In Error, Immoral, Unethical, and Impossible For Me To Attend

Severe Bipolar Clinical Depression vs. WCA:

In Error, Immoral, Unethical, and Impossible For Me To Attend

Supporter Morgan Freeman, in a personal capacity

Your Ref. (My NI No.): WM549438D

Dear DWP/Atos Staffer, On Sat 01 June 2013, I was aghast to receive a letter, signed ‘Atos Healthcare’ (sic) and dated Thu 30 May 2013, summoning me to attend what I can only assume is the infamous and discredited ‘Work Capability Assessment’ (WCA) [1] at 15:20 on Fri 14 Jun 2013 at a ‘Marylebone Medical Assessment Centre’. The letter and accompanying pamphlet both neglect to mention the actual name of the assessment I am being summoned to attend. I am currently bumping along the bottom of an episode of severe bipolar clinical depression; so it’s taking an excessively strenuous and stressful amount of mental energy, dogged perseverance, and fitful concentration to overcome the depressive symptomatic urge to just “Bin this rubbish, and face the detrimental consequences later (which is all I deserve anyway, because I’m worthless scum)”, and rather to do the right thing: to explain to the DWP/Atos why I believe this summoning to be in error, immoral, unethical, and impossible for me to attend. So although I am currently at just about my weakest and most vulnerable, and therefore least able to self-advocate in my own best interests, I shall nevertheless take some days to assemble my considered response. Since this considered response message is both thorough and extensive, you may prefer to read it on paper rather than on screen. To that end, I have attached a version formatted for printing on A4 paper: • ‘Severe Bipolar Clinical Depression vs. WCA.pdf’ – PDF, 3.5 MB, pp26, this very document When this document is viewed in a PDF reader app on screen (such as Adobe Reader, OS X Preview, etc.), you should be able to access the web hyperlinks to external content – news reports, video on demand (VoD), etc. –

Severe Bipolar Clinical Depression vs. WCA: In Error, Immoral, Unethical, and Impossible For Me To Attend

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as indeed you can from within the HTML-formatted email message to which it was attached. Note also that while GoogleMail can be unreliable in transmitting inline images, the PDF version is guaranteed to be correctly illustrated.

THE STRUGGLE TO ACQUIRE ADEQUATE EMAIL ADDRESSES

@Atos – This impersonal boilerplate letter from your profit-centric enterprise (£100 million per year from the DWP! [2]) simply presumes that any recipient can use a telephone to respond to its contents, which seems to be a self-evidently preposterous presumption when it is being sent out to people living with a diverse range of physical and mental health conditions and disabilities. As my completed ESA50 form clearly indicates, there are a host of severe-clinical-depression-related symptomatic reasons why I cannot simply pick up the phone and make outgoing calls to untrusted strangers; and your letter significantly fails to provide an email address by which to communicate in writing, nor any web address where such might be found, thus forcing me to try to discover such by online searching. The closest to your Atos ‘appointments help desk’ I can find is your ‘ESA/WCA Customer Service’ email address, – so do please forward this message as appropriate within the atoshealthcare.com domain in order to expedite correcting the error detailed below, and cancel the WCA at 15:20 on 14 Jun 2013 at Marylebone Medical Assessment Centre.

