Atos Miracles

Nonchalantly shares a link, and sneaks away from her blog ...

Atos Miracles




nb,
Please note, sarcasm!

Watchdog want your Atos complaints!

The BBC show Watchdog are currently seeking people who have had bad experiences with Atos Healthcare. I think we know a few people who have don't we!

If you wish to submit your story you can do so on their website here.

I just submitted my own, but due to brainfog couldn't think how to phrase it very well, so doubt I'll hear anything back from them. I hope some of you have better luck.

Second letter from Chris Grayling

I received another letter from Chris Grayling, via my MP yesterday.

Dear MP

Thank you for your letter of 15 September to the Minister for Welfare Reform on behalf of Ms Olana Voljeti, regarding the Work Capability Assessment (WCA). I am replying as the Minister responsible for this area of teh Department's work.

People are entitled to Employment and Support Allowance for as long as they satisfy the entitlement conditions. To ensure that people who receive the benefit are doing so correctly and to achieve this, people will be considered to undertake a WCA to make sure that they meet the entitlement conditions. This is part of the claimant's responsibilities which balances the right to benefit.

However, it is appreciated that the process can prove stressful for some people and a number of steps have been taken to ensure that this is minimised where possible. All claimants are sent form AL1C prior to their WCA, which contains details of who to contact if they have specific needs or concerns such as the ones Ms Voljeti mentions. If it is not possible for the claimant to attend the WCA then the Healthcare professional responsible for carrying it out may, for example, be able to conduct a home visit instead if this would be more appropriate. Furthermore, even if a person fails to attend an examination, the decision maker will review all the relevant facts before reaching a decision as to whether or not benefit is payable.

I hope this is helpful to Ms Voljeti.

With best wishes,

Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP
Minister for Employment

I am not 100% certain what he is actually addressing here, and am too foggy to actually look through my letters to work it out. I remember mentioning that it would be useful if people attending medical assessments have the ability to contact the medical centre in case they cannot attend the assessment for any reason, since if you do not attend you automatically fail the assessment.

Firstly, he seems to have misunderstood my meaning. I know from personal experience that I cannot arrange a home medical unless you definitely cannot attend the medical at the centre. I was told, when trying to arrange for my medical to be performed at home, that I would have to have someone take me. With conditions such as M.E., it is quite possible that we would not be able to attend on the day of the medical when we had actually been fine the day before. My point however, was that there are a number of things that could prevent someone attending ... ones car might break down, a family emergency, the person giving you a lift may be called into work ... none of these would constitute a medical being performed at home.

He also seems to be oblivious to the reality of what is happening. Everyone I know who has been unable to attend a medical, including myself a few years ago, automatically had their benefits revoked. No one contacted me to ask why. They were just stopped, and they were stopped before I received any letter explaining why. The reason given, very clearly on the letter stated that it was because I had not attended the medical.

I would like, but know is unlikely to happen, for as many people who had that same experience, to write to Chris Grayling, all within a one week period, telling him that whilst he believes his system works in a particular way, it in fact does not.

Atos Register of Shame

Atos Register of Shame

If you've been through the Atos grinding machine, do please submit your own stories to the site linked above. The more their treatment is swept under the carpet by officials, so it's up to us little people to make it publicly known. Your identity will be kept anonymous.

You can email your story to atosvictimsgroup@gmail.com.

My medical assessment is up!

### Incidentally, if anyone can tell me how to make my title into a link with the new Blogger interface please leave me a comment. ###

Hoorah, my medical assessment with all it's lies etc is online and can be viewed here. Scroll down the page to the link marked 'ESA Medical Report Form'. It's a word document, so will want to save to your computer for you to read it.

It's 28 pages long, but do please go have a look at a little of it. I have added annotations throughout the document, pointing out where the nurse mislead, lied, twisted what I said, etc. I am aware that I am fallible, so my own observations will not be 100% correct, but the fact that the entire document is littered with fallacy disgusts me. It seems blatantly obvious to me that her sole purpose the day was to disqualify me from claiming benefit, not from actually assessing my needs.

Letter from Chris Grayling

My MP has forwarded to me the response he received from Chris Grayling, after he sent to him my own letter. I am really upset by this. I actually sat and cried after reading it.

