A PRIVATE firm hired to slash benefits have been slammed for declaring a Parkinson’s sufferer fit to work.
French-owned Atos Healthcare are being paid £100million a year by the Tories to reassess people claiming disability and sickness benefit.
But thousands of bungled rulings by the firm are costing taxpayers £50million.
Now the firm have been accused of wasting public cash by “hounding” a Parkinson’s sufferer. Tom Greatrex, Rutherglen and Hamilton West MP, revealed how one constituent had his benefits cut after being declared fit to work despite having the disease.
The unnamed man won an appeal but was forced to undergo another examination.
He won his second appeal but, six months later, he has been ordered by the Department for Work and Pensions to face yet another assessment.
Greatrex said: “My constituent’s case sums up everything that is wrong with Atos.
“To hound a person suffering from Parkinson’s is a shameful waste of taxpayers time and money. My constituent isn’t fit to work. Parkinson’s is an incurable progressive disease, so his condition won’t improve.
“This has twice been the view of the Tory-led Government’s own appeals panel. If everybody else can see this, why can’t Atos?”
A DWP spokeswoman said: “Decisions are not made on the condition. There are many people with Parkinson’s who do work.”
An Atos spokesman said: “We approach assessments on a caseby-case basis, as each customer’s circumstance is unique.”
6 Responses
what is gaulling me, at the end of the newspaper article, it’s always twatos or dwp giving their bollocks. WE need the last word. How dare theytry and justify the misery they cause with lies.
BOOM….. is all i can say cos for once im speechless and the gross incompetance of this company and the dwp for allowing it to continue
Evil scum parasite bastards the lot of them.
These were the sorts of so-called doctors and nurses who were employed as medical staff in Hitler and Stalin’s concentration and forced labour camps.
I hope the General Medical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council are happy that their reputation for professional honesty and integrity, and their supposed upholding of the practice of the medical ethics of sympathy and compassion for suffering and sick humanity, is being dragged through the mud by the DWP and Atos.
The DWP and Atos are engaged in a campaign of criminal fraud in order to steal the sickness welfare benefits off the the long-term sick and disabled patients of Britain.
The GMC and NMC are all complicit in this nationwide campaign of using the British state to terrorise and traumatise the chronically diseased and disabled patient community of Britain.
Criminals get tried once and have plenty of access to legal support and their rights are always enforced. The sick and disabled have no such protection and no such rights, and are tried again and again and again, and are always treated as being guilty until they can prove themselves innocent.
See the blog article by Sue Marsh posted on BT today –
Diary of a Benefit Scrounger: What EVERY MP should know about welfare refrorm
https://www.facebook.com/blacktriangle11/posts/273079972723188
I think I was at the Cadogan Street office when the guy in this news article was attending at the same time as me. His mum was with him and she was fuming as they entered. She said it was a disgrace they were there as he had “Parkinson’s and it is progressive. How do they expect him to work?” The security started to round up on them, keeping nearby as the mother was in a pure rage. I agreed with her but it was only me and them pair in the place as it was near lunchtime, so there was no riot. If the place was mobbed, I am sure there would have been a riot? The layout as well is wrong. They put you in the furthest away chairs so you have to walk a good distance to get to the assessor who leads you down corridors to more interview rooms. You can see them watch people walking. Probably to assess their walking without permission? When the mother and son came back, she was ranting and raving about travel costs, trains from where they live etc.. and how this has stressed them both out so much. Because she did not keep the train tickets, they staff said bad luck as you need to keep the tickets to prove you got here….DUH What are you doing then sitting in their offices etc….? How did you get there? I was there assisting someone else to go through this assessment and they did not pass the tests, obviously….. I was so angry watching this.
Liked Joe’s comment on the article. He is totally right about dragging the name of the medical profession through the mud.