Atos to lose monopoly after 'flawed and unacceptable' disability benefit assessments

[Firestormm]

Atos to lose monopoly after 'flawed and unacceptable' disability benefit assessments

The Independent

Monday 22 July 2013

More than 40 per cent of the assessments carried out on disability benefit claimants by the back-to-work assessor Atos are flawed and unacceptable, according to an audit commissioned by the Government.
Following months of complaints about allegedly unfair and slapdash decisions made by Atos, the Department for Work and Pensions audited around 400 of the company’s written reports into disability claimants, grading them A to C. Of these, 41 per cent came back with a C, meaning they were unacceptable and did not meet the required standard.
The lowest grade does not necessarily mean the decision was wrong, but that a serious error or omission occurred, such as no evidence to justify the recommendations, or inconsistencies in the evidence provided.
The findings mean the company will be stripped of its monopoly on deciding whether people with disabilities are fit to work. The DWP said the poor quality of the company’s written reports were “contractually unacceptable” and announced on Monday it would be inviting other companies to bid for fresh regional contracts by summer 2014 to help reduce waiting times. Liam Byrne, the shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, said: “This is a direct consequence of three years of appalling contract management by Iain Duncan Smith.”
More than 600,000 of the 1.8 million assessments carried out by Atos since 2009 have been the subject of an appeal, at a cost of £60m. Around 30 per cent of the appeals succeeded. Mark Hoban, minister for Employment, said: “Where our audits identify any drop in quality, we act decisively … It’s vital we continue to improve the service to claimants, which is why we are introducing new providers to increase capacity.”
Richard Hawkes, chief executive of the disability charity Scope, said: “It’s about time the Government told Atos to smarten up its act. But, it’s also strikingly clear to disabled people that the whole £112m per-year system is broken.”
A spokeswoman for Atos said: “Our priority is the quality of our work and, following the recent audit, we quickly put in place a plan to improve the quality of written reports.”

 

[Firestormm]

Humph! Well I hope it leads to improvements but I am experienced and therefore skeptical

 

[alex3619]

If the methods used are broken, does it matter who implements them? ATOS may just find itself with competitors who are no better than they are.

The real issue with ATOS is that ATOS was willing to implement the DWP measures in the first place. If a government policy is clearly broken, or distorted, or evil, then what does that say about the company that implements them?

The real issue with the DWP is they continue to implement a system that not only does not work, it cannot work, as the evidence shows. Pushing a broken system says what about British politics and the DWP?

 

[Firestormm]

I agree alex3619 with what you say, however, the medical reports from the Atos employees were universally regarded as crap. If that side of things at least can be improved and it leads to less errors then it will be an improvement in the process. A lot of decisions were overturned due to Atos giving incorrect evidence in their reports. I cannot count the number of times patients have complained that such and such a doctor or nurse have written things down incorrectly.

Unfortunately, I have been hearing rumours that certain incompetents may well be champing at the bit to take-over; and if they employ the same doctors.... habits can be hard to break.

A4S and G4 I think are the frontrunners for replacements. Oh joy!

 

[alex3619]

ATOS is making widespread errors, but the way the system is set up means thats inevitable. Its not that they are not responsible, they are, its that any other company might be as bad at getting it right. For a start more patients need to know if they have a double CD recorder they can record the interview, giving one copy to the assessor. This will cost money, but I think it should be possible for a private hire company to hire them out. Thats a business opportunity for someone, plus a measure of transparency. Further more people should report bad assessing by doctors, and not just to ATOS. If many flaunt the rules and act unfairly, then we need to make them responsible. This is the problem though with disability - most are too sick to do that. Its taking advantage of the vulnerable - the government should use an indendent review process even before it goes to court, which can include re-interviewing people, and for which recording the interview is mandatory.

What ATOS will most likely do is claim the rogue operator defence. However with the number of whistleblowers that have come forward, I think a formal commission of enquiry with a sweeping brief will bring it into the open.

 

[alex3619]

A4S and G4 I think are the frontrunners for replacements. Oh joy!

Are there any quick links for a rundown on A4S and G4? I have heard the acronyms before, but know nothing about them.

