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the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues
You are here: Home / Benefits and Poverty / New claims of Atos assessment lies are ‘tip of a massive iceberg’
An Atos sign
New claims of Atos assessment lies are ‘tip of a massive iceberg’
By John Pring on 21st August 2015
Category: Benefits and Poverty
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New evidence proves that the controversial outsourcing contractor Atos should be stripped of all of its disability benefit assessment contracts, say disabled campaigners.
Fresh concerns about the behaviour of Atos and its assessors emerged after Disability News Service (DNS) revealed last week how an Atos nurse repeatedly lied about a disabled man he was assessing for personal independence payment (PIP).
The nurse, who is believed to be still carrying out assessments for Atos, stated in his report – in addition to a string of other incorrect statements – that Colin Stupples-Whyley had attended the PIP assessment alone, even though his partner had sat with him throughout the interview.
Now, following the publication of that story, other disabled claimants have come forward to describe to DNS how their Atos assessors “lied” about them in benefit assessment reports.
Former nurse Sue Hardy, who lectured on nursing for 22 years at the University of Bedfordshire, until she was forced to retire due to ill-health in 2013, said she was appalled when she read the report written by the Atos nurse who assessed her for the out-of-work disability benefit employment and support allowance (ESA).
The report was littered with errors, but most worrying was the cognitive tests section, which was filled in by the assessor even though none of the tests had been carried out.
Hardy, who was accompanied by a friend to the assessment, said: “This nurse lied on my assessment form. Having just had to give up my 35-year career as a nurse and senior lecturer, I found her assessment erroneous in many areas.”
She appealed against the decision to place her in the work-related activity group of ESA, and won her appeal at tribunal, but also lodged a complaint with Atos, and with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).
In the NMC complaint, she said the assessor had “completely fabricated, and invented the results of the cognitive assessment”.
She told DNS: “I think Atos is a joke. How many people out there are being denied a fair assessment?
“Nurses have a duty of care to all patients and clients and are bound by their code of conduct.
“To omit an assessment or part thereof is negligence, and thus that duty of care is broken.
“Atos employ nurses alongside doctors and physiotherapists, who are bound by similar codes of conduct.
“So if the nurses are being caught fabricating assessment results, what about the other disciplines?
“It is very worrying, and Atos obviously can’t perform these assessments to the required standards, resulting in people missing out on their benefits.”
Although Atos handed over the ESA contract to another company earlier this year, it still has two major contracts to carry out PIP assessments.
Colleen Hardy [no relation to Sue Hardy], from Kent, has described how a report written by the Atos physiotherapist who assessed her was littered with either basic errors or deliberate untruths about the impact of several chronic health conditions, including depression, anxiety, a thyroid disorder, and fibromyalgia.
She was accompanied to the Atos building for the assessment by both a community psychiatric nurse and a friend, and both of them were able to dismiss the assessor’s claims that she had climbed a flight of stairs without help and by holding onto the bannister.
Hardy later told DWP that the assessor was “either unqualified to give an informed opinion or she is being blatantly misleading and/or obstructive with the actual evidence”, and that she had simplified the impact of the fibromyalgia to a “ridiculous extent”.
She said: “When I received my copy of the report, I was gobsmacked. It was full of inaccuracies and, let’s call a spade a spade here, lies!”
As a result of the assessment in July 2012, she was removed from the support group of ESA and placed in the work-related activity group.
After she appealed, a tribunal ruled that the original report was accurate, but still placed her back in the support group, although it did not reimburse her for the benefits she had lost in the meantime.
Hardy said: “Atos and all involved never once explained any of the outlined inaccuracies in that report and stood by the physiotherapist completely.
“I lost a fair amount of money, I lost confidence and my health suffered so much. This was all after the assessor deciding – despite all the professional opinion to the contrary she was shown – that in three months’ time I would be fit enough to work.”
She added: “I can’t believe that Atos are more than happy to allow a liar to continue working for them.”
Three other claimants have also come forward to accuse Atos assessors of lying in their reports.
One told DNS how her Atos assessor asked her three questions, two of which required one-word answers, and then told her that her medical records answered all of the other questions.
After giving the assessor a two-minute rundown of her week, she was “ushered out” of the assessment.
She said: “When I was told I had (of course) failed the test, scoring the usual ‘0’ for mental health issues, I was shocked to read the report, which stated the interview had lasted 25 minutes, and a whole raft of questions had been asked!
“To say the least, I was gobsmacked at this thick tome of utter fabrication.”
Another claimant, with conditions including diabetes, a chronic degenerative disease that has ruptured all but two of the discs in her neck, arthritis, high blood pressure, and panic attacks, was told she had scored zero points in her assessment.
