Atos Origin Recruitment Event Disrupted by Angry Protests
JUNE 15, 2011
Atos Origin are recruiting medical personnel as Disability Assessors with the aim of depriving disabled and sick people of benefit entitlements. Atos assessments have repeatedly ignored evidence from GPs and consultants in favour of a short computer-based test when assessing people's ability to work. Assessors are often required to carry out assessments in fields in which they are not qualified, such as mental health. Many claimants report that the testing procedure, and accompanying stress and worry, has worsened their condition. Tragically, some people with mental health and other conditions have committed suicide as a result of Atos' decisions, and the stress entailed in the process. Questions have been raised about the lack of medical ethics involved in the testing procedure. Over 40% of people who have appealed Atos Origin's decisions have been successful. Please consider the very real damage to people's health and livelihood's being committed by this organisation before considering taking employment with them. Doctors, nurses, and other health professionals should not be used as pawns in a political drive to dismantle the welfare state.
"The job was making me sick," she said. "It's against my principles to treat people with long term illnesses in such a disgusting way, so I had to give it up."
"People go into those interviews and talk openly to you because you are a nurse and they trust you. Then your skills are used against them, to take away their benefits and destroy their lives." - a former employee of Atos Origin.
A recent study for the mental health charity Mind found the three-quarters of people it surveyed said the prospect of a work capability assessment had made their mental health worse and 51% said it had left them with suicidal thoughts.
"This is having a devastating impact on people with mental health issues."
"It is a constant reassessment process which is just absolutely relentless. It is almost like they want to assess you to death or reassess you until you can't face it any longer and drop out of the system altogether. It is like a deliberately grinding down process. It is devastating to see." - Julie Tipping, appeals officer for the charity Disability Solutions.
(Tipping said that in the last year, two of her clients had made "real attempts" at suicide after a decision that they were fit for work. Both were taken to hospital and subsequently sectioned.)
"We use the term 'patient' to refer to anyone whom doctors test, treat or assess in their professional capacity as a doctor. This includes among others, employees, benefits and insurance claimants, and athletes.
"The first duty of all doctors is to make the care of your patient your first concern." Jane O'Brien, Assistant Director, Standards & Fitness to Practice Directorate GMC.
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