 

[biophile]

What ATOS will most likely do is claim the rogue operator defence.

With a 41% failure rate, that is a lot of rogues!

 

[Tito]

More than 600,000 of the 1.8 million assessments carried out by Atos since 2009 have been the subject of an appeal, at a cost of £60m.

600,000 appeals that would cost £60m ?!?
That is £100 per appeal or 1 person working less than two hours for each appeal (infrastructure included such as offices, computers, telephones, etc.). This seems a bit unrealistic. I would say it costs at least a couple of hundreds per appeal.

 

[alex3619]

With a 41% failure rate, that is a lot of rogues!

Yes, indeed, but their defence will be that the rest are mistakes. Its the ones that can be proven to be misrepresenting the inteview, recording false answers, or any other infraction, who will be labelled as rogues. If you note ATOS's defence at higher appeals numbers, its because they are processing more people. They will also try to blame the rules ... they didn't make them, they just implement them.

They don't actually point out the percentage rate of appeals, and how it is changing. Someone must know. Does anyone know if this has been analyzed recently?

 

[Esther12]

Sue Marsh piece making many of the points made above: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/23/work-assessments-atos-dwp-test

If feel a bit sorry for ATOS. They're just repugnant scum willing to abuse the sick and disabled for money - it's the DWP who set out to find companies willing to abuse the sick and disabled for money.

 

[alex3619]

600,000 appeals that would cost £60m ?!?
That is £100 per appeal or 1 person working less than two hours for each appeal (infrastructure included such as offices, computers, telephones, etc.). This seems a bit unrealistic. I would say it costs at least a couple of hundreds per appeal.

Yes, it seems way too low. However if much of the cost is carried by ATOS, DWP or the judicial system separately, or some other breakdown of cost, then they can hide a serious amount of money by only pointing out their own costs. Its the same for DWP or any other group. I would want to know the combined cost, plus the cost to councils by having to provide other services, plus the increases in medical costs, plus plus plus. By isolating costs to one department they can make costs appear smaller than they are.

 

[alex3619]

Sue March piece making many of the points made above: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/23/work-assessments-atos-dwp-test

If feel a bit sorry for ATOS. They're just repugnant scum willing to abuse the sick and disabled for money - it's the DWP who set out to find companies willing to abuse the sick and disabled for money.

And its the current LibDem government who sent the DWP to do that, though the prior government started the process. Lots of blame all around. If you scratch a bit further, there are economic and ideological bases here too, including BPS doctrine.

 

[Firestormm]

Sue March piece making many of the points made above: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/23/work-assessments-atos-dwp-test

If feel a bit sorry for ATOS. They're just repugnant scum willing to abuse the sick and disabled for money - it's the DWP who set out to find companies willing to abuse the sick and disabled for money.

"This is what campaigners have been saying since 2008 when employment and support allowance (ESA) was introduced by the then Labour government to replace incapacity benefit. Successful appeal rates are rising, with 39% of decisions now overturned. A September 2012 report from the Disability Benefits Consortium found that 85% of welfare benefits advisers did not believe that Atos report accuracy had improved. Claimants need to score 15 points under a tick box computer system, yet 83% of decisions overturned at appeal had originally been awarded six points or less. This indicates that something is still seriously wrong with the system."

An "evidence-based review (EBR)" of the descriptors, designed by charities, is still stuck at the testing stage despite the DWP initially committing to a tighter timescale.

[That's the revised WCA I understand from the Fluctuating Conditions Group that includes Forward ME].

In 2010, Atos was conducting about 25,000 assessments a month. Today, that figure has risen to more than 100,000, and there are still huge backlogs, with nearly half a million claims stuck in the "assessment phase" for well over the 12-week target. As campaigners have won concessions, so the process of each assessment has taken longer, with healthcare professionals now required to write a short summary of every claim and phone calls to claimants to discuss decisions and letters to explain the process now built into the system – although evidence is weak that some of these supposed improvements are taking place consistently.

Finally, the DWP has insisted on continually reassessing successful claims. Reassessment rates can be set at just three, six or nine months, adding enormous strain on the system and causing further delays, when it is unlikely the person's condition will have changed.