It's a three page letter, very well written, covering a lot of ground. However, it does NOT cover even half the issues I mentioned in my letter, and it does cover a lot of things I did not even mention. Evidently therefore we have been sent a standardised letter. I find that disgusting. He has not only wasted my time, but wasted my MPs time. What is the point in pretending to be interested in what the public has to offer if he's not even going to read the letters sent to him?

Dear Ms Voljeti

I have now received a reply to my letter from the Department of Work & Pensions regarding the Work Capability Assessment.

I am enclosing the Minister's reply which, as you will see, sets out the current situation with regard to this issue.

My thanks, again, for having raised this important matter with me and I do hope this information is of help to you.

Yours sincerely

Your MP

---------------------------------------

Thank you for your letter of 27 July on behalf of Ms Olana Voljeti regarding the Work Capability Assessment (WCA).

Entitlement to Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) is based on an individual's functional ability rather than the condition itself. Anyone claiming ESA  will undergo the WCA which is based on the premise that eligibility should not be based on a person's condition, but rather on the way that condition limits their functional capability.

The assessment gives people with fluctuating conditions the opportunity to explain how their condition varies over time. The questionnaire that customers are sent has been re-designed so that people are directly asked if their mental or physical functions vary, and to give more details of how this affects them as an individual.

The health care professionals who carry out the WCA are trained to ask about and take account of fluctuation. The assessment is not a snap-shot - if a person cannot carry out a function repeatedly and reliably they will be treated as unable to carry out that function at all.

The activities and descriptors used in the assessment were developed in consultation with medical expert and representative groups in order to ensure that they are appropriate for all conditions. The consultation involved considerable discussion about the variability of some conditions. We are now making some changes to the WCA, including ensuring that it more fully accounts for the effects of exhaustion.

Turning now to the issue of healthcare professionals' integrity, I can confirm that the Medical Services Agreement between Atos Healthcare and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) does not include any provisions either from the Department or from Atos Healthcare to incentivise healthcare professionals to find claimants undergoing the WCA fit for work, and nor would we wish to do so.

It should be noted however that all decisions on benefit entitlement are made by DWP decision makers and not by Atos Healthcare professionals. Entitlement is determined by the Department's decision makers and is based on all available evidence, including that provided by the claimant. Decision makers are rightly impartial and also not incentivised to find claimants under going the WCA fit for work.

We recognise that attending any medical assessment can be a stressful experience, and these will not be carried out if there is enough existing evidence on the claimant's  current condition to decide entitlement to the particular benefit in question. The healthcare professionals who carry out the examinations are trained in assessing vulnerable customers, and when people are asked to come for an assessment they are encouraged to bring a friend or relative with them.

I turn now to the issue regarding the overturning of decisions at appeal. An appeal tribunal hears all evidence afresh, including any new evidence that was not available to the original Jobcentre Plus decision maker, in order to decide whether the original decision on benefit entitlement was correct. Thus when an appeal panel reaches a different decision this does not necessarily mean that the original decision lacked validity.

To try and improve the accuracy of initial decision-making and reduce the number of cases which proceed to appeal, a number of innovations have been trialled within Jobcentre Plus. These include encouraging benefit applicants to submit all the available evidence at the beginning of their claim rather than only producing it for the appeal hearing; and strengthening the reconsideration process so that more decisions are reconsidered, with additional information if available, by decision makers and healthcare professionals, before proceeding to appeal.

Both of these processes have produced very encouraging results. In addition, there are processes in place for the result of appeals to be sent to both decision makers and healthcare professionals in order to improve the accuracy of decision-making, and the Department continues to monitor the outcomes of appeals to continue to improve the assessment.

We are committed to continually improving the WCA to ensure that it is as fair and accurate as possible.

As part of this, we have a statutory commitment to independently review the WCA annually for the first five years of its operation. Professor Malcolm Harrington, a highly respected occupational physician, carried out the first review, reporting in November 1020. We fully endorsed his review and have implemented the vast majority of its recommendations, and are working hard to implement the remainder as soon as possible.

In addition, a department-led review reported in March 2010. We have now implemented its recommendations which include taking better account of the effects of exhaustion and making greater provision for people awaiting or in between courses of chemotherapy. The improvements as a result of this review came in to force on 28 March.

We have now appointed Professor Harrington to conduct a second independent review of the WCA and provide further recommendations as appropriate. He has already started work on the programme of work he has identified, to look in detail at the descriptors for mental health and other fluctuating conditions. Also as part of his review, on 14 July the Government published a call for evidence as part of Professor Harrington's second independent review of the WCA.

