gilsey wrote:I watched C4 Dispatches an'd it made me wonder, did C4 just have the one undercover reporter? However badly we might think of Maximus, it's hard to believe that a majority of the DAs would be as upfront about their attitudes as the guy they landed on, Alan. Did they strike gold, or rather strike shit, or did they have more than one infiltrator and pick the best/worst one?
As an antidote, I recommend Gordon Buchanan and Alastair Campbell talking to puffins.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... r-campbell" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Morning, gilsey.
The company in question was actually Capita. Not Maximus. Capita and Atos currently hold the PIP contracts.
In 2013, Stephen Duckworth (the top man at Capita overseeing PIP) said this -
"We've got to develop an empathetic, professional and dignified service, to meet individual needs".
To that end, his plans were -
to conduct 60% of all PIP assessments in peoples' homes; to give claimants a choice about where they are seen; to establish "champions" for people with specific conditions; to ensure that each PIP claimant is assessed by someone who is an expert in their main presenting condition.
PIP was introduced in April 2013 for new claims and established claims where a change of circumstances was declared or reported.
By 2014, there was a backlog of 300,000 people waiting for their first PIP assessment; many waited up to a year for a decision.
Capita then recruited 400 "Disability Assessors" to catch up, and the likes of "Alan" were being paid £300 per claimant to clear the backlog; some casual staff were taken on too, and they were earning on average £900 a day.
All their staff have some health care qualification; but despite the DWP insisting that they must tell the claimant what their qualifications are, many refuse to do so. Far from having an assessor who is expert in a specific condition, people are still being assessed by staff who have no expertise in the particular problem the claimant faces.
Given the limitations of the half-hour slot for that Despatches programme, I think the undercover nurse and Adepitan did a good job.
If "Alan" is any class of registered professional, he should be struck off. The manager should be sacked and/or penalised too.
Whatever the original intentions of Mr.Duckworth (most of which were regarded by many as naive at best and spurious at worst), the fact is that Capita's performance is no better than Atos or Maximus, and I personally doubt that any other firm would do better.
The reason I say that is because the ethos of these assessments has nothing to do with healthcare; employing qualified HCPs in these jobs adds a dubious legitimacy to what they're doing, which is acting as disability thought police for a corrupt department.
DWP, and the companies it pays billions to for helping it to deny benefits to people who desperately need them, is responsible for all of this - the proof that this is a vicious and targeted system is there in the undercover reports, the "training", the level of successful appeals, the thousands of testimonies from people with disabilities who have been put through this hideous performance.
As a disabled person himself - albeit one with both cash and connections, Stephen Duckworth should be thoroughly ashamed of himself.
