ATOS Medical Assessment .

[melon]

show any doctor your post history and it will be straight jacket and happy drugs

Well, as long as its happy, because their the best kind !

m

[MadduckUK]

Well, as long as its happy, because their the best kind !

m

That's where iv been going wrong!

*throws away unhappy drugs*

[melon]

That's where iv been going wrong!

*throws away unhappy drugs*

You think theres chance we could find some in our meat if we're lucky ?

m

[scaryjim]

Go on, gis a job, any job, I can do your job.

Even with all that you could do my job, no worries!

But that's kind of my point. We don't have a culture where anyone would consider giving you any kind of job, even if you could potentially do, say, 10 hours a week at home spread over the week, at times that suited you. Employers don't seem to realise that a lot of the stuff they need doing could easily be done on those kinds of employment patterns. They assume that if they need someone, they need them sat at their desk, in a difficult to get to office, for 40 hours a week, and if they can't do that they're no use. I strongly suspect that presenteeism is one of the biggest drains on UK productivity - I know for a fact that I get more done when I work from home for a day (and I probably spend less time "working" from home than I do sitting at my desk in work).

Anyway, stupid employment culture rant over. Please continue to enjoy your drugs, happy or otherwise

[Millennium]

Good luck on this The media is all over the new tests, and has been for a while, but short term you might be best of looking for support into work or some work you can do within your entitlements for other stuff you may still get, like housing benefit.

[sammyc]

We don't have a culture where anyone would consider giving you any kind of job, even if you could potentially do, say, 10 hours a week at home spread over the week, at times that suited you.

Still say that's a separate issue & to those surrounding ATOS (the thread topic). Once we have got a system whereby people are correctly assessed we can properly work on how to tackle the lack of flexible employment situation. Currently people that on a daily basis are too unwell to get up, wash, dress, cook, clean, shop, socialise, run their own lives basically, are being found fit for work - not fit to do something mark you, found fit as a fiddle, awarded 0 points, off you go. Give or take a margin for error the system should be accurately sifting people into the genuinely incapacitated and the able to do something, and that should tally pretty much with people's own assessment of themselves, people are their own best assessors in the main imo.

[scaryjim]

Still say that's a separate issue & to those surrounding ATOS (the thread topic). Once we have got a system whereby people are correctly assessed we can properly work on how to tackle the lack of flexible employment situation.

Separate, but definitely linked. The problem is if you tackle one without tackling the other you solve nothing - you still get people who are assessed as being capable of doing something that isn't available (so they can't even if they wanted to), or assessed as being incapable of something that they could actually do.

The whole system - benefits, employment, taxation, national insurance and *spit*wretch* "tax credits" - needs tearing down and rebuilding from the ground up. Trying to fix it one bit at a time simply won't work...

[sammyc]

^ Agreed, tackle them together as linked issues, but for me it's the assessments system first & foremost albeit fractionally, because it's the people who are being assessed as fit to do something they are unfit for (the group you haven't covered there) that are having the hardest time under this system* - continually having their fitness called into question & doubted, despite their doctors' & consultants' evidence and their own testimony in endless forms & medicals.

In terms of flexible employment I genuinely don't see what the answer will be, given the Pathways to Work-type non-starters, the very disappointing Remploy closures & so forth. Complete re-working of system, as you say.

*again, that's imo.

[Saracen]

The last couple of posts basically sum up where I am on this issue.

I am utterly and enthusiastically behind the principle of regular, competent and comprehensive assessments, excepting only where it is a medical certainty that the situation cannot improve. I'm also behind getting people into work they can do, rather than just writing them off, dumping them on the scrap heap and doing your best to forget about them.

But from what I've read, and been told, these assessments aren't working out in practice in line with that principle. Not by a very large margin.

The principle is fine, but the practice, frankly, stinks.

[melon]

Just talked to my Doc , hopefully Atos will listen to him and give me a home visit- then I have 2 weeks to prepare...

m

[BobF64]

Just talked to my Doc , hopefully Atos will listen to him and give me a home visit- then I have 2 weeks to prepare...

m

Have all your chairs removed and toilet doors locked, im sure the ATOS people will enjoy standing up for the duration.

[petercook7]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f4bd06b4-7...#ixzz2LIHIHcsD
Came across this on another forum, pretty odd.
Atos, the French outsourcing company hired to carry out the government’s new disability assessments, has subcontracted much of the work back to the NHS.

NHS Trusts including University College London, Kings and York will deploy thousands of health professionals to carry out the assessments, which will determine whether people are entitled to extra money to help cope with disability.Critics said the decision to subcontract work back to the public sector raised questions as to why Atos was needed.

[BobF64]

Critics said the decision to subcontract work back to the public sector raised questions as to why Atos was needed.

Thats easy, theyre needed so that there appears to be some sort of competition involved when taking tenders for the work and also so that the NHS get some extra income, albeit an amount that they could have just been handed directly at a probably not insignificant saving to the public purse.

Governments, screwing things up whilst pleading with you to believe theyre doing a good job.

[melon]

Have all your chairs removed and toilet doors locked, im sure the ATOS people will enjoy standing up for the duration.

haha , that is a good point , maybe offer them lots of tea and chocolate cake with laxatives in it too ?

Actually I had a doc in here once i hated so I had some sweetgrass /sage burning next door ( you know those things you use for " smudging " ) turns it out it works pretty damm good for cleansing bad energy after all haha , or maybe it was all the smoke escaping through the window from next door ?

Ontop of that I had her sitting infront of the window on a high wobbly stool while her eyes were constantly streaming and she struggled to speak ( oh i suffered a bit too ) but bygod it was worth it , almost died with laughter.. and smoke too

m

[g8ina]

The FT needs a login for us to see that peter.

[melon]

Assessments been rescheduled , in the meantime I just found out my Doc ( whom ive never meet or seen ) hasnt phoned ATOS after telling me he would.

Should I phone and record him this time , or write a letter and hope he responds so Ive got some evidence ?

m