Petition Appeal
Mar. 30th, 2012 07:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
analectI've marked all my previous entries about this subject as protected, but this one's wide open. Please signal boost if you feel you can, or share this link in any way you like.
Recently, following the 2007 Welfare Reform Act, the British government began phasing out Incapacity Benefit - a temporary-to-long-term support for those incapable of work due to ill health.
This is meant to cut the amount of fraudulent claims, and "encourage" people back to work more quickly. However, many people (me included) not only have serious reservations about how these reforms have been instituted, but are now extremely concerned by the way medical assessments for migrating claimants from Incapacity Benefit to the new Employment and Support Allowance are being conducted.
To be awarded ESA, you must have a medical assessment, just as when claiming other sickness benefits. The problem is that these medical assessments are currently being carried out by a private company, Atos Healthcare, which has been contracted by the Department of Work and Pensions, and has been declaring an astonishingly high number of disabled and terminally ill people "fit for work".
Many organisations, such as the Citizens' Advice Bureaux and Disability Information and Action Line (DIAL), as well as charities including the MS Society, the National AIDS Trust, Parkinson's UK, Arthritis Care, Forward M.E., and Crohn's and Colitis Care, have expressed concerns that the current criteria used to assess capability for work by Atos Healthcare and the DWP are ambiguous and incomplete.
Also - and perhaps more disturbingly - there appear to be very high instances of claimants complaining that the medical reports made by Atos Healthcare assessors twist their words, or fundamentally misrepresent their conditions. (I can personally vouch for this!)
Additionally, the DWP is now informing all claimants who wish to appeal that they must do so via tribunal, instead of simply in writing. This is a drawn-out and complex process, all at the expense of the taxpayer.
This HM Government E-Petition moves to have Atos Healthcare's contract - and the whole process of medical assessment and tribunal appeal for sickness benefits - examined in Parliament.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/5828
In order for the petition to be considered for discussion in the House of Commons, it requires 100,000 signatures by 8th August 2012, so please pass the link along to anyone you think may be interested in signing!
Edited to add: You need to be a UK resident to sign, so please forward to all your tea-supping limey friends!
Recently, following the 2007 Welfare Reform Act, the British government began phasing out Incapacity Benefit - a temporary-to-long-term support for those incapable of work due to ill health.
This is meant to cut the amount of fraudulent claims, and "encourage" people back to work more quickly. However, many people (me included) not only have serious reservations about how these reforms have been instituted, but are now extremely concerned by the way medical assessments for migrating claimants from Incapacity Benefit to the new Employment and Support Allowance are being conducted.
To be awarded ESA, you must have a medical assessment, just as when claiming other sickness benefits. The problem is that these medical assessments are currently being carried out by a private company, Atos Healthcare, which has been contracted by the Department of Work and Pensions, and has been declaring an astonishingly high number of disabled and terminally ill people "fit for work".
Many organisations, such as the Citizens' Advice Bureaux and Disability Information and Action Line (DIAL), as well as charities including the MS Society, the National AIDS Trust, Parkinson's UK, Arthritis Care, Forward M.E., and Crohn's and Colitis Care, have expressed concerns that the current criteria used to assess capability for work by Atos Healthcare and the DWP are ambiguous and incomplete.
Also - and perhaps more disturbingly - there appear to be very high instances of claimants complaining that the medical reports made by Atos Healthcare assessors twist their words, or fundamentally misrepresent their conditions. (I can personally vouch for this!)
Additionally, the DWP is now informing all claimants who wish to appeal that they must do so via tribunal, instead of simply in writing. This is a drawn-out and complex process, all at the expense of the taxpayer.
This HM Government E-Petition moves to have Atos Healthcare's contract - and the whole process of medical assessment and tribunal appeal for sickness benefits - examined in Parliament.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/5828
In order for the petition to be considered for discussion in the House of Commons, it requires 100,000 signatures by 8th August 2012, so please pass the link along to anyone you think may be interested in signing!
Edited to add: You need to be a UK resident to sign, so please forward to all your tea-supping limey friends!
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-31 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-01 05:43 pm (UTC)Thanks so much for signal boosting.