Atos Work Capability Assessments

David Anderson Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

As a member of the Backbench Business Committee, I was delighted that we scheduled this topic for debate. I believe that it is an example of the exact reason why the Committee was set up on the insistence of people who were Members way before us. This is about Parliament doing business. It is not about petty, party political point scoring; it is about issues that face thousands of our people every day. Those issues might one day face some of us or our family members. The issue also impacts on this country’s taxpayers, who are not getting value for money. It is about a system that has failed.

The Prime Minister said in May 2010:

“The test of a good society is how you protect the poorest, the most vulnerable, the elderly and the frail.”

I agree with the Prime Minister on very little, but I certainly agree with him on that. That is the test that should be held today.

People say that the jury is out on Atos, but it is not —it has been out and has come back in, and the evidence is that Atos is failing miserably. We have already heard that 40% of appeals are successful. Evidence published this week has shown that, when people are represented, 70% of appeals are successful. The system is broken. This is not just about the financial cost of appeals; the human cost and suffering of people waiting to go through appeals is drastic.

I will not go through individual cases. I want to draw the Minister’s attention to evidence from those who represent people. First, I ask the Minister whether he has read “The People’s Review of the Work Capability Assessment”, which was produced in November 2012. It contains 67 pages of indictments of the system. It was supported by people across this House and by professionals inside and outside the system.

I asked my caseworker, Sheila Stevenson, how the work capability assessment was affecting people in my constituency. She said, “How many people do you want me to tell you about?” I asked her to give me her view. This is a woman who for seven years was a legal officer for the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians and has worked for me for four years. She said that about every third call is about benefits—mainly about ESA and people being found fit for work. People are being found fit for work despite an NHS GP, a consultant or psychiatric reports saying that they are not. Atos does not seem to take medical reports into account when deciding on someone’s capability. About 90% of my work is now benefits-related, whereas two years ago the figure was about 20%. As the citizens advice bureaux and jobcentres cannot cope, they refer cases to their local MP.

Recently, the all-party parliamentary group on coalfield communities, which I chair, heard evidence from Keith Lamb from the Durham Colliery Mechanics Trust and Mick White who works for the Yorkshire miners about their experiences from decades of representing people at work. They have had a huge increase in their work load and a very low success rate in overturning these decisions. They talked about how people have been failed. Doctors have made a number of mistakes. Assessors have been used whose first language is not English, so they cannot discuss clearly with claimants what their problems are. Claimants have signed medical reports and doctors have filled them in afterwards, when they were not even present at the medical. Claimants have been told that they do not have a disease.

I will give a classic example of the last point which the Minister should know about because, like me, he comes from a part of world where diseases such as pneumoconiosis cripple people. The Americans call it “black lung”. It is where somebody has a lung full of coal dust. People who have pneumoconiosis never improve and there is no way of getting better. And yet, people who are inexperienced are saying that people with the disease are no longer suffering and are capable of work. That is utterly out of order.

I spoke last night to Dave Hopper, who is the general secretary of the Durham Miners Association, an organisation that has represented people in this country for almost 200 years. He said:

“The system is breaking down.”

He told me that decades of close, professional relationships that had been built up between the association and the examiners and the chairmen of the tribunals are being undermined by the aggressive attitude of the people from Atos. He said that claimants are in dread of examinations and many refuse to appeal because of their initial experience. Surely that has to be wrong.

We are told in this House time and again that we need evidence-based policy. The Minister has today heard evidence from both sides of the House of where the system is breaking down. I suggest that he takes the evidence on board, listens to the people out there in the real world who are dealing with this matter day in and day out, gets them to sit around the table with Professor Harrington, and puts the system right. The system has failed, we need to put it right and we need to do so now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hoban]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s candour. It would be good if more of her colleagues expressed similar candour.

One aspect of the Welfare Reform Act 2007 that has been referred to frequently throughout the debate is the establishment of the independent annual review. The last three have been undertaken by Professor Harrington, a distinguished occupational physician. What evidence has he put forward? In his first report, he stated that he did

“not believe that the system is broken or beyond repair”.

In his second report, he noted that the WCA had

“noticeably changed for the better”,

and in his third report, he said that

“real progress has been made”

and stressed that

things are beginning to change positively in the best interests of the individual.”

It is important not to lose sight of that.

[Mr Anderson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Hoban]

I want to make a bit more progress, because a lot of detailed points were raised and I want to address as many of them as possible.

Despite the improvement, it is clear—today’s debate reinforces this—that the WCA continues to generate heartfelt and passionately held views, but some of the worry experienced by claimants is a result of adverse media coverage and risks being fuelled by incorrect anecdotal information and—indeed—total myth. We have heard some of those myths today, and I want to set the record straight. This is an opportunity to address the facts behind the process and to set out what is happening in the Atos process.

Several hon. Members suggested that Atos had targets for finding people fit for work or placing them in a particular group. Let me be absolutely clear—let nobody in or beyond the House be in any doubt—there are no such targets. There are no targets for who should be put into which group. Instead—hon. Members would want this—there are quality-control checks. We want the right decisions to be made for our constituents and we want to ensure consistency between physicians and practitioners, and assessment centres. That quality control —saying that we should all be familiar with things we do and come across in our daily life—is not the same as a target. Atos has no targets to recommend that people go in particular groups.

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[Mr Hoban]

We do ensure that those professionals receive the support that they need to assess those conditions.

Following Professor Harrington’s recommendation, Atos has 60 mental health function champions in place to spread best practice. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) asked whether they had specific training in autism. I can assure her that that is the case. She also asked, as did other hon. Members, whether we could review the effectiveness of the mental health champions. It is not for me to dictate the work that Professor Harrington’s successor will undertake as part of the fourth review, but I think that that is a good suggestion. We need to look at the effectiveness of the recommendations that Professor Harrington has made.

[Mr Anderson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Hoban]

I am going to make some progress, as I have only a few minutes left to speak before the next debate starts.

In March 2011, we also implemented the recommendations of a Department-led review of the work capability assessment, which included the expansion of the support group to cover more people with certain communication problems and severe disability due to mental health conditions.

Hon. Members have suggested that the assessment does not take account of fluctuating conditions, but that is not the case. It gives people with a fluctuating condition the opportunity to explain how their condition varies over time. It is not a tick-box assessment, as some have suggested. There is a discussion between the health care professional and the person making the claim for ESA to determine how their condition varies over time. The questionnaire that customers are sent has been redesigned for that purpose, and people are now asked to give more details about how their fluctuating condition affects them as an individual. If a person cannot carry out a function repeatedly and reliably, they will be treated as unable to carry out that function at all. We all recognise that the capacity of people with a fluctuating condition can change, and it is important that proper regard should be given to that fact.

I want to pick up on a point made by the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). We have committed to a review of the descriptors for fluctuating conditions, and we are working closely with charities on that. We also need to ensure that any new descriptors are as good as, or better than, the existing ones, for the purpose of assessing someone’s condition. That work is going on at the moment.