The call for evidence is particularly interested in views and evidence about:
- the implementation of Professor Harrington's Year 1 recommendations and the impact they are having;
- what, if any, further work is required in future reviews; and
- the face-to-face assessment.

The call for evidence runs until 16 September. May I encourage Ms Voljeti, to contribute to this process.

I hope this is helpful.

With best wishes,

Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP
Minister for Employment

Atos moves to shut down criticism

It doesn't surprise me that Atos are threatening legal action to websites that are reporting their displeasure or helping people through the medicals. I can't imagine my blog will attract much attention, but if it does, I shouldn't think it'd take much for Google to take it down. Ideally I'd love to have the opportunity to talk to someone at Google, and have them on side, but being an American company, and this a British problem, I don't see it happening somehow.

As the article linked in the title says, I too think I have only recoded known facts. I'm not sure without checking, and I'm exhausted at the moment so that's not going to happen. The article reports the facts succinctly, thus:

• Atos Healthcare carries out Work Capability Assessments for the DWP.
• The contract is worth approximately £100 million per year.
• There has been a sharp rise in people found fit for work
• There has been a sharp rise in people appealing that decision
• 40% of those that appeal, win, rising to 70% with legal representation.
• Although the decision over “fit to work” lies with the DWP,a government review found that the DWP are institutionally incapable of overriding the Atos Health Care Professionals. The Atos recommendation is, in effect, the decision.
• Atos employ Health Care Professionals to carry out the assessments. HCPs are a mix of doctors, physiotherapists and nurses. Only people with certain problems will definitely see doctors.
• Atos use their own Lima computer system to record the patient’s answers. Lima has been widely criticised.
• The HCP fills in Lima by choosing keywords and statements from a list and then justifying them.
• An Atos recruiter said “We don’t call them patients . . . We call them claimants.”

Sign your life away .. please

Got a bee in your bonnet? Want to kick up a fuss about something, but kind of quietly without anyone noticing? Let's sign some petitions! One of the members on one of the M.E. groups has been doing a grand job of finding petitions about Atos Healthcare. None of them are worded ideally, but if we get enough signatures on all of them hopefully the message will get through to parliament that something needs to be done.

Atos Medical Examinations

Responsible department: Department for Work and Pensions
The Atos Group should be Terminated. They do not carry out fair assessments, they ask you set questions set by this Government, they don't listen and above all fail in their duties towards people who are genuinly disabled and mentally ill. You as a Government need to listen and stop messing with peoples lives. Otherwise the votes will go the other way.

Stop using Atos and private profit driven companies to assess the disability and health of benefit claimants.

Responsible department: Department for Work and Pensions
For the chronically sick and disabled, the current system of assessment is inadequate and makes many peoples conditions worse and causes undue stress and upset. I, as a person with primary progressive multiple sclerosis, would ask the government to stop using Atos, who are driven by profit. This obviously creates a conflict of interest. To once again rely on specialist evidence from doctors and consultants as opposed to tick box evidence from non specialist privately employed individuals.

Stop the changes to DLA (disablity living allowance)

Responsible department: Department for Work and Pensions
Stop the stressful benefit tests to those claimants on DLA (disability living allowance), ESA (employment and support allowance) and for current incapacity claiments and for alll those claiments on passport benefits relating to incapcity benefit. Changes have already been made after the independent Harrington review last year, which concluded the tests were not working as well as they should and needed to be made fairer and more effective. The report noted the "high rate of appeals" against findings, and said that cases overturned by "first tier" appeals between October 2008 and August 2009 were "consistently around 40%".

stop unfair re-assessments for disabled people

Responsible department: Department for Work and Pensions
Stop the unfair and cruel re-assessments via ATOS for disabled people currently on Incapacity Benefit. ESA is a flawed benefit, and puts terrible pressure and stress on vulnerable people, putting people who cannot work on lesser benefits and applying sanctions. Let disabled people decide for themselves if they can work, they and their carers know best.

David Cameron to apologise for misrepresenting incapacity benefit claimant figures and end Atos' role in assessments

Responsible department: Department for Work and Pensions
The undersigned ask that the House debate the notion that David Cameron should apologise for misrepresenting incapacity benefit claimant figures by not including results of successful appeals or those who have been excluded from the process because it is either too distressing for them or because they cannot physically attend an assessment. The undersigned also ask that the debate considers whether French private IT company, Atos' role in assessments should be ended and the process handed over to British medical professionals who are not driven by targets or profits.

