effs posts
A welfare rights advisor has described how at least 30 local benefit claimants with terminal cancer have had their claims rejected in the last year, with every one of the decisions later overturned by an appeal tribunal.
In every case, the claimant has been terminally-ill with cancer but has been told by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that they were completely ineligible for support from personal independence payment (PIP), before later being awarded the highest rate of PIP by a tribunal.
The evidence provided by welfare rights expert Duncan Walker, who works in the Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire area, appears to be further proof of the dishonesty at the heart of the PIP assessment system.
Disability News Service (DNS) has so far heard from more than 250 PIP claimants who say that healthcare professionals from government contractors Atos and Capita wrote dishonest reports for DWP after carrying out face-to-face assessments of their eligibility for the extra-costs benefit.
Walker, secretary of the Stoke and North Staffordshire branch of the Unite Community union, told DNS this week that he was “ashamed” that the money he pays in taxes is being used to support such a dishonest assessment system.
He has dealt with at least 30 cases over the last year in which a claimant with terminal cancer has been found ineligible for PIP, but has later been awarded the enhanced rates of the benefit (for both daily living and mobility) by an appeal tribunal.
In one case, a man with stage four lung cancer was assessed in his own home, and was awarded no points (a claimant needs at least eight just to qualify for the standard rate of PIP).
Walker had attended the assessment as a Unite Community volunteer, and witnessed the claimant using an oxygen supply and having to stop and breathe it in every few minutes.
But the assessor reported seeing “no signs of breathlessness”, marked “not applicable” in the respiratory section of the report, and said there was no need for a review of his case for at least another two years, even though he had three months to live.
The appeal tribunal took just five minutes to overturn the decision, and he was awarded the two enhanced rates of PIP. He died several weeks later.
In another case, a woman with a spinal tumour had to be brought to her appeal tribunal by the ambulance service, with paramedics wheeling her into the hearing.
Again, the tribunal took just five minutes to award her enhanced PIP rates for mobility and daily living.
A third case Walker has worked on saw a terminally-ill ex-miner with metastasized cancer denied any PIP following an assessment. Again, a tribunal took just five minutes to overturn the DWP decision and award him the highest rates of PIP.
It was Walker who persuaded Stoke-on-Trent City Council late last year to hold an inquiry into the PIP assessment system.
He had been trying to raise concerns about the dishonesty he was witnessing, but he said no-one had been paying any attention to what he was saying.
He said: “I was banging my head against a wall. Nobody was listening to me.”
But after he met with the council’s adults and neighbourhoods overview and scrutiny committee, and presented his evidence, the committee decided unanimously to launch an inquiry into his allegations.
The council’s review concluded last month that the PIP assessment process was “distressing, inconsistent and not fit for purpose”.
Walker told DNS this week that he could not understand the level of dishonesty he has been witnessing in the assessment reports he has read.
He said: “I look at the reports and I am thinking, ‘How can they write this? This can’t possibly be true.’
“For me personally as a tax-payer I am beyond ashamed that my money is being used in such a perverse way.
“I am ashamed of my own government treating the sick and terminally-ill in this way and using my money to do it, and private companies making a profit out of the terminally-ill and producing fictitious reports.
“Report after report is a work of fiction. It is 100 per cent dishonesty.”
Walker works as a welfare rights advisor for the disabled people’s organisation Disability Solutions West Midlands, but also voluntarily for Unite Community.
His Unite Community branch now plans to submit detailed evidence to an inquiry into the disability benefits assessment process being carried out by the Commons work and pensions select committee.
A DWP spokeswoman said in a statement: “Decisions for PIP are made based on all the information provided by the claimant, including any supporting information from their GP or medical specialist.
“We’re helping people with the most severe conditions to get the extra support that they need.
“This includes fast-tracking claims, and ensuring they can get the highest rates of benefit payments.
“Claims to PIP under the special rules for terminally-ill people are currently taking on average six working days*.
“As we’ve previously said, we do not accept that there is dishonesty among PIP assessors.”
She added: “Since PIP was introduced, 2.4 million decisions have been made, and of these eight per cent have been appealed and four per cent have been overturned.
“In the vast majority of cases where a decision is overturned, further evidence has been provided.
“As you know, we constantly review our processes to make sure they are working in the best way possible and, to date, there have been two independent reviews of PIP.”
A Capita spokeswoman said: “Our assessors are healthcare professionals who are committed to delivering high quality and accurate reports in line with Department for Work and Pensions guidance.
Posted by jeffrey davies on 21 October 2017
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Now the Conservatives have defunded the NHS to the point where CCGs are planning to abandon universal healthcare. Senior surgeon Eardley worries that plans to ban smokers and obese people are merely the “tip of the iceberg”. Under the plans, unless people with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or more lose enough weight in nine months, they face being indefinitely banned from surgery.
The proposals come just after Jeremy Hunt floated the idea of preventing walk-in patients from accessing emergency services.
Privatisation
Campaigners say that the Conservatives have an ultimate aim with our healthcare. The government is defunding the public NHS in order to create the need for a privatised healthcare system.
