Disabled 'wrongly denied' benefit

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8580936.stm

Thousands of seriously ill and disabled people who are unable to work are being wrongly denied benefits, a report by Citizens Advice has claimed.
The bureau says the system of assessing Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants is failing, with 68% of those assessed told they are fit for work.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8465122.stm

A BBC investigation has heard claims of seriously ill patients being told they are fit enough to work and denied benefit payments.
Two former doctors for the private healthcare company Atos, which carries out the medical assessments have expressed concerns that the checks are being done too quickly and that the system is biased towards declaring people fit for work.

The USA is like that, too.

ATOS are a bunch of numpties . Someone ought to expose their system . I got physically injured and am self employed. I tried to claim sickness benefit. Not knowing what to claim I trusted the intitial point of contact in the ESA did. They sent all my information to ATOs
which doesn't deal with self employed. ATOS still went ahead with the processesing anyway and retained my sick notes. They even keep demanding I come in for an assessment.

I got a duplicate lot of sick notes from my nice GP and sent them off to employment services. Think they have done the same thing again and ATOS are processing my claim again, which they shouldn't because at the end of the process they determine I'm not eligble for anything due to self employment, which should be such an obvious primary factor that they are the wrong department to process my claim. Probably charge the government for this and it's a nice earner.

I've been waiting seven weeks for any sick pay. I've had to go back to work less than functional because we need to eat.

Needs sorting out. Might speak to someone in Gvt. about this if I can be ar*ed

@memesplice - my sympathy, My partner and I had to deal with Atos and DWP ineptitude for ten months ON TOP of the 13wk assessment period, and even after winning the tribual they STILL cant determine which group she should be in...

Not going to be ineptitude if they are a private company is it? It will be route of most profitabilty for them.

The ineptitude came more from the DWP being utterly unable to train its minions to actually understand ESA procedure, though the Atos doctor certainly managed to screw up several parts of the interview he should have at least been trying to pretend to do properly.

ESA processing are now on strike. I didn't ask why. However turns out that ( if NT knows what she is talking about, of which I'm doubtful) all mail is initially processed not by trained staff but at a mail sorting office. Hence this is why claims get sent to wrong place because sorting office do not know what they are looking for. There is no Email system for contact from outside( for "security reasons")
I didn't mention stuff like paypal seems to have managed to overcome "security reasons". Why GP can not Email my data to correct department in encrypted form? Easy system to set up- however methinks this would remove all paper sorting jobs + nice little earner for Atos when wrong stuff is sent to them. ( And yes, they can sue me if they like -I have no money because I spent my emergency savings covering the period of time in which the system of which they are a part couldn't get it's act together to pay me what I was due.)

I thought this line was important. I don't think you should qualify for disability just because you can't do the job you used to. You should qualify if you physically/mentally cannot do any form of job.

Definitely, there should be some help trying to get people alternative jobs or training, but I disagree with giving out handouts to people for years when they could easily support themselves with another means of employement. Yes, it may not be their dream job, or their last job may have been better paid, but a lot of undisabled people are in the same boat and life's not fair.

ESA has two groups. One is the support group, designed for those with zero employability. Generally this seems to be considered to number the terminally ill, and the very heavily disabled. The other group is a "limited capacity group." The purpose of this group, (according to the ESA regulations), is to provide extra help and support to disabled jobseekers, People on it are not considered completely incapable of work, but more they are considered to require extra support that a non-disabled jobseeker would not. The major issue with the current system is that Atos are failing people despite all evidence to the contrary, and expecting them to go on to regular jobseekers. They will happily ignore any and all medical evidence provided by any level of medical expert, for any problem or ailment. Thus people who at the very least need a great deal of help to find employment are being wilfully forced out of a system designed to help them. Atos healthcare practitioners seem to consider themselves above any other level of medical practitioner, and the regulations do say that outside medical evidence can be ignored by these "practitioners." IN other words, the very system itself is designed to override medical opinion, with the opinions of people that may not even be doctors, much less specialists in any field.

Also, many of the people currently being abused by this system are LONG TERM unemployed. and in some cases they may NEVER have managed to find meaningful employment in their lives. To force them unsupported into the jobmarket is tantamount to criminal. To do so during a global recession when people with long and complete employment histories who are capable of unrestricted working practice and retain all the neccesary skills and qualifications are incapable of finding work is just plain foolish.

Regardless of what the "practitioner" may decide, the process is also long, drawn out and undignified, and a heavy weight of stress and anxiety. A great deal of this stress is based around the fact that the DWP simply CANNOT keep to its own guidelines and that NOBODY who is using this system understands it. Training in some jobcentres for ESA was only completed in the last two months (yet my partner and i languished in the appeal system for TEN, and received conflicting information and advice for the whole period.)

It is obvious to all those who have been through it, and many of those who are attempting to run it, that this system is flawed, corrupt, and using the most vulnerable sector of society (outside of children) to manipulate unemployment figures.

I am in the USA and a medically diagnosed Aspie at 63 years of age, a little late to do much good in helping me fit into the world of everyday life.