ATOS assessments

Responsible department: Department for Work and Pensions
We are concerned by reports of a high number of genuinely ill and disabled people, including those who are terminally ill, wrongly being declared fit for work by ATOS medical assessors. These errors cause hardship and distress to some of the most vulnerable members of society and cost the tax payer large sums in appeals. We therefore petition the government to look into the process of these medical assessments and ensure that the necessary changes are made to create a fair system that protects the sick and disabled.

Atos Complaint Form

I'll give them their dues. They got this to me immediately. If you wish to complain to Atos use the following email address: customer-relations@atoshealthcare.com

Say you wish to complain, and give them their name and address so that they can mail the complaints booklet to you.

Having had a quick read through I don't think we actually need the booklet to be honest. I've typed it up so that you can decide for yourselves.

---

Why do I need a medical examination?
The Department for Work and Pensions ask Atos Healthcare to arrange and carry out medical examinations if they need more medical information about people claiming benefits. The purpose of the examination is to provide a medical opinion about how your illness or disability affects you in everyday life. A fully registered, specially trained and approved health care professional will talk to you and, if necessary, complete a physical examination.


What happens following the examination?
The health care professional will complete a medical report for the office dealing with your claim and the Department for Work and Pensions will use this as one source of information when looking at your claim.


Are you unhappy about your benefit decision?
If you are unhappy about the decision made by the Department for Work and Pensions you may ask them to reconsider their decision. If you want to do this you should contact the office dealing with your claim, contact details will be shown on your decision letter.


Do you have any comments, complaints or suggestions about our service?
We will treat all people who undergo a medical examination fairly and equally. Your views on the service we provide are very useful in planning improvements, so if you have any comments, please do not hesitate to let us know. (Please use the form attached to this leaflet).

We are always very pleased to have appreciative comments, which of course we pass on to the staff concerned. Any suggestions you may have for improving services will be studied with care.


Are you unhappy about your medical examination?
Our responsibility is to arrange your appointment, ask a health care professional to conduct a medical examination and provide a report to the office dealing with your claim.

If you are unhappy with any part of our service, or simply feel we could do things better, please let us know.

We want to improve the service we provide and your comments will help us achieve this.


How do you complain?
> Please use the form attached to this leaflet or you can write or email us quoting your name, National Insurance number and the date of your medical examination.

> If you would like to discuss your complaint over the telephone, please contact a Customer Relations Manager who will be happy to call you back.

Customer Relations Manager
Tel: 0113 2309175
customer-relations@atoshealthcare.com



Who can help you make a complaint?
Anyone working for Atos Healthcare can advise you about making a complaint, including the health care professional conducting the medical examination.

In addition, other people who can help include:

> Citizens Advice Bureau
> Welfare Rights Workers
> A friend of family member.

If someone is to contact us on your behalf, please remember to give your signed consent to that person, either on the attached form or by separate letter.


What will happen to my complaint?
Our aim is to deal with your complaint fairly, consistently and in a timely manner. We will acknowledge your complaint within 2 working days and keep you update throughout our investigation.

We hope to respond to your complaint within 20 working days. However, our investigation may take longer. This is because to conduct a thorough investigation we may need to:

> Obtain a copy of the medical report from the office dealing with your claim.
> Obtain information from the health care professional or other employees involved.

On completion of our investigation into your complaint where it is found that the medical report may contain some inaccuracies, we will notify the office dealing with your claim. Please not that Atos Healthcare cannot change the decision on your benefit or request a further medical examination. This is for the decision maker in the Department for Work and Pensions.


What if I am not satisfied with your response to my complaint?
Please contact the Customer Relations Manager, explaining which parts of your complaint you feel have not been dealt with to your satisfaction. The Customer Relations Manager will arrange for a senior manager to personally review the investigation into your complaint and undertake a further investigation, if appropriate.


Is an independent review of my complaint possible?
Yes, when our investigations are complete, you may request that your complaint be referred to an Independent Tier.

The Independent Tier is independent of Atos Healthcare. Their role is to review how we have handled your complaint, how we conducted our investigation and ensures that we have responded to all the issues you raised.


Can I take my complaint further?
Atos Healthcare provide medical services on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions. If you continue to be dissatisfied with the service provided by Atos Healthcare the office of the Department dealing with your claim can provide contact details of Departmental Chief Executives.


