News

Secret filming of training given to doctors recruited by the private company Atos to assess whether sickness and disability benefit applicants are fit for work suggests that staff are monitored to ensure they do not find excessive numbers of claimants eligible.

The footage will trigger a new debate over whether there are fixed targets for the number of people who should be granted the new incapacity benefit –​ the employment and support allowance –​ something the government and Atos, the company hired by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to conduct the fitness for work tests, have consistently denied.

The film also demonstrates the unease about the radically heightened eligibility criteria felt by some trainers employed by Atos to teach new recruits how to carry out the tests. It is now harder for some very severely disabled claimants to qualify for support. No matter how serious claimants problems are with their arms, for example, "​as long as you'​ve got one finger, and you can press a button,"​ they would be found fit for work, a trainer explains.

Dr Steve Bick, a GP with 20 years'​ experience, applied for a job as an assessor with Atos to carry out the work capability assessment (WCA), and secretly filmed his training for Channel 4'​s Dispatches programme, which will be broadcast on Monday 30 July at 8pm. Undercover filming shows Bick being told by his trainer that he will be watched carefully over the number of applicants he found eligible for the highest rate of disability payments.

Full story in the Guardian