Published by Leeds University Department of Disability Studies
From The British Welfare State to Another American State
© By Mo Stewart 17th May 2013
The ongoing welfare reforms have created an atmosphere of fear and despair within the British disabled community, that includes sufferers of chronic ill health and those with mental health difficulties.
Claimants in receipt of the former Incapacity Benefit are being transferred to the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) but, to retain this disability benefit, claimants are required to make themselves available for an ‘occupational assessment’, known as the Work Capability Assessment (WCA), as exclusively conducted by the private contractor Atos Origin IT Ltd Medical Services; better known as Atos Healthcare.
Since 2008 successive British governments have adopted the WCA with the intention of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) removing as many claimants as possible from disability benefit, to permit the long ago planned move from the welfare state to welfare funded by private insurance.
During three years of detailed independent research, I exposed the links between the British government and the American healthcare insurance giant Unum (Provident) Insurance as first identified in the 2010 report: Atos Healthcare or Disability Denial Factories (1). This report exposed the links between the DWP and the healthcare insurance giant, and also identified the fact that the WCA had been designed in consultation with Unum Insurance and was the realisation of the long ago planned ‘Thatcher Legacy’, which was the total destruction of the welfare state (2).
This foreign influence on British welfare reforms was to become the focus for the second year of my research that culminated in the report: Welfare Reform – Redress for the Disabled (3) as first quoted during the welfare reform debates in the House of Lords during September 2011.
Over time, this often disturbing research evidence was published across the Internet and was welcomed by various academics, a growing number of frontline national charities, medical and healthcare professionals and service-users.
The interest was growing as the research exposed the fact that the DWP’s American corporate ‘adviser’ was identified as one of the most discredited health insurance giants in the world (1)(3).
By 2005, following copious numbers of successful legal cases throughout the USA, the California Department of Insurance Commissioner, John Garamendi, stated:
“Unum Provident is an outlaw company. It is a company that has operated in an illegal fashion for years…”(4)
By 2006, New York Attorney General Spitzer ordered Unum (Provident) Insurance to reconsider 200,000 previous claims, in a settlement benefitting 48 States, and also levied another $15 million dollar fine against the company in addition to the $multi-million dollar fines already imposed over several years via successful litigation (1)(3)(5).
In 2007, the American Association for Justice identified Unum (Provident) Insurance as “..the second worst insurance company in the US ”(6)(7). To date, the company have not carried out the 200,000 reconsiderations, ordered in the 2006 multi-state settlement, as Unum Insurance does appear to continue to be a law unto themselves.
A name change to, simply, Unum Insurance has not altered this company’s long history of resisting payment to genuine health insurance claimants(8) as confirmed in a compelling CBS News interview (9).
Yet this is the company chosen to ‘advise’ successive British governments since 1994 and this American influenced system of disability denial was adopted by the DWP, using Atos Healthcare to conduct the WCA as a guaranteed method of reducing the welfare budget, regardless of the large amount of detailed evidence against it (1)(3)(7)(10). Indeed, in America, Professor John Langbein of the Yale School of Law produced a paper identified as ‘The Unum Provident Scandal’ that exposed Unum’s policy of disability denial that continues to be referenced to this day (10).
FROM THE WELFARE STATE TO ANOTHER AMERICAN STATE
Not only was the WCA exposed as being ‘unfit for purpose’ by the President of the Appeal Tribunals (11) but also most recently by the representatives of Britain’s doctors and nurses as the WCA was identified by both the British Medical Association (BMA)(12) and the Royal College of Nurses (RCN)(13) as being totally detrimental to the welfare of patients. DWP Ministers continue to disregard all reported evidence against the Atos assessment.
For six years from 2003 Unum (Provident) Insurance funded the former DWP Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Mansel Aylward, who retired from his role at the DWP to become the Director of the ‘UnumProvident Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research’ at Cardiff University. During that time, Professor Aylward co-authored arguably the most damaging report in the history of British welfare as The Scientific & Conceptual Basis of Incapacity Benefits, TSO 2005(14) was, effectively, a blueprint for the introduction of the WCA.