Please note: The Independent Tier is not able to comment on the outcome of your claim to benefit. However, where appropriate, the review will include a medical assessment by an independent medical practitioner about the quality of the medical report provided to the Department for Work and Pensions.


About you
(If you are a representative please provide details of the person you are representing, their authorisation and contact details for yourself.)

Title:
Surname:
Other Names:
Date of Birth:
National Insurance Number:
Contact Address:
Daytime Phone Number:
Representatives Name (if applicable):
Authorising Signature:
Your Signature:
Date:

Please tell us your comments, complaints or suggestions overleaf.



Tell us your comments, complaints or suggestions




Please continue on a seperate sheet of paper if necessary.

Tear off this form and hand it in or post to your Customer Relations Manager, Atos Healthcare, Block 1, WingG, Government Buildings, Otley Road, Lawnswood, Leeds, LS16 5PU

"ATOS Doctors Could Be Struck Off"

This article has raised my hackles once again. As usual I have copied it below, in case the article is removed from the website.

The part about the doctors is actually fairly short, and probably just an attention grabber. I'm not sure whether the doctors are under investigation for improper conduct during the medical assessments or with their own patients. 

In light of something I have noticed in this article I am quite glad that I had not actually got round to making the complaint to ATOS about my assessment yet.

Citizens Advice told the Observer it was compiling a dossier showing the problems being faced by those assessed by Atos staff, who can be nurses or physiotherapists in cases where there are no potential neurological disorders.

So ... why was I examined by a nurse? M.E., or CFS as I am signed off with by my doctor, is classed as a neurological disorder by the World Health Organisation. As such we should be being examined for neurological disorders. Evidently ATOS does not consider M.E. to be a neurological disorder. Do they know something they would like to share with the rest of us?

The rest of the article simply enraged me. I have read time and time again many accounts similar to the few described in the article. The article, whilst being on our side, does seem to make it sound like they are one off cases. They really aren't! Anyone who lets their assessor know that they got to the medical on their own steam is automatically disqualified. I know the assessors make you do things that you find painful from personal experience too. I really need to make that complaint!

"Twelve doctors employed by the firm that is paid £100m a year to assess people claiming disability benefit are under investigation by the General Medical Council over allegations of improper conduct. The doctors, who work for Atos Healthcare, a French-owned company recently criticised by MPs for its practices, face being struck off if they are found not to have put the care of patients first.

The Observer has found that seven of the doctors have been under investigation for more than seven months. The other five were placed under investigation this year following complaints about their conduct.

It is understood that the majority of allegations concern the treatment of vulnerable people when the government's controversial "work capability assessments" were carried out, but the GMC refused to comment on individual cases. The development will add to fears over the pace and radical agenda behind the government's welfare-to-work policy, which led to protests in Westminster in May by thousands of disabled people. It will also raise concerns about ministers' commitment to Atos Healthcare, which was recently granted a three-year extension on its contract.

The government has repeatedly publicised figures showing that the "vast majority" of claimants for employment support allowance (ESA), which has replaced incapacity benefit, are fit for work. But four out of 10 of those who appealed the decision by Atos - whose parent company is run by a former French finance minister, Thierry Breton - to deny them benefits are successful on appeal, a process that costs the taxpayer £50m a year.

Last month Atos, whose staff assess around 11,000 benefit claimants a week, was savaged by the cross-party 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".

MPs further claimed that a combination of the company's conduct and the test itself had prompted "fear and anxiety among vulnerable people".

One GP who attended an Atos recruitment fair told the Observer she feared doctors could become "agents of the state" who were deprofessionalised by involvement in a system that did not make patient care its first concern.

Campaigners for the disabled seized upon the development, claiming the government needed to go back to the drawing board. Richard Hawkes, chief executive of the charity Scope, said: "If the government wants to get disabled people off benefits and into work then it needs to get its assessment right. The test should be the first step on the road to employment. But disabled people's confidence in the work capability assessment is extremely low – and today's news will send it to rock bottom.

"The test is massively flawed. Now it appears that it is being carried out by a large number of doctors who are under serious investigation."

Neil Bateman, a solicitor who handles ESA appeals, said on two occasions his clients had been successful because, among other reasons, the doctor assessing them had qualified in Romania and registered with the GMC but had not been licensed to practise in Britain.

