PIP review ignores evidence of dishonesty among Atos and Capita assessors
What do we think of Paul Gray’s excuses?
The former civil servant commissioned by the government to review its new disability benefit has refused to accept there is any dishonesty among the healthcare professionals who carry out assessments, despite being shown significant evidence of wrongdoing.
Disability News Service (DNS) has twice contacted Paul Gray’s personal independence payment (PIP) review team with evidence collected during a lengthy investigation into allegations of widespread dishonesty by assessors working for the outsourcing giants Capita and Atos.
But in his second and final review of PIP for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), published seven days ago, Gray dismisses any suggestions of dishonesty.
Although he says in the review that some claimants “assert that the Health Professional has misinterpreted or even deliberately misrepresented what was discussed during the assessment”, he says there could be several explanations for this other than dishonesty.
He suggests instead that PIP claimants may hold these beliefs because the assessor: failed to mention evidence they had provided, made “inappropriate assumptions” about the impact of their condition, or “may genuinely have made an error when transcribing their notes”.
Source: PIP review ignores evidence of dishonesty among Atos and Capita assessors
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“failed to mention evidence they had provided”, “made inappropriate assumptions about the impact of their condition” (i.e. made ignorant conclusions from evidence), or “may genuinely have made an error when transcribing their notes”:
Aren’t these all euphemisms for “incompetence”? Shouldn’t the Government save money by sacking these untrained operatives and employ the claimants in their stead at above the living wage rate? Knowledgable employees in post; fewer decisions successfully appealed; time and funding saved: = win, win, win!
Did you think they would nay when you stand before these tribunals they won’t listen to you calling these highly trained hcp any names they only want your facts oh dear more crap to come off these highly trained hcp
These errors must occur then in the vast majority of cases as evinced by the overwhelming testimony of the disabled people ; ;.subjected to examination by these private sector companies who themselves are receiving vast sums of taxpayers money to deny benefits to those who need them.Complain about the assessment report and the standard response is our assessors have no need to lie.So why do they? One can only assume they are pressured or given incentives to do so.Full pages detailing medical examinations that never occurred aren’t errors or misunderstandings they are deliberate lies.These companies and their employees must be held to account .If a claimant deliberately or mistakenly gives the dwp false information they are liable to be charged with fraud,surely the same rule should apply to the assessors? Unless of course they are doing exactly what the government wants