ATOS and where the real money is spent.

[lolli_pop]

2 % of a budget being misspent ?

 

If you read on in the same report to Table 2.2 (Underpayments) for DLA:

 

Fraud - 0%

Customer error - 2.4%

Official error - 0.1%

 

So there is far more underpayment than overpayment (equivalent to £80 million going by the figures in those two tables).

 

The fraud rate for DLA, where people are being actively dishonest, is tiny (0.5%) - no, that's not "acceptable" but it's small fry in the great scheme of things and, given the actual sums involved, is not something I, as a taxpayer, am particularly worried about compared to the social benefits of supporting genuinely disabled people.

 

If you want to be outraged about fraud and error, you could do worse than looking at JSA (6.1%) and Pension Credit (5.6%).

[sheff1johnny]

That's a problem, I signed the petition against it, but if you want doctors then they have to be paid at a rate that will attract doctors.

 

The petitition is for a person's own doctor to do the medical, and they probably wouldn't charge £40 per medical. I feel personally £20, sounds fairer. Less money would be spent on appeals aswell. Thanks for your signature.

[gamezone07]

People like to say it's people on the sick fiddling the system. I know that there are a few, and this has to be stopped. I also feel the exorbatant fees, that ATOS chage are extreme. Just so you can see where the real money is wasted. A former doctor, in a quote from the daily mail states:

 

What's more, they have their own incomes to consider. When I was there I was paid £40 per appointment. If I worked hard, I could earn £4,500 a week.

Some of my colleagues pulled in as much as £5,000.

 

A French conglomerate, Atos has a £500million contract with the Department of Work and Pensions to carry out checks on patients claiming incapacity benefit.

 

By Doctor James Brackton.

 

I just thought people would like to know how there moey is really spent, and blame the real people. Stop the victimisation of the disabled.

 

 

There is something very strange and very alarming about the vast sums that Atos, providers and other poverty pimps accrue from Govts of the last twenty years. One can't imagine staff of the Manpower Services Commission(the forerunners of the above) receiving millions. Its almost as if they are the apparachiks (or stormtroopers) of an ideology, in this case neo-liberalism(or Thatcherism) and that regardless of success they must receive the rewards a privatised system can profer on its chosen ones. But, of cours it goes against all notions of a free market economy as they don't get the results, they don't deliver, no matter what its adherents(see earlier post argue)

 

Time to go back in house...

[pottedplant]

On the money. I was diagnosed by a Consultant Neurosurgion, under the "new rules" my health is now been checked by an Atos trained healthcare professional - whatever they are.

I despair, spent Christmas and my 62 birthday worried about the outcome, and am still waiting for the results.

 

Angel.

 

Angel

 

Atos will not be diagnosing your health - they will be looking at how any conditions you have affect your ability to work.

 

So it may be that you have asthma which prevents you from working in a bakery - but no reason perhaps not to work in an office.

 

Or sadly you may have a condition that stops you working at all - even if an employer were to make reasonable adjustments.

Edited February 26, 2012 by pottedplant

[pottedplant]

The sad fact is most of the medical assesors are not qualified doctors, but are trained healthcare professioanals, (whatever that means)

 

It means that they could be a doctor. Or they might be a nurse or an occupational therapist.

 

They are not accountants or shop workers doing the assessments. They are medical personnel.

[zippy]

The petitition is for a person's own doctor to do the medical, and they probably wouldn't charge £40 per medical. I feel personally £20, sounds fairer. Less money would be spent on appeals aswell. Thanks for your signature.

 

which means it won't be done fairly or objectively for fear that the patient will complain about the GP.

 

DLA /ESA assessments are not about diagnosis but about functional capacity

[zippy]

The petitition is for a person's own doctor to do the medical, and they probably wouldn't charge £40 per medical. I feel personally £20, sounds fairer. Less money would be spent on appeals aswell. Thanks for your signature.

 

the going rate for none NHS work by your own GP , especially for an examination and report is considerably more than 40 gbp .

 

but nevermind just carry on in ill informed la-la land like many of the people posting inaccurate stuff in these kinds of thread.

[lolli_pop]

which means it won't be done fairly or objectively for fear that the patient will complain about the GP.

 

DLA /ESA assessments are not about diagnosis but about functional capacity

 

I agree with you that patients' own GP should not do an assessment of this kind, but at the same time I have strong reservations about Atos carrying out the assessments, particularly given the rate and cost of appeals and the continuing percentage of C-grade (unacceptable) assessments.

 

According to the 2011 Harrington review, Atos's own audit of just under 1000 assessments picked up 3.1% C-grade assessments. That's 30 or so real people in the audit group who were given a completely unacceptable assessment by a "healthcare professional".

[sheff1johnny]

the going rate for none NHS work by your own GP , especially for an examination and report is considerably more than 40 gbp .

 

but nevermind just carry on in ill informed la-la land like many of the people posting inaccurate stuff in these kinds of thread.

 

I do wonder if the money given to ATOS, would be better given to the NHS, and they could use the moeny wisely.

[playman]

who makes the DLA assessment decisions ?