The Green Paper: A New Deal for Welfare: Empowering people to work – 2006(15) was subsequently exposed by the academic Professor Alison Ravetz, whose detailed independent assessment identified the content of the Green Paper as leaving much to be desired (16). It remains cause for concern that Professor Ravetz’s critical assessment of the Green Paper was provided as a contribution to the public consultation process; so the DWP accessed this disturbing evidence and then totally disregarded the significance of it.
“On closer examination, it appears that this entire body of work is largely self-referential – that is, it appeals for validation to itself and is framed within the same political and policy agenda. In practical terms, it means opting out by the state of responsibility for a large section – estimated two thirds – of those affected by illness or disability.
“In future, it will be harder to qualify for the benefit, while those already receiving it, in many cases over long periods will, despite assurances, have justifiable anxieties about their future benefit status…
“UnumProvident, an American company, is involved in a number of lawsuits for ‘bad faith’ in refusing to honour disability insurance claims. This reinforces the caution against taking this apparently impressive body of work at face value.
“It is not research undertaken in the spirit of open enquiry. It is commissioned research and, as such, pre-disposed towards ideologically determined outcomes.”(16)
This statement was written by Professor Ravetz in 2006 and it has now come to pass, with the nation’s chronically sick and disabled benefit claimants living in fear of the arrival of their appointment for the WCA, as conducted by Atos Healthcare, and the endless incorrect decisions regarding future benefit entitlement by DWP ‘Decision Makers ’(17).
The main influence of the Green Paper content was ‘The Scientific & Conceptual Basis of Incapacity Benefits’ TSO 2005(14), as authored by Professors Mansel Aylward and Gordon Waddell and published by the UnumProvident Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research, Cardiff University.
Research evidence has confirmed the profound influence of a discredited American corporate insurance giant with the DWP since 1994 and the most damaging reports, used to influence and inform government policy on welfare, have been produced via a research centre who have adopted the Unum philosophy and cannot possibly be considered to be ‘independent’ research evidence.
On 17th April 2013 the United Kingdom honoured Baroness Thatcher with a ceremonial funeral at an admitted cost of £3.6million, to acknowledge the nation’s first female Prime Minister, whilst her lasting legacy to the British people will be the successful destruction of the welfare state.
© Mo Stewart 17th May 2013
Link to this report (PDF): The University of Leeds Centre for Disability Studies
See also:
Private firms’ role in creation of disability assessment regime published in The Guardian, W
FROM THE WELFARE STATE TO ANOTHER AMERICAN STATE
REFERENCES
(1) Atos Healthcare or Disability Denial Factories
http://www.whywaitforever.com/dwpatosveteranssummary.html
(2) Margaret Thatcher’s role in plan to dismantle welfare state revealed
(3) Welfare Reform – Redress for the Disabled
http://www.whywaitforever.com/dwpatosveterans.html#WRES
(4) Online Lawyer Source
http://www.onlinelawyersource.com/unum/complaints/
(5) State Insurance commissioners reach settlement with Unum Provident
http://www.insure.com/articles/healthinsurance/unum-settlement.html
(6) Unum Claims Denial – Legal Help
http://unumclaimsdenial.com/2011/07/unum-ranked-2nd-worst-insurance-company-in-america/
(7) The Ten Worst Insurance Companies in America – The American Association of Justice
http://www.justice.org/docs/tenworstinsurancecompanies.pdf
(8) Unum Lawsuit Plaintiff Wins Re-instatement of Unum Disability Benefits, MARCH 2013
(9) Did Insurer Cheat Disabled Clients: CBS News interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gknSNvGoX-c
(10) John H Langbein – The Unum Provident Scandal & Judicial Review of Benefit Denials, Yale University School of Law
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=917610
(11) HH Judge Robert Martin: President of Appeal Tribunals, Report 2007-08
http://appeals-service.gov.uk/Documents/SSCSA_PresRep07_08FINAL.pdf
(12) Scrap work capability assessment, doctors demand
http://bma.org.uk/news-views-analysis/news/2012/june/scrap-work-capability-assessment-doctors-demand
(13) Royal College of Nurses Congress
http://www.rcn.org.uk/newsevents/congress/2013/agenda/1-disability-assessments
(14) The Scientific & Conceptual Basis of Incapacity Benefits, TSO 2005
http://www.tsoshop.co.uk/bookstore.asp?FO=1279028&DI=607598
(15) A New Deal for Welfare: Empowering people to work 2006
http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm67/6730/6730.pdf
(16) Green Paper: A New Deal for Welfare: empowering people to work. 2006
– an independent assessment of the arguments for proposed Incapacity Benefit reform
http://disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk/files/library/ravetz-Green-Paper-IB-critique.pdf
(17) Unfit for Purpose: Citizens Advice Scotland
http://www.cas.org.uk/publications/unfit-purpose
MO STEWART’S BIOGRAPHY
Mo Stewart is a former healthcare professional, a disabled female veteran and, for the last 3 years, has researched the links between the DWP, Atos Healthcare & Unum Insurance.