Citizens Advice told the Observer it was compiling a dossier showing the problems being faced by those assessed by Atos staff, who can be nurses or physiotherapists in cases where there are no potential neurological disorders. It said it regularly found inaccuracies in many of the medical reports featured in ESA appeal papers that could affect people's chances of receiving benefits. It also found a lack of consideration for those being assessed.

A spokesman said a barrister who was unable to practise because of cancer and lymphoma had described the assessment as being like an "interrogation" led by a computer. The assessor moved the client's legs, which caused her great pain, even though the client had warned that this would happen. In another case a claimant with learning difficulties who went for an assessment was found fit for work because he had found his way to the assessment centre on his own.

When asked about this by Citizens Advice, he reluctantly explained that he had got up very early, taken the bus to the town centre, and then kept asking passersby for directions. He couldn't follow their instructions, so he would show the letter, walk in the direction they pointed, then ask again until he arrived.

Two doctors employed by Atos have already been taken by the GMC to an independent panel for adjudication on their fitness to practise. Dr Alexandros Mallios, who it was claimed had not carried out a proper examination of his patient during an assessment, was cleared by the panel last October. Dr Usen Samuel Ikidde, who qualified in Nigeria, was given a formal warning in January, to lay on his records for five years, after he was found to have worked for Atos while on sick leave from an accident and emergency department.

An Atos spokesman said: "Atos Healthcare is committed to providing a high-quality, professional service and requires these standards of all its employees. While we cannot comment on individual cases, any complaint made about an employee is taken extremely seriously.

"In addition to our own rigorous internal investigations we will co-operate with any external investigation to ensure all facts are properly established and the appropriate action taken."

The Labour government introduced work capability assessments in 2008 when it replaced incapacity benefit and income support for new claimants with employment and support allowance. The government has accelerated the changes and started retesting all 1.5 million incapacity benefit claimants to see whether they are eligible for the new benefit.

A GMC spokesman said: "We can and do take action to remove or restrict a doctor's right to practise if there have been serious failures to meet our standards."

Vindicated!!!!

If you click on the title of this post it'll take you to the following newspaper article. I'm copying it here too, because I have a sneaky suspicion that such honest publishing may well be withdrawn. A quick overview; the government should have claimed back 50 million pounds from ATOS Healthcare because they have failed so badly with the medical assessments. They have not claimed the money back. My personal feelings on this are that it is being recognised how badly ATOS are treating us; that in itself is a result. I would like the government to claim back the money and stop penalising the little people for pennies, but I have no control over that. I would also like the figures in the article to be much more widely published, though I suspect the public will not be interested to hear that we are NOT faking malingerers. Ho hum.

"BUNGLED rulings by the private firm deciding whether benefit claimants are fit to work are costing taxpayers s50million, we can reveal.

The Government have been urged to claw back millions from the contractors after they wrongly assessed thousands on disability benefits.

Atos Healthcare is being paid s100million a year by the Tories to reassess people claiming disability and sickness benefits.

But around 30,000 people appealed against their decisions, with 40 per cent of them successful, which has cost the government around s50million.

The Department for Work and Pensions' contract with Atos allows it to recoup money from the firm for poor medical advice.

But UK employment minister Chris Grayling has admitted not a single penny has been claimed back.

Quizzed by Labour's Tom Greatrex, he said Atos "have met all of their targets for medical advice".

Greatrex, MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, said: "The Toryled Government's failure to provide the taxpayer value for money is disgraceful and the attitude of the minister responsible for this defies belief.

"To suggest Atos has met its targets when it is needlessly costing the taxpayer millions is unacceptable. "It is astonishing that the Government did not recoup a single penny of taxpayer money from Atos, despite its obvious failings.

"At a time when the welfare budget is being slashed by billions, many people will be surprised that the government is not demanding repayment from a multimillionpound international organisation. "The Government is very quick to demand money back from welfare recipients who don't live up to their responsibilities. They should do likewise with Atos."

DWP's contract with Frenchowned Atos allows the government to "apply financial remedies" where the firm has "failed to meet contractual targets".

A dwp spokeswoman said: "If a decision is overturned at appeal, it does not necessarily mean that the original decision was inaccurate.

"Often, customers produce new evidence at their appeal."

Atos said it had nothing to add to the DWP's statement.

We revealed in March how Glasgow GP Margaret McCartney went undercover at an Atos recruitment evening.

She was told: "You are not in a typical caring role. This isn't about diagnosing. We don't call them patients. We call them claimants.""