Coming Soon: The privatised sick note service that will email you back to work – David Hencke
Congratulations to David Hencke for putting this back into the public eye:
In two months time the traditional doctor’s note excusing you from work will start to cease being valid if you are still sick after four weeks.
Just before Parliament went into the summer recess welfare reform minister, Lord Freud, announced that a US multinational company, Maximus, which also operates in Canada and Saudi Arabia will take over running the new Health and Work Service for England and Wales.
My report in this week’s Tribune reveals that up to one million people will be affected by the change which appears to be aimed to save the government money.
He’s right, you know – it has nothing to do with whether you’re better or not. Read the rest on David Hencke’s blog.
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It would serve the government right if they lost every single one of those one million votes.
its beyond words they fail me another privitisation that wont save money wont help those sick has the world gone mad i ask has we soon find in the news another company failing another company that overcharged for its servivces nothings safe with this lot jeff3
Does this mean these companies will have unlimited access to your medical records then ? How will they know just how sick you are or will there be set limits for how long each illness is allowed. i.e.
Broken leg 6 weeks then back to work ?
Cancer 8 weeks then back to work ?
Death 10 weeks then back to work ?
The next phase of course is paying back any sick pay you may have had. In the absence of insurance there will be statutory deductions from wages along with fees for the admin of your sickness by these people.
bookmanwales – “medical records”, a good question but one that is moot. The information Act is based on a Simple Principle – Informed Consent on Release/Withholding of Personal Data – No Concent, no release. Also it fails on what the data would be put to use for. A Paper Exercise is a Paper exercise. It appears this firm willl be acting as a doctor with none of the checks and balances that are neccessary for that Profession. Let alone the inevietable off shoring of peoples medical records to the US, outside of the EU [can anyone say data breech?]. This is going to end in Tears for someone [not that they’ll care for the suffering in between, and the saving of Money of course].
Of course we all know there is no such thing as sickness, unemployment, disability, there is only laziness, scrounging and workshy.
As a hard working productive member of society (Tory obviously) I started work at the age of 5, after an accident I went to work with both my legs and arms broken, when I was diagnosed with cancer I worked every day to the end, foregoing expensive treatment in the interests of the economy and even making a few quid selling my falling out hair to a wig maker.
On my death I continued working, my body serving as an extra in a zombie film and making a few quid for the government to put to good use. Later my skin was made into lampshades, my organs were sold to many wealthy foreigners thus helping the balance of payments deficit, my blood I believe was sold to an American bloodbank, and my bones used to provide a selection of novelty furniture items.
If everyone had the same attitude as me this would indeed be a great nation once again.
You forgot your gold teeth and a few bars of soap!
Well done – very apt!
xxxxxx
I thought Bookman Wales made (funny) but very sobering thoughts on this subject.
Very well said.
see atos for your health records has they had this contract of selling this info on
Are you sure?
Mike, Jeff might well be right. ATOS has been awarded the contract to extract Patient Data from the NHS that caused a furor back in Feb – for future selling on. Despite that project being shelved [convienently until after the coming election], ATOS still holds the contract. I would note that, one of the firms involved was involved in a massive data breach via Google. The data was available world wide [it was probably held in USA as that was where the part of the NHS data base they had was manipulated].
Aha! That’s probably where my confusion arose – the project being shelved. If Atos still holds the contract, it doesn’t mean they have the information though – shouldn’t it be kept from ANY private company until after the future of the project is decided?
Mike, you are quite correct but see : http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/17/nhs_blamed_for_major_data_blunders_with_sale_of_patient_info_to_private_outfits/
and also:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/04/tripleheaded_nhs_privacy_scare_after_hospital_data_reach_marketers_google/
yes mike they won the contract to whilst they tell all they sacked atos atos seems to be winning other contracts they got around fout now but memorys poop on whot but do now they won this one has in cahoots with unum then insurance has a window in how to charge you more
their telling of things coming their way of reaping their rewards dont forget this all started through unum and their welfare policys brought from america by them to work alongside that famous man tb but now their plugging away is rippening
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10661359/Atos-awarded-contract-for-NHS-records.html
You mean that famous man Peter Lilley, I seem to recall. He was the one who invited Unum in. I’m not sure Atos even existed at that point (although that’s easily looked up).
It did exist but hadn’t been around for long (founded 1988).
Here is the first official announcement about Maximus. It seems to give them a pretty broad remit. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/health-and-work-service-supplier-announced .
look under mo stewarts reports she tells the daming story of unum isnt life strange when the only ones who will prosper from this are our mps and tory party who take the back handers but does ed beat em with it nah hes sitting working out how to keep whot the torys beat you with
Mo has done brilliant work – that unfortunately takes a very long time to research!
I have been fortunately to be able to refer to some of this in my own articles on the subject.
That’s right – you can read all about Unum on Vox Political. Just type ‘Vox Political Unum’ into your favourite search engine and read.
And then weep, most likely.