Of course, the Conservatives’ privatisation strategy would be under the radar. The British public cherish the NHS. That’s why, when the Tories proposed moving to a pay-NHS in 2015, they did it very quietly.
The Conservatives seem to be deliberately setting the NHS on course to crash and burn. Then the private sector could swoop in and ‘save the day’. Take a look at how much the Conservative government has defunded our health service, according to its own figures:
By crippling healthcare budgets, the Conservative government is forcing the NHS to make drastic decisions on care. But a fully public healthcare system is the cheapest for consumers. In 2014, the US spent 17.1% of its GDP on healthcare – without providing cover to all citizens. In the same year, the UK spent just 9.1% of its GDP on healthcare, while providing universal cover. The major difference across the Atlantic is that private companies are making huge profits. Whereas if healthcare is public, we can reinvest profits into the service.
So don’t buy Conservative propaganda that the money isn’t there. Or we’ll end up renting our healthcare from private companies at much higher costs, with no more NHS. Indeed, these proposals to ban certain people from surgery look like the beginning of the end for universal healthcare in the UK.
Posted by jeffrey davies on 18 October 2017
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jeffs posts
It is unreasonable that the Tories are still claiming benefit assessments may only be recorded in an extremely limited way after so many years.
Oh, you think this issue has only just arisen?
I was producing articles about it in 2013!
Does anybody remember Mark Hoban?
If not, it’s hardly surprising. He was a Tory MP between 2001-2015 and the Minister of State for Employment who had to answer questions from Labour’s Sheila Gilmore on the recording of Work Capability Assessments by Atos (as it was then known) for Employment and Support Allowance in June 2013. I know ESA is not the same as PIP but the assessment system might as well be – certainly when it comes to the issue of recording the assessments.
I reported on the situation prior to those questions being asked, in June 2013 – when even the hated Atos stated: “Our recommendation would be that recording should become routine as it is in a call centre or for example – NHS direct.”
I wrote: “Ms Gilmore goes on to attack the government’s claim that the number of claimants requesting a copy of their recording is just one per cent. This cannot be regarded as an accurate assessment of the number who would like a copy, for two reasons, she tells us.
“Firstly, the assessors used handheld devices to make their recordings, meaning they would have to be transferred to computer and burnt to CD afterwards, preventing claimants from taking recordings away with them on the day. Instead they had to make a further request – in writing. “Unsurprisingly this suppressed uptake,” Ms Gilmore’s speech states.
“Secondly, claimants were warned off applying for copies by assessors who told them recordings would only be useful to them if they appealed. The report that stated only one per cent of claimants persisted in their request was completed only days after the pilot study ended, meaning most of those involved had not received a decision on their claim and therefore did not know whether they needed to appeal. Demand may well have been higher, had the measurement been taken after a reasonable time.
“This is just one example of the DWP timing processes in order to get its way.
“[Ministers] also stated that the DWP would offer “everyone who wants it” the opportunity to have their assessment recorded. In practice, this seems an empty promise, as Atos had around 50 audio recording machines on May 22 [2013], but undertakes more than 11,000 assessments every week.”
Under questioning, Mr Hoban said, “I do not think that it was that difficult to get hold of [a recording of an assessment]. The recording might need to be held on a handheld device before it is transferred to a computer and a transcript is printed, but that does not stop people asking for a copy.”
I pointed out, in my article after the Parliamentary session: “This is inaccurate. For those who have never attended a work capability assessment, the Atos assessors complete them using laptop computers – because the assessment is a tick-box test that demands simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. Laptops generally come with not only audio recording but also CD burning programs as part of the package, and even if they don’t, freeware recording software is widely available and CD-burning software is also available, if not for free, then for a reasonable price. If the onboard microphones aren’t adequate to the task, it is possible to buy them very cheaply – especially if buying in bulk.
“In short, it should be entirely possible to record every single assessment at a reasonably high quality, burn it onto CD and hand it to claimants on the spot.”
Now, four years later – to quote the desperate Theresa May: Nothing has changed.
If anything, the quality of recording software is much better.
So there can only be one reason the DWP is clinging to its demand for people to use “expensive specialist devices that claimants must provide themselves”?
That is: To put people off recording assessments so the DWP may lie about their findings and push people, who deserve the benefit, off it.
There can be no other reason.
A response to a Freedom of Information request (read the story here) shows that four out of five requests for mandatory reconsideration of benefit refusals – the first stage in the appeal process that the DWP deliberately lengthened in order to make appeals more difficult for cash-strapped claimants to endure – supports this assertion.
It is easier to refuse an appeal when there is no recording to show where assessors have lied.
So, despite having claimed they have no targets for benefit refusal since taking office in 2010, the Conservatives are proved to have been lying.
In summary:
There is no physical reason for claimants to be denied recordings of their benefit assessments.
The only reason the DWP can possibly have for doing so is to deny claimants a decent hearing at benefit appeals.
The only reason the DWP would want to do this is to hide the fact that the assessors hired from private firms to do this work are lying about the information they receive.