To date, the research evidence has been quoted during welfare debates in the House of Lords, the House of Commons and in Westminster Hall.
Mo routinely shares all research evidence with academics, medical and healthcare professionals, frontline national charities, selected politicians and service users.
Mo’s website:
www.whywaitforever.com/dwpatosveterans.html#documents
More on the privatisation of the welfare state: Of Mutual Benefit: Personalised welfare for the many Extract by thinktank Demos:
‘Looks at how radical reform to incapacity benefits could provide more generous, secure coverage for individuals whilst saving the taxpayer billions. The report argues for reform to encourage and incentivise greater take-up of private welfare solutions such as personal income protection.’
‘Thinktank’ Demos bankrolled by Unum ~ Unum, AtoS, The Tories, Blairite Labour et al are all ‘AT IT’ Together! Posted on September 26, 2012
47 Responses
with ed going the tory way looks like we cooked our goose with the welfare there aint going to be one at all and Unum been set up here quite sometime used by blair a lot so labour is of no use to us so whose going to save us I wonder there seems few mps that want to gree sems to have got the upper hand and death is our only concern with this lot ,bleed us dry so that they can eat their caviar and salmon on rye but perhaps there is a knight in shinning armour whole save us jeff3
The problem is Lab & the Cons have shares in UNUM. What fools.
“Unum Provident is an outlaw company. It is a company that has operated in an illegal fashion for years…”(4)
& its shareholders = The Government & Labour. So it`s outlawed politicis now !!!
Only the English are stuck with the Tories and Labour which is Tory lite.
Why Why Why is this not in the main stream media, welfare cuts, sanctions, food banks, ILF, workfare, cuts to legal aid, bedroom tax, HB cuts, closed court hearings, destruction of the NHS, suicides, deaths all resulting from a coalition. Are we as the peolple of this nation going to sit back and let them destroy our democracy, economy and whats left of the United kingdom. Whilst they support the rich and let the energy companies and bankers make living impossible.
Mr Angry –
My research is not in the mainstream media because there is a confirmed government ban on exposing the links between the DWP and Unum Insurance.
Is there an actual “D Notice” on such?
if so, damn, that’d be one HELL of a millstone around their necks: proof they’re so utterly corrupt they’d even abuse security measures to silence it
Because these are right-wing policies and the right own nearly all of the mainstream media… 🙁
The dwp are up to their dirty tricks again……….
The dwp stated that the vast majority of PIP assessments would not take place until 2015, those with indefinite awards will not be affected until at least October 2015.
At present i am waiting to go to tribunal after being assessed fit for work, although having a lifetime award of disability.
My Incapacity Benefit was stopped last November and i have been receiving around £75 per week in Disability Living Allowance and £32 Industrial Injuries Benefit.
This morning i received a stout brown envelope containing a 35 page questionnaire from the DLA.
It states that we require some additional information to determine if you are receiving the correct amount of DLA.
On the reverse, it states, “when we get your completed form we may need further medical information from people who have treated or are treating you for your medical conditions or you could be referred to an independent medical examination”.
This reinterpreted means that if you receive this questionnaire, regardless of the answers you give, you will undoubtedly be sent for another twisted and biased ATOS exam that will enable them to steal the rest of your benefits……..
The Magic Roundabout & Swings & Slides.
