Profiting from the sick and disabled

Disabled people and their supporters taking part in today’s nationwide action against the company enforcing government benefit cuts have asked doctors and nurses organisations to end their relationship with Atos Healthcare.

The global corporation which operates in over 40 countries was brought in by the New Labour government and was then awarded a £300 million three-year contract extension by the ConDems, with clear instructions to reduce claimant numbers.

A new benefit, employment support allowance (ESA), has replaced incapacity benefit and every claimant is being assessed by Atos. Thousands have been disqualified from claiming ESA by Atos staff.

The government claims that figures show that the "vast majority" of claimants for ESA are fit for work. But four out of 10 of those who appealed against the decision by Atos to deny them benefits are successful on appeal, a process that costs the taxpayer £50m a year.

The open letter says: “Since 1995, when medical assessments for incapacity benefit were privatised and taken out of public services, standards have steadily declined. But Atos has brought this to a new low. While none of the work tests deserve to be called a ‘medical’ as they have no basis in patient welfare, since Atos started carrying out the ESA tests in 2008, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of people with severe illness and disability being assessed as fit for work and denied benefits.”

Campaigners told the British Medical Journal and Royal College of Nursing: "We are outraged that Atos is profiting from denying those of us who are sick or disabled, the benefits we need to survive and maintain our level of health.”

The letter adds: “A Channel 4 News report in 27 July 2011 acknowledged what thousands have been saying: it interviewed the heartbroken partner of a critically ill man whom Atos denied his entitlement on grounds that he was ‘fit for work’ – he died less than three months later. How many more people have died following such cruel and callous treatment?”

In August, the it was reported that 12 Atos doctors are under investigation by the General Medical Council for improper conduct. The Royal College of Psychiatrists and many others have strongly criticised the devastating effect the Atos exam and cuts have had on patients.

GP Margaret McCartney, writing in the British Medical Journal, has questioned the ethics of doctors performing assessments without access to patients’ medical records, and the lack of specialist knowledge of physiotherapists and general nurses employed by Atos.

Earlier this year, Atos, whose staff assess around 11,000 benefit claimants a week, was severely criticised by Parliament’s work and pensions select committee after it found that many people had "not received the level of service from Atos which they can reasonably expect".

The open letter insists that doctors’ and nurses’ ethics are being “corrupted” by Atos’ offers of higher salaries and daytime reduced work hours, adding: “Claimants rightly fear that most Atos assessors are uncaring and prejudiced – they work to targets which have nothing to do with patients’ individual health needs or with the realities of the job market which sick and disabled people are being thrown into.

“The stress of the Atos examinations has hastened deaths and caused a number of people to commit suicide. For many others, it is exacerbating their already fragile health condition.” Atos has taken action to shut down websites which have attacked the company.

The Labour government introduced work capability assessments in 2008 when it replaced incapacity benefit and income support for new claimants with ESA. The Coalition government has accelerated the changes – with the support of Labour, naturally.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Work makes you sick

As the planet’s eco-systems cannot cope with the stress imposed on them by capitalist forms of production, human beings are bound to be similarly affected.That is reflected in the fact that 2.8 million people in Britain claim what until recently was called incapacity benefit.

To reflect New Labour’s insistence that work is good for you, whatever the price in human terms, the benefit has been renamed “Employment and Support Allowance”. All new claimants must complete an assessment of their capacity to work and by 2010, all existing claimants will need to “sit the test”. Only those who know they are going to die soon or are so disabled that nobody could expect them to work (even benefits minister James Parnell) will be exempt.

People deemed capable of work could have their benefits cut if they don’t find a job. But only about £3 per person has been allocated to help people retrain and track down a job. Only around 50% of people who are registered disabled have a job and when they are in work they earn on average far less than other workers.

And the big question is how many people currently unable to work are in that situation because of their experience of Britain’s dangerous work environment?

For example, the death rate from asbestos-related mesothelioma and lung cancer is around 7,000 a year and it is still rising. Though asbestos is now banned, there are still millions of tons of the stuff in office buildings, factories, prisons, ships and shopping centres – sooner or later it will have to be removed. Around 250,000 Britons will die from asbestos before the death rate finally begins to decline.

The chemical industry is the UK 's largest manufacturing sector, with a turnover of £41 billion, employing more than 400,000 people. As many as 10,000 commercial chemicals are hazardous, of which 150-200 may cause cancer.