And the only reason they would lie is because they have been told to refuse benefits to a significant number of claimants – whether they deserve them or not – and this is the only way to meet their target.
Posted by jeffrey davies on 17 October 2017
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cruel gov to the end wake up before it happens to you
I see so much suffering on a daily basis. Case managers like me are well-trained to deal with any claimants threatening suicide, simply because it’s become such a frequent occurrence
I work with many compassionate and thoughtful employees, who try their hardest every day to help vulnerable claimants. However, we can only act within the remit of strict guidelines which don’t offer us the flexibility we sometimes need to prevent unnecessary suffering.
The problem is compounded by employees’ lack of knowledge about the universal credit regulations which can have an especially devastating impact on care leavers, the disabled and those with mental health conditions. It is not uncommon for charities and support workers to inform case managers – the ones whose job it is to assess people for universal credit and other benefits – of the law, rather than the other way round.
Full-time case managers on average handle in the region of 300 claims each. We recently started a new way of working whereby tasks are prioritised in a “trigger” approach, meaning we often only have time to look at the highest risk cases. Payments and “payment blockers” are the first priority but many case managers struggle to make it past these on a daily basis. Claimants are told that they must fill out an online “universal credit journal” about their job searches and keep it up to date in order to release the benefit – their “work coach” is the person who’s supposed to keep in touch with them about those notes. But in reality, claimants are putting important journal messages about jobs and interviews online all the time, and the case managers and work coaches can’t reply. Each employee has dozens of other unseen journal messages they simply don’t have enough time to address.
Many of my colleagues feel out of their depth with the quantity of claims they manage, resulting in a vast amount of crucial work never being completed until claimants contact us when their payments are inevitably paid incorrectly or not at all.
We’re so understaffed that case managers going on holiday can have a significant impact on claimants. These claimants are completely neglected, sometimes for many weeks, as colleagues are told to only send out payments for the people they manage themselves. In other words, if the person who’s looking after your universal credit payment takes some annual leave, you could be left penniless by accident.
Earlier this year, the Department for Work and Pensions said it would cut 750 jobs, partly by closing 27 back-office buildings. My office is merging with another local office, leading to dozens of newly trained employees on temporary contracts being told that their contracts will not be renewed. To most of us this makes no sense considering the amount of claims we already have to manage. How are we supposed to cope?
Across the DWP and in every department, understaffing is chronic. We have to refer many of our decisions about extra payments and claims to “decision makers” higher up the chain – which means the decision makers then get overloaded with work. It’s common to see payments being delayed for three weeks while they’re in a queue for a decision maker to sign off.
Similarly it may take three weeks for earnings disputes to be resolved. This is where the amount a claimant has received through employment differs to what Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has sent to us. Because your take-home pay from your job can be deducted off your benefits, this causes huge financial hardship if the numbers are incorrect. The claimants are always quick to provide payslip and bank-statement evidence, but decisions on these disputes are usually lengthy so they end up with long delays anyway as their cases lie in a pile waiting to be looked at.
One of the principles we’re told is central to case management is that claimants are entirely responsible for their own claim. The system alerts us when deadlines have been missed, allowing us to cruelly close claims and stop that person receiving any money. Tens of thousands of very vulnerable people have their lifeline switched off with a click. Although we are told to provide vulnerable claimants with more support, perhaps by reminding them that they should be doing something, normally we have very little to go by as we sit behind a computer screen and have never met them.
I see so much suffering on a daily basis. Case managers like me are well-trained to deal with any claimants threatening suicide, either by phone or by journal message, simply because it’s such a frequent occurrence (and recurrence). It is often that we have to tell claimants the state cannot support them further at all – even if they have weeks till their next payment and have young children to feed. Proactive case managers signpost these claimants to charities and food banks, who have had to fill the gap.
Being a case manager means that turning away those in abject poverty is a part of the job. Those who have worked in universal credit since the early days have become hardened, having dealt with thousands of vulnerable people. It’s very difficult to tell claimants, “I’m sorry but we can’t give you any more”, even if we know that children will suffer in hunger for weeks. But we have no choice.
Claimants who state that they are facing eviction are a penny a dozen. We are told that legal proceedings can take months so a claimant is “never really facing eviction”. That’s how we’re told to justify it.
As six types of benefit are now combined into one universal credit payment, any deductions for take-home pay will have an effect on the entire sum, when at other times they might have retained their housing benefit, for instance, but lost their jobseeker’s allowance. Many claimants in work now find that they are hundreds of pounds worse off per month, to their shock, after a six-week wait. At this point they will contact us, stating that the total amount must be wrong. Unfortunately we have to explain to them that this is all we can give them.
One part of my job involves spending time answering calls from across the country. Many of these people are at the lowest point of their lives.
Often the call involves telling them that we can’t pay them anything else, even if they are genuinely penniless and will be for weeks. Many claimants react in anger; others break down in tears. It’s only minutes until we’re dealing with the next caller – and the last caller is quickly forgotten.
Posted by jeffrey davies on 15 October 2017
