Disability campaigners have called on the British Medical Association to sever links with Atos Healthcare, a company that administers fitness-to-work tests on behalf of the Government.
The Edinburgh-based Black Triangle Campaign and Bill Scott, manager of Inclusion Scotland, are among signatories to an open letter which claims the company is profiting from denying benefits to people genuinely unable to work.
Atos has a £100 million a year contract to administer fitness-to-work tests to those claiming incapacity benefits during the introduction of the employment support allowance.
The letter, which is also signed by Scottish GP Stephen Carty, Unite rep Dave Sherry and Dr Marion Hersh of the University of Glasgow, calls for Atos to be prevented from attending a jobs fair this weekend hosted by the BMA’s publication, the British Medical Journal. It also calls for the Royal College of Nursing to reject advertising from the firm.
The letter argues that medical professionals working for Atos are compromised by targets that can conflict with patients’ clinical needs, and claims that doctors’ and nurses’ ethics are being “corrupted” by Atos.
Atos Healthcare was last night unavailable for comment.
Magnificent effort from BT, with no faith in any big politcal party leaders John McDonnell should challenge for the leadership and then destroy this sick agenda from the blair era and all those who claimed to be labour who started it
I do wonder what the Atos Public Relations Team does because they’re either ‘unavailable for comment’ or they issue the same statement time after time. Do they actually exist?
prob the dwp