News

A new report from the Spartacus campaign today (Monday 12 November) analyses the failures of the Government’​s Work Capability Assessment and the Employment &​ Support Allowance system, which is supposed to support people who are too sick or disabled to work.

It also warns that disabled people are at risk because of the government’​s refusal to consider a ‘​real world’​ test –​ where part of the test would take into account the real barriers to employment.

The report, ‘​The People’​s Review of the Work Capability Assessment’​, includes examples of people who have been told they are fit for work, including:

Someone with no short term memory mechanism
A man with a terminal brain tumour
An incontinent disabled man who is both blind and deaf

Other examples of claimants’​ experiences include a man whose benefits were stopped for failing to return the necessary forms, despite his wife informing the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that he was in a coma;​ and a man who died 48 hours after filling in his questionnaire - after informing everyone of his death his wife received a call 3 months later asking him to come in for his assessment.

Overall the report highlights stories of more than 70 people who have been inappropriately assessed, forced to go to tribunal, felt humiliated or treated inappropriately. It comes prior to the publication of the final review of the Work Capability Assessment by Professor Harrington, who steps down as advisor to the DWP this month, and whose resignation was announced in July, just days after the broadcast of two TV documentaries exposing the reality of claimants’​ experience of the assessment process.

The report also highlights serious concerns about the number of people who have died after being told by the DWP they were ‘​fit for work’​ or have taken their own lives in circumstances where applying for ESA and going through the WCA appear to be factors in their deaths.

Professor Peter Beresford OBE, professor of social policy at Brunel University and chair of Shaping Our Lives, said:

“​The work capability assessment is unreliable and unhelpful, as well as being arbitrary and cruel... No-one –​ not the doctors who make the assessment decisions, nor Atos which has responsibility for providing assessments, nor the Department of Work and Pensions which commissioned them –​ takes responsibility for the problems and failures in the system. It’​s a perfect storm of irresponsibility and unaccount​ability.”​

The report includes an analysis of the position of a number of professional and regulatory organisations on the WCA, including the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, the General Medical Council, the National Audit Office and the Citizens Advice Bureau, as well as Government statements and background information on Atos, the company employed to carry out the assessments.

The report’​s author added:

These issues are a matter of survival for people living with illness and disability. It is unacceptable that in 21st century Britain vulnerable people are being treated so appallingly. We hope The People’​s Review will spur the Government into prompt and concrete action on the failures of the WCA. Radical change is needed - and it is needed now. Whilst there has been some acknowledgement of the problems following Professor Harrington‘​s previous Reviews, our evidence from those at the sharp end of the process, including the high rate of successful appeals and the huge backlog of unheard appeals, shows the whole system is still failing badly.

The cost to the taxpayer is enormous and the cost to those going through it goes way beyond money. In the meantime, sick and disabled people continue to be severely affected by what they’​ve experienced, and terrified of what the future holds.

The new report is available at: https://wearespartacus.org.uk/wca-peoples-review