She said: “The tis
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Skip to footer
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Disability News Service
the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues
You are here: Home / Benefits and Poverty / New claims of Atos assessment lies are ‘tip of a massive iceberg’
An Atos sign
New claims of Atos assessment lies are ‘tip of a massive iceberg’
By John Pring on 21st August 2015
Category: Benefits and Poverty
Listen
Listen with webReader
Focus
New evidence proves that the controversial outsourcing contractor Atos should be stripped of all of its disability benefit assessment contracts, say disabled campaigners.
Fresh concerns about the behaviour of Atos and its assessors emerged after Disability News Service (DNS) revealed last week how an Atos nurse repeatedly lied about a disabled man he was assessing for personal independence payment (PIP).
The nurse, who is believed to be still carrying out assessments for Atos, stated in his report – in addition to a string of other incorrect statements – that Colin Stupples-Whyley had attended the PIP assessment alone, even though his partner had sat with him throughout the interview.
Now, following the publication of that story, other disabled claimants have come forward to describe to DNS how their Atos assessors “lied” about them in benefit assessment reports.
Former nurse Sue Hardy, who lectured on nursing for 22 years at the University of Bedfordshire, until she was forced to retire due to ill-health in 2013, said she was appalled when she read the report written by the Atos nurse who assessed her for the out-of-work disability benefit employment and support allowance (ESA).
The report was littered with errors, but most worrying was the cognitive tests section, which was filled in by the assessor even though none of the tests had been carried out.
Hardy, who was accompanied by a friend to the assessment, said: “This nurse lied on my assessment form. Having just had to give up my 35-year career as a nurse and senior lecturer, I found her assessment erroneous in many areas.”
She appealed against the decision to place her in the work-related activity group of ESA, and won her appeal at tribunal, but also lodged a complaint with Atos, and with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).
In the NMC complaint, she said the assessor had “completely fabricated, and invented the results of the cognitive assessment”.
She told DNS: “I think Atos is a joke. How many people out there are being denied a fair assessment?
“Nurses have a duty of care to all patients and clients and are bound by their code of conduct.
“To omit an assessment or part thereof is negligence, and thus that duty of care is broken.
“Atos employ nurses alongside doctors and physiotherapists, who are bound by similar codes of conduct.
“So if the nurses are being caught fabricating assessment results, what about the other disciplines?
“It is very worrying, and Atos obviously can’t perform these assessments to the required standards, resulting in people missing out on their benefits.”
Although Atos handed over the ESA contract to another company earlier this year, it still has two major contracts to carry out PIP assessments.
Colleen Hardy [no relation to Sue Hardy], from Kent, has described how a report written by the Atos physiotherapist who assessed her was littered with either basic errors or deliberate untruths about the impact of several chronic health conditions, including depression, anxiety, a thyroid disorder, and fibromyalgia.
She was accompanied to the Atos building for the assessment by both a community psychiatric nurse and a friend, and both of them were able to dismiss the assessor’s claims that she had climbed a flight of stairs without help and by holding onto the bannister.
Hardy later told DWP that the assessor was “either unqualified to give an informed opinion or she is being blatantly misleading and/or obstructive with the actual evidence”, and that she had simplified the impact of the fibromyalgia to a “ridiculous extent”.
She said: “When I received my copy of the report, I was gobsmacked. It was full of inaccuracies and, let’s call a spade a spade here, lies!”
As a result of the assessment in July 2012, she was removed from the support group of ESA and placed in the work-related activity group.
After she appealed, a tribunal ruled that the original report was accurate, but still placed her back in the support group, although it did not reimburse her for the benefits she had lost in the meantime.
Hardy said: “Atos and all involved never once explained any of the outlined inaccuracies in that report and stood by the physiotherapist completely.
“I lost a fair amount of money, I lost confidence and my health suffered so much. This was all after the assessor deciding – despite all the professional opinion to the contrary she was shown – that in three months’ time I would be fit enough to work.”
She added: “I can’t believe that Atos are more than happy to allow a liar to continue working for them.”
Three other claimants have also come forward to accuse Atos assessors of lying in their reports.
One told DNS how her Atos assessor asked her three questions, two of which required one-word answers, and then told her that her medical records answered all of the other questions.
After giving the assessor a two-minute rundown of her week, she was “ushered out” of the assessment.
She said: “When I was told I had (of course) failed the test, scoring the usual ‘0’ for mental health issues, I was shocked to read the report, which stated the interview had lasted 25 minutes, and a whole raft of questions had been asked!
“To say the least, I was gobsmacked at this thick tome of utter fabrication.”
Another claimant, with conditions including diabetes, a chronic degenerative disease that has ruptured all but two of the discs in her neck, arthritis, high blood pressure, and panic attacks, was told she had scored zero points in her assessment.
She said: “The tis
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