[…] Black Triangle Campaign, 10th June 2013 […]
Better Welfare State than Degrading Dickensian Squalor and
Misery
Better a Welfare State than Degrading Dickensian Era Squalor
and Misery
I would like to say a BIG THANK YOU to Mo Stewart for all the work undertaken on behalf of all us disabled folk. Unfortunately honesty, truth, integrity, compassion, empathy, and morals are no longer required in the British political system; you only have to look at the lying, thieving, ultra corrupt, tax dodging millionaires we have governing us. Do not forget these are fascists, who will send our children to be maimed or killed in illegal wars, for the crumbs from the table of the USA; it should be of no surprise then, that they are using an outlawed American insurance company to do their dirty work. Unum,AtoS and the DWP are all connected through one name or another to the British government. It has been shown and proven the corruption that exits, the utter lies of the statistics used in the governments assault on the disabled through their fascist owned gutter press. When a minister can change a law to cover his own ineptitude, his own stupidity what chance does any law abiding citizen have. When closed courts are becoming the norm in a so called democratic society.
Everyone knows who caused the financial mess we are in today, everyone knows who pulled them out of that mess and what was used to do it, and everyone knows who are going to prosper from it, and who is going to pay for it in the long term. Why would a chancellor continue with a programme of austerity that profits only the bankers and the rich, one that is slowly bleeding this country dry? They have privatized almost everything and the British public are paying through their noses for it, even water the basic necessity of life.
Our political system of a thousand years is being changed, not by politicians but by business men playing at being politicians. They all have vested interests in one aspect or another of business, chairman of or director of; we have a National Health Service that many ordinary Tory’s were born into, who have been kept alive by it, and for 70 years the Tory’s have been trying to destroy it. Now these business men are on the verge of complete privatization of our NHS, not for our benefit, simply to swell their own bank accounts, some will gain to the tune of billions personally all taken from our taxes. How many billions have already been wasted fighting so called frauds in our benefits system? Hundreds of millions already gone to AtoS with billions more waiting to be collected by them, all they have to do is continue their disability denial agenda, fully supported by our utterly corrupt government of tax dodging businessmen.
Let us not forget that these parasites are ordinary people, who are committing mass fraud robbing our country blind, supported by a bought and paid for justice system. They have brainwashed a large proportion of our society who let’s face it must be brain dead not to see what’s happening, who believe everything they are told by the Sun and right wing press, when most of them can’t get passed page three. Many more of us will continue to die we are being killed off because we are useless eaters, regardless of how much we contributed in the past.
Our time will come just as it did in Nazi Germany, when the fascists were caught and brought to account. Hopefully no mercy will be shown and they will be charged with Treason against our people and the complicit murder of our sick and disabled. The one percent will be held to account; their high walled palaces will not keep them secure forever..
Hi Andrew.
This is the final report following over 3 years of often disturbing research and I admit it’s nice to get some thanks.
Lets not forget the shame of the Liberal Democrats in this nightmare. They have sold their souls to the Devil for a seat at the top table of government, betrayed their own party principles and their own supporters, then turned a blind eye to government funded medical tyranny that’s demonstrated to be government funded manslaughter for many. Mo
The thanks is completely deserved for giving three years of your time fighting this injustice.
Not only are the LibDems turncoats, it would seem we now have New Labour doing just the same.Notice I say New because I think Old Labour would have fought this tooth and nail, I think they would have brought the corruption into the open.
Unfortunately the lower classes in this country are no longer represented by anyone,I don’t say lower classes as a derogatory term, I think it’s how the unemployed, low paid, sick and disabled, the old and infirm are known by our massively corrupt political masters.I’m just grateful there are sites and individuals like yourselves who are bringing this to light and making a record of it. I’m only sorry I can’t do more myself. Thanks again.
You have led an outstanding campaign against a huge injustice for many years.
I invite Mo Stewart and Black Triangle members to attend two Fringe meetings at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester on October 1st. Dr Greg Wood ~ formerly of Atos ~ and Caroline Richardson ~ of We are Spartacus ~ are two of the key speakers. We will also invite questions and contributions from the floor.
For more information about these meetings and are WCA Action Group please contact me, Tom Griffiths ~ tom.g@europia.,org.uk or refer to our website ~ http://www.wcaactiongroup.org.uk
I also acknowledge your web details in our first WCA newsletter. We would welcome your contribution in our next one.
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UNUM Influence
GEOFFREY REYNOLDS made this Freedom of Information request to Department for Work and Pensions
Waiting for an internal review by Department for Work and Pensions of their handling of this request.