I have received Vocational Rehabilitation assistance four times but still have problems holding a job.

I have learned that a good thing to do to bolster a claim of disability is to first go to your local county mental health clinic and claim that you have a legitimate psychiatric problem like generalized or social anxiety, or obsessive compulsive disorder. Stick with one psychiatrist and build a rapport with them. At some point suggest that you believe you have AS and ask them to write a referral on their script pad saying, "Please evaluate for asperger disorder."

Then contact the vocational rehabilitation program in your state. They are mandated to take a careful history and to perform all appropriate evaluations. Present the medical script from your psychiatrist and they will have to send you out to a clinical psychologist to be assessed for AS and you will get a medical diagnosis usually in one day.

Sign a medical release or more to allow all appropriate medical records to be faxed to VR.

Be completely in all your interviews and avoid all circumspection.

Follow up with VR and your doctors to make sure your records are faxed out and received within a week or two.

After VR evaluates your file they will set up an appointment to advise whether they believe you can work.

If they believe you can work participate in what they have to offer, but if it's not helping tell then and ask for a follow up evaluation.

If they put you in a queue prioritized by severity of illness you may have to wait for a long time for service, but then they are mandated to help you obtain medicaid, food stamps, cash assistance/home relief, and other services. Take advantage of whatever they can provide.

If they believe that you are totally disabled they will deny you vocational rehabilitation services and refer you to Social Security to initiate a disability claim where your medical records and VRs statement that you are totally disabled will weigh heavily in your favor to guide their decision making.

Do not apply alone although you are allowed to. Seek out and use a business which helps people apply for and obtain disability assistance. I think Binder and Binder in Pittsburgh is a reputable firm but there are many others.

Prevailing in a disability claim can take up to three years. Should your initial application fail you still have three levels of appeals open to you, one of which must be filed in a US District Court by an attorney. The monies due to you if you prevail in your application begin to accrue at the time you file your application. The persons who help you are paid out of that accrued sum up to about $3,400.00 as determined by a judge based on the amount of work the judge believes they did.

Sounds like some social organizational mapping is required here. This would help NTs pretending to understand what they are doing/ role and inflicting consequences of their non understanding on their clients. Having discussed this with some people who know about this stuff, primary rule is the staff in these places often do not fully know what they are doing, nor do they know what anyone else in other departments is doing. Also there is no incentive for departments to deliver data to relevant department, hence data not relevant to that department goes into metaphorical bin.

It's just NT's getting paid for pretending most of time when stuff goes wrong- don't forget somehow millions of benefits payments do get paid eventually , so the system must work to some extent.

Be very careful that any campaign against the benefits system isn't based on anger , because this will be backed by some even more serious NT's who want to shut down costly parts of it and utilize workfare style placements instead- ( their mates invest in the businesses that will benefit from free/cheap labour.) Have seen this stuff against NHS .


Keep it positive, modify system.

Totally unrelated the individual in questions' predicament, but I'm amazed at how easy it was for me to get a disability pension; it's supposedly hard enough here in Oz too.

I guess I just don't realize how disabled I am in regards to working with other people, especially when I'm here at home and able to do a lot of physical work for the family (no problems with my family, which is my mother).

If you're going to give up and use the old "life's not fair" argument, then I'll agree and go rob an old lady and say to her, "well, life's not fair". Why not? She doesn't give a toss about my problems. I'm exaggerating, but the point is - where do you draw the line? I'll be damned if I'm going to wander round competing with all the NT others for non-existent jobs then even if I get one, top myself because the existence is too soul-destroying. Some people can handle that - you know the ones who can actually look forward to normal human contact, a laugh, some pleasure in life to make it worthwhile. I can't at the moment. I'd love to be more gainfully employed. I do what I can to help myself and others right now and try to keep busy and productive. But there's all sorts of 'help' out there, but that's generally someone sucking £20K+ from the government to do very little as a job advisor. They deserve the criticism, as they've been useless. The government withdrew funds for the training I wanted, when they had provided before. Just as I became well enough to manage to do it. I wrote to the minister responsible and got a pathetic response, telling me nothing I didn't know already, which is: they'll throw money in the wrong direction, ignore sleazy schemes that steal government cash, but hassle sick people or mentally-weaker people for a lot less. The carrot, not the stick...

nah!!

You are better off working, even if you have serious AS or any type of disability. disablity benefits suck and work rules. you are better off working. you meet more people, you are more mentally challenged/stimulated and time passes much faster. you grow more, learn more, are more satisfied and are happier with a job.

i have been on disability benefits as a (supposed) AS "sufferer" for ages and i am 20 times worse off now that when i was working!! !! !! !

You're right - IF you can find a job that mentally stimulates you in any way, rather than stresses and simultaneously bores you. That's my experience. Getting one is hard enough, let alone a SUITABLE one. Any gaps in the CV and it goes in the bin. Although that's actually indirect discrimination due to the gap being due to disability. There's supposed to be legislation against this, but people think they're right to discriminate, so sneak around the law, the swine.