@DWP – The impersonal boilerplate letter from Atos states, “[…] if you would like more information about why you need an assessment, please contact the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) office that deals with your claim.” My most recent ‘Employment and Support Allowance – Support Group’ (ESA-SG) entitlement letter, dated Thu 07 Feb 2013, also significantly fails to provide an email address by which to communicate in writing, and of the web address it does contain, my ISP's ‘BT Web Address Help’ service has this to say: “Sorry, the website www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk cannot be found.” By using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, I was able to establish that this domain hasn’t been updated since Thu 31 Jan 2013, so its inclusion in my Thu 07 Feb 2013 ESA-SG entitlement letter seems to have been perversely unhelpful. So yet again, I’ve been forced to try to discover an appropriate email address by online searching. My best educated guesstimate is the email address behind the [ Contact JobCentre Plus central team ➔ ] button on the DirectGov domain's ‘Contact Jobcentre Plus’ web service, which for my postcode yields up: To: Subject: JCP Contact Us Local Office - London (Makerfield) Benefit Centre So, as far as using snail mail letters to provide ESA claimants with an up-to-date relevant email contact address goes, both Atos and the DWP’s complete lack of any effort whatsoever are best categorised as a double-headed “EPIC FAIL!”; and again – do please forward this message as appropriate within the jobcentreplus.gsi.gov.uk domain in order to expedite correcting the error detailed below. As you can no doubt appreciate, before I can even get to begin to address the substantive issue at hand, I’ve been forced to expend both significant time and mental effort in not only seeking out how to contact Atos and the DWP by email, but also in highlighting for both organisations their joint failures in providing an up-to-date relevant email contact address in their snail mail letters to ESA claimants. Thankfully, I have over time acquired the prerequisite ICT skills and resources, and can at a push summon up sufficient personal tenacity, both of which have been necessary to locate the most likely correct email address candidates to which to send my considered response message. However, no doubt many other sick and disabled folk in a similar situation, who could also positively benefit from exchanging written communications by email, are being blocked from doing so by Atos and the DWP’s “EPIC FAIL!” in providing claimants with an up-to-date relevant email contact address. Please do consider dragging your business communications channels kicking and screaming into the 21st century, since sending snail mail letters is both unnecessarily slow, resource and energy profligate, and soooo 19th century, while some people (like me) simply cannot use 20th century phone technology due to the disability and/or illness which forms the basis of our entitlement to ESA-SG.


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MEDICAL, DISABILITY, AND BENEFIT ENTITLEMENT HISTORY

I am a person living with Type II Bipolar Affective Disorder, and have been doing so for three decades. Under the direction of my ex-consultant psychiatrist, we trialled each of the current crop of psychotropic prophylactic mood stabiliser medications, all of which only have a therapeutic effect for a proportion of people with bipolar disorder – and unfortunately, for each drug, I fell in the cohort of patients for whom that drug fails to stabilise pathological mood swings. So the only medication I have found to be effective is an antidepressant, a second generation serotonin–norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor called venlafaxine. This has an effect in limiting the duration of my episodes of severe bipolar clinical depression, but not their severity. I’ve been taking 150 mg of venlafaxine per day since February 2013, to address this current episode of severe clinical depression, at which dosage I’m told it inhibits the synaptic reuptake of two neurotransmitters, namely serotonin and noradrenaline (aka norepinephrine in the USA). Up to 2012, I was in receipt of Income Support (IS) in lieu of Incapacity Benefit (IB), along with Disability Living Allowance (DLA) – the latter of which I continue to receive. In late 2011, I received and completed my ESA50 questionnaire form (but only with the loving assistance of my life long friend and supporter Andreas Goldner), and the stress and anxiety thus provoked in me by the DWP and Atos in necessitating my transition from IS to ESA-SG cost me very dearly indeed, by plunging me head first into a six-month long episode of severe bipolar clinical depression. In early 2013, the prospect of the forthcoming changes to benefits precipitated another descent into severe clinical depression. I was forced to spend a month and a half persuading Lambeth Council that they were breaching their own Council Tax Support (CTS) policy to fully protect vulnerable residents, including disabled people, from the detrimental effects of the changeover from Council Tax Benefit (CTB) to CTS, since they were demanding money with menaces from me – they threatened to take expensive legal action against me, which I was apparently expected to pay for, over non-payment of a personal Council Tax liability for 2013/2014, which they eventually conceded amounted to… £0.00. Now in mid 2013, I receive what I believe to be an erroneous summoning to attend an unspecified ‘fitness for work’ assessment, and going by the evidence available online from other sick and disabled people in a similar situation, I may be facing another months-long uphill battle with Atos and the DWP to get this error corrected. Needless to say, the stress and worry created by these national and local state attacks on my benefit entitlements continues to have a detrimental effect on my mental health and general well-being; and looming large on the horizon, and with much dark foreboding, comes the prospect of being forced to negotiate the transitions from DLA to Personal Independence Payment, and from multiple benefits to Universal Credit. So from my perspective, the future isn’t bright, it isn’t orange – it’s as dark, hairless, and terrifying as the approaching event horizon of a supermassive black hole. A bipolar genius: Kay Redfield Jamison, American clinical psychologist and writer


