Atos Work Capability Assessments

Margot James Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Annette Brooke]

I think we are here today to point out that there certainly are problems, and I await to hear the Minister’s response to them. We need to remember that a great deal of improvements to the system have been made since the Labour Government set it up in the first place. That does not mean, however, that the situation cannot be improved. I think it is right and proper for us to point out where we feel improvements should be made.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

I have visited my local Atos and have sat in on an appeal at the local tribunal, but I do not share the universal condemnation of Atos that I have heard in this House. Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that Professor Harrington reviewed the system three times with particular reference to mental health and that he concluded that the improvements were starting to have an impact so that, in his view, no fundamental reforms were needed to the current work capability assessment?

[Annette Brooke]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and reiterate that it was a positive move by the coalition to ask Professor Harrington to do this work.

I would like to refer briefly to the issue of ME—myalgic encephalomyelitis. I understand that although the discussions on ME were very productive, the changes that we all want are not coming through individually. What we are looking for today is a means of unlocking some of the frictions that are causing the individual problems.

I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on ME, so I have obviously received many representations on this matter. I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to a survey on the work capability assessment carried out by the charity, Action for ME. It had 203 responses. I commend the report to the Minister and hope he will read all the conclusions. I shall refer only to several of them as I do not want to take up too much time.

The conclusions included one to the effect that

“all face-to-face interviewees should be automatically given a copy of the Atos medical report”,

which I understand is not always happening. That is an area where the Minister could intervene to make sure that it does happen. Another conclusion was that

“more efficient communication is needed between the DWP and Atos”—

and that is almost certainly true. I believe we can have a positive and constructive debate when we look at those sorts of points. One further conclusion was:

“Atos healthcare professionals who carry out the face-to-face assessment should receive specialist training about fluctuating conditions, developed in consultation with organisations that support people with M.E. Training needs to be as frequent as the staff turnover at Atos requires”.

Those are really important points to which I would like the Minister to pay some attention.

We had a meeting in the House this week, but it was not possible to get a Minister to attend it. I would like to request that the offices of the all-party group be used for a meeting to talk about ME, the work capability assessment and fears about the personal independence payment in the future.