their name.

If they are doing their job properly.

Which they clearly are not. And they know they are not.

The thing is, what they were asked to do by ministers was morally repugnant, and they deserve to be criticised for their willingness to make money from it. They were classing people as fit to work when there was no realistic prospect of these people being able to find work, thus pushing them into poverty as well as ill health.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for these scumbags, from academic researchers and advisers, through government ministers, ATOS managers, all the way down to the frontline ATOS workers. They are directly involved in a deliberate, fraudulent, brutal cull of humans.

Whatever consequences they have to wear are trivial compared to the terror we patients have to endure. All those people chose to be involved in this, and they can walk away from their role in it anytime they want.

We don't have that luxury.

Big. Effing. Difference.

 

[Valentijn]

It sounds like 99.9% of the employees' problems are directly due to being forced by their employer to do nasty things to sick and disabled people. They're quitting due to "abuse" but there's no claim in the above statement that that abuse is coming from patients. It's more likely from employer-mandated quotas, and politics, and their public image as heartless bastards.

Have any of the quitting employees come out to the media about the source of the abuse that is upsetting them? Or is it just Atos' that is trying to imply it's the ill and disabled who are to blame?

 

[N.A.Wright]

What a surprise that ATOS's biopsychosocial approach to disability assessments has led to the sick and disabled hating them. Of course, we all know that this is a reason to criticise the sick and disabled for not being more grateful.

It's surely incorrect to suggest that it's ATOS's biopsychosocial approach, the approach is that of the DWP and will be followed by whoever takes over those parts of the ESA contract that ATOS is giving up. ATOS will retain the Northern Ireland segment of the ESA contract and in addition has been awarded two thirds of the PIP assessment contract - http://www.update.org.uk/news-detail.php?page=364 . CAPITA which has the remaining third of the PIP contract is a likely front runner to take on the ATOS ESA work - given CAPITA's grim history in local and Central Goverment contracts, no one should expect things to improve for disabled people, though CAPITA will likely screw a better deal for itself than ATOS was getting.

There are a number of problems with identifying workers as the source of disabled people's difficulties with the benefits system - most significantly it creates a divide that ensures only complete bastards are happy working in the system, when in fact many would be employees could have disabled people's interests at heart. The system isn't going to change any time soon, better that decent people feel safe working for ATOS, CAPITA and the DWP than for all their employees to see claimants as an undeserving violent rabble.

ATOS are certainly playing a sympathy card and muddying the waters in doing so - the lack of distinction between Assessors and office staff is rather suspect. My guess is that it's not the assessors that bare the brunt of aggression but receptionists etc and linking high assessor turn over with the reported aggression is dubious. Many of the assessors are retired or semi retired or have other professional commitments and a 25% wastage is really not surprising. That said no aggression is acceptable and it doesn't do anything to help public sympathy for disabled people to see these kinds of reports

 

[Esther12]

It's surely incorrect to suggest that it's ATOS's biopsychosocial approach

ATOS didn't design the system, but they're still implementing it as is. It think it's fair to describe what they do as being 'their approach.

My view is that those earning money from propping up an indefensible system should not be able to pretend that they're not behaving in an immoral manner just because others with authority have told them to do so, or pretend that those harmed by their work are not justified in being angry with them.

 

[alex3619]

When ATOS accepts the contract, it becomes theirs. The money is theirs. So are the consequences.

 

[Sean]

If the government and corporations, or any of their gutless minions and shills, are going to behave like arseholes, then they got no right to complain when the people they hurt call them arseholes.

Love to see any of them deal with the shit we have to, every single day, for decades on end.

Bet they would change their views real fast.

 

[Min]

Sounds as if they have been taking lessons from Wessley, Crawley and co at playing the 'harassed by militants' card.

 

[alex3619]

Sounds as if they have been taking lessons from Wessley, Crawley and co at playing the 'harassed by militants' card.

Sadly this strategy goes back quite a few decades. Its used to attack environmental activists in particular. Prior to that, of course, politicians have been using similar tactics for centuries, and probably millenia.

I should go reread some Machiavelli, he might have had something to say on this.