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IN ERROR My understanding is that the WCA is applicable in only three circumstances: 1. A new claim for ESA 2. Migration of a claimant from [ IB | IS in lieu of IB ] to ESA 3. On-going assessment of people recovering from debilitating injury or illness, or living with nonsevere conditions, who are assigned to the ESA ‘Work Related Activity Group’ (WRAG) Since none of these circumstances are pertinent to my situation, I can only conclude that a bureaucratic error is to blame for the issuing of a summons to attend a WCA, all of which begs the question: from whence might such an error arise?

@Atos – Since your private sector money-spinning enterprise is trading as ‘Atos Healthcare’ (sic), I can only assume that, in common with the worldwide medical and psychiatric sciences and professions, you are fully aware that my condition, Type II Bipolar Affective Disorder, is a severe mental illness and hidden disability with the following characteristics: it is permanent, life-long, and incurable. On the basis of the way in which my completed ESA50 questionnaire form plus accompanying medical documentation from my GP set out in detail the severity of my bipolar disorder, in February 2012 the DWP correctly assigned me to the ESA-SG – notably without further jeopardising my mental health and well-being by subjecting me to the additional and unnecessary stress of a WCA. In December 2012, in returning a blank duplicate ESA50 form to Atos, I wrote the following, abstracted below for current relevance, in the accompanying covering letter (‘Re: Annual Form ESA50 Duplication Exercise’, dated Wed 12 Dec 2012). [quote]

[…] So there’s really no point at all in my filling in this fresh ESA50 form, since there have been ABSOLUTELY ZERO CHANGES since I filled in my first ESA50 in December 2011; and conversely, there is every point in my declining to do so, since completing this form first time round precipitated an exceptionally deep depressive episode. The logical corollary for Atos is that there really is no wiggle room in cases like mine – all the good and valid reasons why I was allocated to the ‘Employment and Support Allowance – Support Group’ still hold true, and will continue to hold true in perpetuity until either: • I die; or • a miracle cure for Type II Bipolar Affective Disorder becomes available. Even with the huge potential advantages opened up by human genomics research, nevertheless the latest discoveries around epigenetics and the functionality of those stretches of our genome which were previously regarded as ‘junk DNA’ seem to me to indicate that the likelihood of my death preceding any miracle cure for Type II Bipolar Affective Disorder becoming available remains very high indeed. So on these grounds, I would expect to be in receipt of ‘Employment and Support Allowance – Support Group’ in perpetuity, without the need to endlessly repeat myself word-for-word in an annual form duplication exercise. […] Of course, a far more sensible approach would be to follow the example previously adopted by the DWP, before screwing over vulnerable, disabled, and sick people was out-sourced to Atos. IIRC, the DWP categorised my award of ‘Income Support in lieu of Incapacity Benefit’ as ‘indefinite’, ie: I would continue to receive this benefit in perpetuity, predicated upon the nature of my condition which qualified me to claim this benefit – permanent, life-long, and incurable. So, along with the medical and psychiatric sciences and professions, Atos could just accept that some conditions (such as Type II Bipolar Affective Disorder) really are permanent, life-long, and incurable – and therefore tag the files of folk with those conditions with something like ‘ESA Support Group in perpetuity – no followup required’. This really is the win-win solution, in which the advantages for both the folk so afflicted AND for Atos are obvious and


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apparent: we don’t need to endlessly repeat ourselves in an annual form duplication exercise, and Atos get to cut their case administration overhead by not having to send out, receive back, and process the exact same data year after year. My hope is that Atos are already sensibly expediting an ‘ESA Support Group in perpetuity – no followup required’ file tagging system, that my file will now be so tagged, and that that will be and end to this matter. [/quote]

So it would seem at least to be a strong possibility that an over-zealous minimum-pay-grade Atos employee has not taken kindly to my pointing out the soul-destroying futility of an ‘Annual Form ESA50 Duplication Exercise’ for folk with severe Type II Bipolar Affective Disorder, and has spitefully decided to attempt to punish me by breaking with official DWP/Atos protocol, by issuing to me a summons to attend a WCA. Since this Atos summoning letter is an impersonal boilerplate letter, signed ‘Atos Healthcare’ (sic), there is no indication at my end as to who exactly created this vindictive error with malice aforethought, but I presume that the possibility exists that an Atos workflow database can identify the perpetrator, for the purpose of issuing appropriate correctional and/or disciplinary measures. Since the severe medical condition which entitles me to receive ESA-SG is indeed permanent, life-long, and incurable, all the good and valid reasons why the DWP assigned me to the ESA-SG in February 2012 – importantly, without further jeopardising my mental health and well-being by subjecting me to the additional stress of an unnecessary WCA – are as good and valid today as they were back then. I am fully aware of my obligation to inform the DWP of any changes in my life circumstances that might materially affect my entitlement to ESA-SG; but as I stated in December 2012 (while returning a blank duplicate ESA50 form to Atos), and which I emphatically reiterate today, “there have been ABSOLUTELY ZERO CHANGES since I filled in my first ESA50 in December 2011”, and nor do I expect there to be any such changes (short of a miracle cure for Type II Bipolar Affective Disorder becoming unexpectedly available).

IMMORAL, SOCIOECONOMICALLY

You may well ask why I should be aghast at receiving a letter from Atos summoning me to attend a WCA. If so, I’d suggest you have little to vanishingly small an understanding of the severe effects of Type II Bipolar Affective Disorder, and I can only recommend you read through my ESA50 again, bearing in mind the following. Within the context of current global, national, and local geopolitical and socioeconomic landscapes, strong arguments can be made that forcing those severely sick and disabled people who are currently entitled to ESASG to undergo a WCA completely fails the test of common sense morality. For instance, here are just two such arguments.

1. A WCA seeks to classify sick and disabled folk as ‘fit for work’ or ‘fit for work-related activity’ – but permanent structural mass unemployment proves that there is zero demand for their labour For the last three decades, the UK labour market has sustained permanent structural mass unemployment, the topic of which has been and continues to be the subject of broad media coverage; for instance, see the graph below.


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A side-scrolling graph covering three three decades of sustained mass unemployment in the UK labour market (click to access the source embedded Flash app)

~ Paddy Allen and Nick Mead, in ‘Interactive: UK unemployment since 1984 – Britain's unemployment rate has remained at its highest level since 1995 – 8.4% – as the flatlining economy takes its toll on the labour market’, at guardian.co.uk, Wed 15 Feb 2012 • source interactive app » http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/interactive/2009/jun/22/unemploymentand-employment-statistics-recession The on-going global financial crisis has only made things worse, and the current upward trend in mass unemployment is a Europe-wide phenomenon, as recent news reports document; for instance:

• from ‘Eurozone unemployment reaches new record high in April’, at BBC Business News, Fri 31 May 2013 • source news report » http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business22727373

It's the same all over – a snapshot of current mass unemployment rates in the European labour market (click to access the source article)


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Since it is self-evidently apparent that neither the European, nor the UK, nor the London economy can provide sufficient employment for able-bodied and able-minded people, then for the DWP/Atos to seek to classify people living with permanent, life-long, incurable, and severe disabilities as ‘fit for work’ by measuring them against a deliberately skewed model worker archetype [3] is worse than a sick joke – it is disingenuous, immoral, and just plain wrong.