Around 4,000 building workers die each year from accidents and industrial diseases. Hazards they face include asbestos, musculo-skeletal disorders, falls, slips and tips and noise. Diseases they face include dermatitis, asthma, and emphysema.

There are between 1,500 to 3,000 new cases of occupational asthma every year, rising to 7,000 if you include pre-existing asthma made worse by work.

Exposure to noise at work is a significant occupational hazard. Research suggests that170,000 people in the UK suffer deafness, tinnitus or other ear conditions as a result of exposure to excessive noise.

People exposed to high levels of vibration – such as miners, road workers and people operating a range of machinery – can suffer serious impairments of their hands, arms and backs. A Medical Research Council survey in 1997-98 estimated 301,000 people suffer from vibration white finger (VWF) in Britain.

And finally, since the government implies that many of the people claiming incapacity benefit are simply shirkers, there is the crippling effect of stress at work. In research carried out in 2001-02 it was found that 5 million UK workers suffer stress at work and half a million believed it made them ill. The Samaritans, which counsels people thinking about taking their own lives, says that work is the biggest single cause of stress.

As Karl Marx explained, there is a major difference between work freely done with passion and enthusiasm, for a common end, and work that simply supports the production of profit. The first is “a free manifestation of life, hence an enjoyment of life”. But, presupposing private property, “my work is an alienation of life, for I work in order to live, in order to obtain for myself the means of life. My work is not my life”. Or as William Morris argued, useful work not useless toil, is what a fair, equal, democratic society aspires to provide.

Penny Cole
Environment editor

Bankers the priority for New Labour

When it comes to bailing out bankers, the New Labour government’s coffers are deep, as shown by the vast amounts of taxpayers’ money used in the futile bid to save Northern Rock. Contrast this with the treatment meted out to people claiming disability benefits and spending cuts imposed on climate change agencies as well as the body that reviews miscarriages of justice, and you get the picture about where priorities lie.

The government has loaned the failed Northern Rock anywhere between £22 and £40 billion and is not quite sure when - or even if - the state will gets its money back. There’s billions in interest due on top of the capital sum and city commentators are agreed that that this is unlikely ever to be repaid by whoever ends up buying the first British victim of the global financial crisis. Today it is revealed that potential buyers have valued the stricken mortgage bank at well below the closing price of its shares on Friday. They were selling at 132.6p each, giving the bank a valuation of £560 million. So much for the government’s soothing words about Northern Rock’s assets totalling over £100 billion.

Meanwhile, spending cuts are coming in thick and fast as the government slashes vital services in a bid to balance its books. According to leaked reports, there are plans to cut £300 million off the budgets of agencies funded through the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Nature England is being asked to cut 30% from its budget for new conservation work. In addition, it is being asked to repay the £12 million spent on setting it up! Another agency facing cuts is the Waste and Resources Action Programme, along with other organisations dealing with canals, national parks, forestry, fisheries, sustainable development and environmental protection. These cuts expose the sham nature of the government’s claim to be tackling climate change just as leading scientists warn of an impending catastrophe as a result of global warming.

Also facing swingeing cuts is the Criminal Case Review Commission (CCRC). Staff are not being replaced and chairman Professor Graham Zellick said that the CCRC had made “great strides” in dealing with a backlog of cases. “Now that’s all going to be reversed, I suspect.” Solicitor Campbell Malone, who helped clear the name of a man wrongly jailed for murder, was more blunt. “The philosophy of this government seems to be that miscarriages of justice don’t matter any more. The climate is changing and the thinking seems to be that, if you go on interviewing people long enough, they will eventually confess.”

Soon to join the wrongly convicted as victims are the disabled. Work and pensions secretary Peter Hain has announced that fewer sick and disabled people will qualify for disability benefits for being unable to work, after a new test is introduced from next year. Hain says the changes will end what he calls "sick-note Britain", which is fine coming from someone who is paid £136,677 a year and who is entitled to endless holidays and various allowances. At the moment more than 60% of the people who apply for incapacity benefits are successful, but only 50% of people who take the new test are likely to pass it. The moral of the story is that if you’re a banker, New Labour will see you alright. But if you doing vital public service work or have a disability, forget it.

Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor