Who are Atos?

Atos Healthcare are a part of a private, profit making corporation. On behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), they carry out the medical assessments, now called 'Work Capability Assessments (WCA), for Employment Support Allowance (formerly Incapacity Benefit).

What do they do?

Atos are currently recruiting more medical professionals to carry out new assessments on all people on sickness benefits. They are actively carrying out the Government’s plan of cutting sickness benefits by £2.5 billion. The process is driven by cost cutting not objective medical opinion. In recent trials of their largely unreliable new computerised medical test 29% of claimants had their benefits cut, but most people win their case when they appeal with the help of an advice centre. Atos will be also recruiting more staff to carry out these distressing and degrading tests on all people on Disability Living Allowance for the first time, where the plan is to cut the budget by 20%. The Government are cutting these benefits to reduce the debt caused by bankers gambling on the financial markets. The most vulnerable in society are being made to pay for the greed of the rich and the inevitable booms and busts of capitalist economics.

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