On July 30th, two separate yet very revealing documentaries were shown on television regarding ESA, the Work Capability Assessment, and the company which carries them out: Atos. If you don't know much about the current incapacity system or the real impact it has on our lives, I can highly recommend that you watch them both.
Dispatches: Britain on the Sick
Panorama: Disabled or Faking It?
Unfortunately, these issues became all too relevant to Leo and I just a few days later. Leo had attended a WCA at the end of June, and received the results over the telephone. He had not been scored high enough on his WCA, and his ESA benefits were being withdrawn. The person he spoke to said that Leo had the right to appeal, and that if he managed to appeal within the next few days his benefits might be reinstated without a noticeable break in payments. As of writing, Leo is still waiting for the appeal paperwork to be delivered to our door.
Now, Leo and I deal with similar conditions. He doesn't have the agoraphobia that stops me from leaving the house on my own; my physical ailments are nowhere near as chronic as his. Yet the way our cases have been treated have been like chalk and cheese. I was never asked to attend a WCA. On my paperwork alone, the DWP assigned me to the support group. Leo, however, has had to provide countless sicknotes whilst his original paperwork was assessed, has had a very unpleasant person from the DWP come into our flat to make sure that we weren't living as a couple (we aren't), and has had to attend the WCA on top.
I was handed ESA straightaway, no further questions asked. Leo has been through the wringer trying to obtain his, only to be denied. Tell me the system isn't flawed, I dare you.
Leo is now more angry and depressed than ever. He and I both told the DWP that there was no way I could provide him with financial support should he be denied ESA, but how can I not? I have no legal obligation to support him, but I certainly have a moral obligation to him. He is my closest friend, and he has saved me from the brink more than once. What sort of monster would I be if I sat and watched him starve? I am putting myself at risk to help him, so instantly this decision affects not just Leo, but myself too. One person's ESA should not be stretched to two people, yet this is the outcome that Atos has forced us into, with their terrifyingly flawed system of scoring patients, meeting targets (or "statistical norms", as Benefit Scrounging Scum pointed out), and supposedly trying to save the government millions by weeding out fraudulent claims. There is just no way that Leo and I could manage long-term in this state. If he were to go back to the Jobcentre, what right-minded employer would hire him in the state he's in? Yet if he is unsuccessful in his appeal against Atos' decision, what choice does he have?
Atos care only for financial costs, not for human costs. The extent to which they ruin lives seems to suggest that they do their poisonous job with gleeful abandon. I can only conclude that the WCA guidelines were written by a group of people who have never been physically or mentally ill in their lives. There were clearly no healthcare professionals involved, just statisticians and bankers.
Shame on them all.