From: GEOFFREY REYNOLDS
15 April 2013
Dear Department for Work and Pensions,
You recently quoted the following paragraph in a FOI response;
The assisted text phrases that may be used to construct the medical
history were drawn from
many sources including the Incapacity Benefit Handbook, medical
text books, examples of high
quality Personal Capability Assessment report and discussions with
experienced approved
Healthcare Professionals (HCP). They have been quality assured by
panels of experienced
HCPs and deemed appropriate for constructing good quality relevant
clinical and functional
histories and were agreed in consultation with the DWP Health and
Benefits Division (formerly
Corporate Medical Group).
COULD YOU STATE, CATEGORICALLY, THAN UNUM CORPORATION HAD NO
INFLUENCE IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF LIMA BASES BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL
SOFTWARE USED IN ESA EXAMINATIONS?
DID MEMBERS OF THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY HAVE INPUT INTO THE
CONSTRUCTION OF THE LIMA SOFTWARE THAT IS USED DURING AN ESA
EXAMINATION?
DID MANSEL AYLWARD HAVE LINKS TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE SOFTWARE.
IF SO PLEASE STATE, AND DESCRIBE HIS INPUT?
Yours faithfully,GEOFFREY REYNOLDS
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Department for Work and Pensions
15 April 2013
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From: GEOFFREY REYNOLDS
14 May 2013
Dear DWP freedom-of-information-requests,
ARE YOU SCARED OF GIVING THE TRUE ANSWER?
Yours sincerely,
GEOFFREY REYNOLDS
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From: DWP freedom-of-information-requests
Department for Work and Pensions
14 May 2013
This is an automated confirmation that your request for information has
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J Roberts left an annotation (16 May 2013)
“Disability benefit assessments ‘unfair’, says ex-worker”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22546036
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GEOFFREY REYNOLDS left an annotation (20 May 2013)
DRAGGING YOUR FEET…………………….
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GEOFFREY REYNOLDS left an annotation (22 May 2013)
STILL WAITING, unfortunately it wont go away……….
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From: GEOFFREY REYNOLDS
23 May 2013
Dear Department for Work and Pensions,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Department for Work
and Pensions’s handling of my FOI request ‘UNUM Influence’.
As you have blatantly disregarded my request i now seek an internal
review.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/un…
Yours faithfully,
GEOFFREY REYNOLDS
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Department for Work and Pensions
23 May 2013
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been accepted by the DWP FoI mailbox.
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From: DWP DWP Medical Services Correspondence
Department for Work and Pensions
24 May 2013
Attachment IR427 Mr Reynolds response.pdf
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Dear Mr Reynolds
Please see your FOI response attached
Kind regards
Health & Disability Assessments (Operations)/Department for Work and Pensions/Room 306/Block 31/Norcross/Norcross Lane/Blackpool/FY5 3TA
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From: GEOFFREY REYNOLDS
24 May 2013
Dear DWP DWP Medical Services Correspondence,
No such reply exists for 29th APRIL.
RUNNING SCARED ARE WE?
Yours sincerely,
GEOFFREY REYNOLDS
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From: GEOFFREY REYNOLDS
27 May 2013
Dear Department for Work and Pensions,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Department for Work
and Pensions’s handling of my FOI request ‘UNUM Influence’.
As you have not answered my questions, i am requesting an internal
review.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/un…
Yours faithfully,
GEOFFREY REYNOLDS
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Department for Work and Pensions
27 May 2013
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GEOFFREY REYNOLDS left an annotation (29 May 2013)
KEEP ON RUNNING……………
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From: DWP DWP Medical Services Correspondence
Department for Work and Pensions
11 June 2013
Attachment 458 469 Reply Reynolds.pdf
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Dear Reynolds
Please see your FOI response attached
Kind regards
Health & Disability Assessments (Operations)/Department for Work and Pensions/2nd Floor/Peel Park/ Brunel Way/Blackpool/FY4 5ESS
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GEOFFREY REYNOLDS left an annotation (11 June 2013)
Your delay is becoming an EMBARRASSMENT…..
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WHAT YOU SEE IN THE ARTICLE ABOVE IS A CONCERTED EFFORT FROM MYSELF TO MAKE THE DWP AWARE OF THE DEMONISATION OF THE DISABLED AND POOREST….
By using the website “what do they know”, you can elicit lots of information on the barrage of anti disability cuts.
The freedom of information requests that i, and many other followers submit, give a chilling account of what is happening within our oppressed community…..
I WOULD URGE EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU TO SUBMIT A FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST.
IT IS NOT HARD, IT COSTS NOTHING, JUST A FEW MINUTES OF YOUR TIME, AND YOU DONT HAVE TO BE INTELLIGENT (thats why i use it).
This media is accessed by so many people and is a good way of venting your frustrations.
It allows you to ask pertinent questions and challenge any replies that you are not happy with.
Slowly but surely, the snippets of information that the DWP release, start to form a jigsaw of hate that is being thrust upon you by this vile government……….
DON’T JUST SIT BACK AND MOAN, DO SOMETHING NOW!
REMEMBER, EVERY FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT REQUEST IS A CHALLENGE!!!
GO FOR IT…..
YOU WILL BE AMONG FRIENDS WITH THE SAME GOALS…
Interesting comment Geoff.
I thought that perhaps what people see “..in the article above…” is a concerted effort by Mo Stewart, whose spent in excess of three years doing this research to provide people like you the info to use in your very informative FOI requests?
I doubt you will get freedom request for: How many people have died under the ATOS & DWP medical Healthcare system? Their answer is NONE.
Becuase it`s a private company. The DWP is a private corporate company. There are no more public systems to give you freedom of infomation because it`s become an international trade of disabled slaves. Defrauding our Human Rights yet again.
Agreed Mo. Geoffrey was a frequent contributor to whatdotheyknow.
My reseach has resulted in that I am the only one who has not been their slave & not filled out the ESA [default] form or sent it back. My circumstances have not changed. They have not cut my money & they won`t because I am a very bad cash cow & will cost them thousands of pounds to chase up. Being disabled from birth I know every trick in the book, on how genocide works against the disabled. We want action NOW, not next week, next year, NOW. To stop the disabled slave trade that is happening in the uk today 2013. Since I have only known disability all my life I am an expert in disability. Word are words, action is action. The uk Government has brought back the slave trade to 2013 inslaving the disabled outside of their disability, because they are already unslaved with their disability already. Double Bubble. All I hear is talk talk talk & nothing is done. But what can we do? answer – Don`t be bullied by the state you are a human being with human rights. So if we have no Human Rights what does that make the UK a democracy!! Disabled slave trading in a democracy. The worst UK scandal since the Thalidomide cases from the 1960s & we still want answers 50 years later. You may have become disabled over the past few years but some of us know no different & have always been disabled. You become a slave to the state. Welcome to disability.
I was making reference to my blog above,not your groundwork.
I APPRECIATE ALL YOU DO…………..
From: GEOFFREY REYNOLDS
10 June 2013
Dear Department for Work and Pensions,
You constantly inform me that there is no conflict of interest
between your CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, Bill Gunnyeon, ATOS HEALTHCARE
and UNUM INSURANCE, yet;
The Guardian, Wednesday 12 September 2012 21.00 BST
This week the sixth International Forum on Disability Management,
IFDM 2012, takes place at Imperial College London. It is sponsored
by some of the world’s largest medical insurance companies, Unum
among them, and speakers include DWP chief medical adviser Dr Bill
Gunyeon and Professor Sir Mansel Aylward, formerly DWP chief
medical adviser and director of the Centre for Psychosocial and
Disability Research at Cardiff University, which was sponsored by
Unum from its inception in 2003 until 2009.
Unum’s website states that during this sponsorship period “a series
of papers was published, identifying the range of factors that
determine why some people become long-term absentees”. The Cardiff
papers advocated a “biopsychosocial model” of disability which Unum
says “informed its approach to medical underwriting”. It is the
same approach upon which the current Atos work capability
assessment (WCA) is based. Concomitantly, the company were advising
the UK government on welfare reform.
Please answer the following questions,
1/ Have UNUM had any input, whatsoever, in the formation of ESA
examinations?
2/ Does Gunnyeon receive any remuneration, whatsoever, from the
Insurance Industry?
3/ Has Gunnyeon received ANY FORM OF SPONSORSHIP MONEY whilst a
guest speaker?
4/ Was the Biopsychosocial model of disability that originated in
Cardiff University, via UNUM and AYLWARD, used within the ESA
examinations process?
5/ Has GUNNYEON accepted any gifts,holidays etc, whatsoever, from
the Insurance Industry?
6/ What does GUNNYEON think to the number of suicides and deaths
occurring on his “watch”?
7/ Did the outgoing, Professor, Sir Mansel Aylward have any
influence on Bill Gunnyeon, replacing him as CMO of the DWP?
Yours faithfully,
GEOFFREY REYNOLDS
Link to this
Has David Cameron got shares in ATOS & UNUM?
Like your really gonna get a truthful answer.
The DWP can`t talk about ATOS & ATOS can`t talk about the DWP. Simple answer.
I know, but answering becomes an embarrassment and they have to consider what they put.
They have control over the freedom of information – So spend another 5 years sorting out a defualt system. If you do get info you are powerless to act upon it. No legal Aid.
The government have to sue me to get to court.
The DWP scared to cut my benefit now. What a load of jokers.
It`s about disability not politics.
Why oh why has people been fooled & bullied into the ESA contract, because it`s like trying to get out of a mobile phone contract. Why have people put up with this? because you have been told. Why oh why – Threats of sanctions = Another Untruth.
EXPAND ON WHAT YOU MEAN BY SCARED TO CUT?
They threaten your benefit maybe cut. Maybe is a maybe not a fact.
It will cost them so much money on me, it will be easier with other people. They can sort out 200 people while they are still trying to sort me out. He is a bad cash cow.
My circumstanes have not changed, so there is no need to take yourself off DLA or SDA to make a new claim with the ESA form. I have had the Welfare state for over 30 years.
Now we get to the interesting point. Who is defrauding the welfare state loop holes the able bodied or the disabled !!!
I would also like to thank Mo Stewart for the superb reports she has produced exposing the inappropriate influence UNUM has been given to help create the non-medical work capability assessment.This ‘not fit for purpose’ test is forcing vast numbers of chronically sick and disabled people to seek work or do work activities they cannot do,resulting in loss of benefits needed to live.Of course,this was the purpose of the WCA.The british people must be made aware of the fact that UNUM and other private insurance companies are going to replace the NHS with the vastly expensive American style health system where illness results in bankruptcy.Mo’s reports need to be disseminated as widely as possible.I found them on a website called social warriors,but it has disappeared,anyone know why?
Social Warriors is no longer live & the website is closed.
Still available via Face Book.
The Bilderberg Group are behind this,I wish the Rote Armee Fraktion were still active,remember them,they were on the news quite a bit when I was young,and the Brigate Rosse,they were good too,I don’t see the point in liveing,next week ATOS are going to stop my benefits,I’d be better off dead,but I’m too big a coward to do it,why was I even born,what’s the point in liveing if you’re poor?All the things that make life worth liveing cost money,I’m hoples in interviews,they’ll trick me into saying the wrong things so they can stop my money,I blame NATO,it’s there fault the wrong side won the Cold War,now we’ve got all these Bulingdon Boys running the country,if I had my way anyone who’s been to Oxford or Cambridge or Heidelburg or Yale or Harvar or the Saubon or any of these posh univerities where the sons of millionaires with their trust funds go,they’d all be striped of their wealth and sent to a gulag for a spot of reeducation,when you see Ascot on the telly do you fantasize about walking into the Royal Enclosure with an AK47 and fiffty clips of amo and takeing out half of The Sunday Times Rich List,or is that just me?
J G MORRIS
Oh dear. This isn’t good is it?
Be advised please that ATOS can’t & don’t have the authority to stop anyone’s benefit. They do the test only. It’s the DWP Decision Makers – who are totally unqualified for the job – who make the decisions. You have a lot more than many as on this forum you’ll get a lot of support, so no more talk like the above and expect to get through this instead of giving up.
JG Morris, it is well worth leaving your message on Michael Meacher’s site under More Atos Nightmares. He isn’t a Blairite. He speaks well in parliament and does pick up messages.
[…] you don’t see is the use of the expensive lobbying budgets of organisations like SERCO or A4E or Atos Healthcare which are being used at all times to pressurise government to carry out more and more means testing […]
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