Health: Atos

Lord Freud Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McAvoy]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what instructions they have given to Atos regarding its employment of outside personnel to carry out medical assessments.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)]

My Lords, the department has clear contractual requirements for contractors in relation to the recruitment and training of health professionals involved in carrying out assessments related to benefit entitlement. Any professional not meeting these requirements will not be given approval to carry out assessments.

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer. He will recall, as many of us on both sides of the House do, the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill, when, quite frankly, the Minister promised that everything would be all right on the night. However, at one point Atos had 900 doctors performing the work capability assessments and now it has only 231. Does this mean a reduction in the standard of how the tests are conducted? In addition, these tests are being conducted with computer-based systems using descriptors in the assessment and they are failing a large number of people, leading to an even larger increase in the number of appeals. Does the Minister not realise the devastation caused when people get word of these things? When will the Government undertake a fundamental reform of the work capability assessment to make sure that the poorest and most vulnerable people in this country are not reduced to even lower levels of poverty?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, over the past month Atos has been running at about 200,000 assessments; its average is about 100,000. There are 962 full-time-equivalent healthcare professionals working on them. We inherited this review and have now had four subsequent reviews: one internal and three from Professor Harrington. We have basically accepted and largely implemented 40 of the recommendations from Professor Harrington, who said in his latest review, last week, that significant and lasting improvements are coming.

[Lord German]

My Lords, is it not terrible that one in four of the premises that Atos uses for its assessments does not have flat-level disabled access and that wheelchair users cannot access these assessments? Can my noble friend tell the House whether the original specification for the Atos assessment centres contains any references to disability access? In view of the terrible circumstances in which many people in wheelchairs now find themselves, when will the Government be able to complete ensuring that all people needing wheelchair access have access to these assessment centres?

[Lord Freud]

I am not aware of the fine print of that particular contract, as it was done under a previous Government. A proportion of the assessment centres—currently 31, I believe—are not on the ground floor and lifts must be used. If there is then an emergency, such as a fire, those people will have to go down the stairs, which is obviously not satisfactory. To the extent that people are concerned about that, we make other arrangements: they are visited on the ground floor, somewhere else or at home.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, did anyone prior to seeing the Order Paper know what Atos was?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, Atos is not an acronym in this case; it is the name of the company that does these assessments.

[Lord Haskel]

Following on from the question from the Liberal Democrat Benches, the Minister—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware of all the concerns that have been raised concerning Atos Healthcare’s conduct of the work capability assessment, some of which have already been mentioned in the exchanges that have preceded my question. Given that, can he explain why it has been appointed to carry out the new assessments for the personal independence payment? Have any lessons been learnt that might enable these new assessments to be carried out in a way which better commands the confidence of the disability sector?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, one matter that concerns me a lot is the way in which Atos has been attacked. It is something that has also concerned Professor Harrington, who writes in his latest report:

“The WCA continues to be portrayed in an extremely negative light, often fuelled by adverse media coverage, representative groups and political points scoring. … Some recognition of the considerable work to date would give a more balanced picture”.

Atos’s quality target, which is to be below 5% on the quality side, has been achieved in 10 of the past 12 months and is now running at around 4%. Indeed, we are looking at whether we should now move the target figure for quality down from 5% to 4%.

[Baroness Uddin]

My Lords, given what the Minister says about the 200,000 assessments being undertaken, and to a high professional standard, how does he explain some of the figures that are coming from the disabled community about the lack of standard? What do the Government have in place to monitor the quality standard to which he aspires? Will he explain that to the House, and will he also explain why disabled people and their carers would complain about a perfectly professional, high-quality system?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the number of complaints against Atos is running at 0.57%, which compares, for example, with a figure of 3.5% for complaints about doctors to the General Medical Council. That is the level of complaint.

[Baroness Wilkins]

My Lords, 40% of those who go to appeal about an Atos assessment win their appeal. Will the Minister say what the cost of those tribunals has been and why the taxpayer should pay for the inadequacy of Atos’s assessments?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, while the figure of 40% for those who go to appeal is roughly accurate, the total number of those found fit to work by the tribunal changes only 15% of that total. The reasons are usually to do with fresh evidence, which is either written or oral. The cost of that runs at about £11.3 million from the DWP’s perspective and £14.9 million from the point of view of the courts. That figure is for the first half of the current year.