Don’t give Atos

I foresee that Atos Healthcare may well become the next welfare scandal to hit the government following the current furore about corrupt practices at A4E. All the ingredients are here: Atos are being given around £100 million to manage all the Department of Health’s disability claimants; they have a target of reducing claims; and there are worrying signs of lack of accountability. Disability groups and charities are vehemently opposed to Atos, openly criticising their procedures and lack of competent medical judgement and highlighting many cases where Atos has found seriously ill people fit for work. Private Eye and The Guardian have also been extensively reporting on the horror stories coming out from people who have had to deal with Atos and has even gone so far as to say the legal system is now openly complaining due to the sheer volume of appeal cases being generated. Apparently around 40% of Atos cases are successfully overturned upon appeal. Of course, this takes many months and so seriously disabled/ill people are having their welfare cut until these cases are resolved. No doubt this is happening at a further cost to their health. Many MPs are aware of this issue and Parliamentary committees are starting to ask awkward questions.

So with horror stories about Atos’ awful treatment of disabled people in abundance and with a growing evidence of poor performance, why does the Government, through the Department of Health, seem unwilling to tackle this? The unpleasant suspicion has to be voiced that Atos are just implementing government policy – reducing welfare claims and if this means making the system unbearably difficult for some of the most vulnerable in society then so be it. Or in other words, the Government has outsourced the dirty work to a private company, not bound by Freedom of Information laws, motivated by perverse incentives, not answerable to Parliament and, more worrying still, not too concerned about the moral issues surrounding the treatment of the vulnerable in society. This is not Whitehall ’s proudest moment to let Atos get away with this.

I have read a couple of stories that some people have committed suicide due to their treatment by Atos and the Department of Health. Certainly a number have died during the processing of their appeals, possibly accelerated by their bad treatment. I can also imagine that court cases may well be pending if not coming soon and only then will concerted action be taken and even then slowly. What a tragedy this is when this is what it takes to change the flawed implementation of government policy. It also does not say good things about the UK as a society that is willing to condone or to avert its eyes to this shameful state of affairs.