So we have a system where Atos assessors are asked to do more and more in less and less time. Is it any wonder accuracy may be compromised?

The real question is why, when a system has been shown to be failing, would a government not only roll it out nationwide, but then increase the rate at which claimants are assessed? Why, when the descriptors have been shown to discriminate against mental health and fluctuating conditions, would any government want to push over 2,500,000 of our most vulnerable citizens through it quickly before ensuring that the tests are fair and accurate?

Despite the glow of the latest spin, only allowing healthcare professionals the time and space to do the job properly, with suitable descriptors, will improve the accuracy of assessments. Simply adding in new providers to implement a flawed test will only increase the fear and despair of those failed by it.

 

[alex3619]

Sue Marsh piece making many of the points made above: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/23/work-assessments-atos-dwp-test

If feel a bit sorry for ATOS. They're just repugnant scum willing to abuse the sick and disabled for money - it's the DWP who set out to find companies willing to abuse the sick and disabled for money.

Hi Esther12 , I substantially agree with Sue Marsh. The system is broken. Sure the pieces are broken, but if you fix one piece and not the others the entire thing will still not work.

I think a commission of enquiry, using forensic accounting, would find the system costs far far more than it saves, and that it does so by causing great harm to vast numbers of disabled. Its a lose/lose scenario, and in time this will bite the LibDems and anyone else who supports it. Historically this kind of strategy has never worked to my knowledge. It makes short term profit for companies, and long term loss for a country. Its a recipe for social upheaval and even war.

The UK will already take a generation to get over this, and that is presuming the government takes remedial action by scrapping this strategy in the immediate future. The longer this goes on, the longer it will take to fix, the higher the financial and social cost will be, and the longer people will remember and hate the LibDems and anyone else who does not try to do anything about it. There is a real question as to how culpable the Labour party is too. If both are to blame, then who is the public to vote for?

I think the incumbent government takes most of the blame, as a political reality, even if it was a Labour initiative. However we might find that confidence in UK democracy is so shaken that new parties arise. I hope so.

 

[alex3619]

I have been thinking about another defence that I expect to see. They will argue that the specifications for the tender were faulty, that the government and DWP want ATOS to do too much too fast at too low a rumuneration, and had they been given accurate information they would not have made the tender they did. By the government failing to supply good information, ATOS is a victim too. I am not saying I agee with this, I am saying I expect to see this defence at some point.

 

[WillowJ]

Sue Marsh piece making many of the points made above: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/23/work-assessments-atos-dwp-test

If feel a bit sorry for ATOS. They're just repugnant scum willing to abuse the sick and disabled for money - it's the DWP who set out to find companies willing to abuse the sick and disabled for money.

that's a good point that if the government guidelines are broken, it's ultimately the guideline-setters' fault. I don't feel sorry for ATOS, but I'm willing to say "it's not illegal to be a jerk" and put the lion's share of blame on those more responsible.

of course the assessors should tell the truth in any case. There's no excuse for seeing thoroughly debilitated people and marking on the paper that they are basically ok.

 

[Firestormm]

Are ATOS still doing the PIP assessments do you think? I reckon this only applies to ESA and Work Capability Assessments. Pretty sure they will still be there doing the work with Personal Independence Payments (replacement for Disability Living Allowance) as announced recently.

 

[alex3619]

Are ATOS still doing the PIP assessments do you think? I reckon this only applies to ESA and Work Capability Assessments. Pretty sure they will still be there doing the work with Personal Independence Payments (replacement for Disability Living Allowance) as announced recently.

If someone does the job, and asks no questions, then why look for someone else? I suspect the main reason the government is talking about opening up the tendering process again is that they are under a lot of pressure - the negative press and evidence makes them look both incompetant and brutally uncaring.

I am wondering if ATOS is becoming deliberately more aggressive, and failing more people deliberately, because the policy cannot work without gimping the process? They cannot possibly get it to succeed, so they push people to push the limits of what the system will allow ... and then don't look for people working beyond the limits and outright lying about assessments.