The government has admitted it is discussing with GPs how to introduce a way for them to report cases in which the controversial “fitness for work” test has caused serious harm to their patients.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) declined to comment two weeks ago when Disability News Service (DNS) reported how a GP whose patient tried to kill himself after a “fitness for work” test was urging the government to act.
Dr Stephen Carty, medical adviser to the user-led campaign group Black Triangle, who works in Leith, on the edge of Edinburgh, said he believed many other GPs had patients who had experienced similar levels of mental distress as a result of being put through the work capability assessment (WCA).
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News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
4 Responses
but will a feed-back mechanism help us or just show, who atos will have to watch.Some GP’s may just be shooting themselves in the foot.
It just doesn’t smell right. Talks what good are they.We have been talking and fighting this for a few years now,and has anything really changed ?
At last we may have the educated teaching the ignorant, lets hope they listen.
I dont think it is an accident that a system has been devised that is so obnoxious that it actively encourages people not to make a claim unless they have no alternative what so ever. Soon we will shift back to the days where people queued in front of a local “board” and had to be publicly humiliated and beg for a pittance. Whether they got any help or not depending on the mood and prejudices of the “board”.
I wish we had many more GP,s like Dr S Carty. The man is fighting for his patients like a lion! If there were many more like him, the government would soon have NO CHOICE but to listen…