2. A ‘fit for work’ WCA outcome coerces sick and disabled folk to compete for work – but job vacancies are already heavily oversubscribed by fit and healthy applicants Here’s a professional recruitment expert’s analysis of the official UK unemployment statistics, and an astutely relevant observation by somebody at the sharp end of permanent UK mass unemployment: “Today’s figures merely confirm what our barometer has been telling us for three months now, that applications per job are at an all-time high of 23, with not enough growth in the labour market to absorb the numbers being laid off. What’s more, the signs for 2012 just aren’t good.” ~ John Salt, director at recruitment firm totaljobs.com, quoted by Alan Jones in ‘Jobless total hits 17-year high’, The Independent, Wed 18 Jan 2012 • source news report » http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/jobless-total-hits-17yearhigh-6291157.html “The government gives the impression that if everyone got up off their sick bed there would be jobs for them, but that is a load of bollocks, as everyone knows. This policy does not address the fact that there are no employers ready to take on people who have health-limiting problems. How many employers do you know who are willing to employ someone with a history of mental health problems?” ~ Colin Hampton, co-ordinator of the Derbyshire Unemployed Workers’ Centres, Chesterfield, quoted by Amelia Gentleman in ‘The medical was an absolute joke’, The Guardian, Wed 23 Feb 2011 • source news report » http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/23/government-reform-disabilitybenefits So in which universe would an average employer pass over an average of 23 smartly-dressed, clean and tidy, eager and enthusiastic, available-all-year-round, and above all SANE job applicants in favour of an unkempt and dishevelled, dirty and smelly, cynical and pessimistic, well-enough-to-work-only-a-few-months-per-year, and crucially INSANE applicant like me? For the DWP/Atos to even contemplate coercing vulnerable folk with my severe hidden disability condition into the dog-eat-dog competition for heavily oversubscribed job vacancies is an absurd joke – cruel, immoral, and just plain wrong.


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BBC Panorama Exposes the Invalidity of the WCA

Welfare Rights Advisor Neil Bateman, on the BBC's ‘Panorama: Disabled or Faking It?’ (click to access VoD) [quote]

Declan Lawn, BBC Panorama Investigative Journalist: “More than 176,000 [WCA] cases go to appeal tribunals every year [source: Ministry of Justice, 201011], costing the taxpayer a further £50 million [source: Ministry of Justice, 2010-11]. The most recent government figures suggest that, on average, about 30% of those cases are being overturned [source: DWP, July 2012]. Welfare Rights Advisor Neil Bateman says his success rate is much higher.” Neil Bateman, Welfare Rights Advisor : “I think I’ve won all of them so far, and other advisors are getting very similar success rates – 80-90% with experienced advisors is quite common – which is really ridiculous, that we’re getting such a fantastic success rate.” DL: “What does that tell you about the system?” NB: “It tells you the system is badly flawed, that the assessment process, the way they gather the evidence, and the quality of the decision-making is badly wrong.” […] DL: “Between January and August last year, an average of 32 people, who the DWP ruled could be helped back to work, died every week.” […] DL: “Up and down the country, tens of thousands of people are still struggling with a system they believe is at best frustrating, and at worst seriously damaging to their health.” [/quote]

~ from the BBC’s ‘Panorama: Disabled or Faking It?’, Mon 30 Jul 2012 • source VoD, 29:00 » http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01lldrc/?t=6m35s


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UNETHICAL, PERSONALLY

Within the personal domain of individual severely sick and disabled people entitled to ESA-SG, strong arguments can be made that forcing them to undergo a WCA breaches common sense ethics, as well as compromising the professional ethical standards of the medical professionals who perpetrate WCAs. Just two such arguments of the former stripe are presented below.

1. A WCA imposes mandatory demands on sick and disabled folk – but such demands can be impossible to meet, due to severe sickness and/or disability During my current episode of severe bipolar depression, the irrational symptomatic anxieties provoked by the prospect of visiting my best friend’s home in Lewisham – where my rational core psyche knows I am loved, welcomed, and cared for by two adults and three children, pictured below – such anxieties are nevertheless insurmountable (as described in my completed ESA50 questionnaire form), effectively leaving me housebound. So the probability of my being able to attend a stressful and distressing WCA in an unfamiliar location with a complete stranger is absolutely ZERO, and on past experience, will most likely remain so for many months to come. For more detail on the ZERO probability of my being able to attend a WCA, see the IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO ATTEND section below.

Andreas Goldner and family – my friends in Lewisham (taken by me in the Horniman Museum Gardens)

So it seems that an episode of severe mental illness provoked by state attacks on the benefit entitlements of sick and disabled people is preventing me from meeting a DWP/Atos mandatory demand, whilst accompanying threats make clear that an unmet demand may detrimentally affect my ESA-SG payments: the phrase ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ springs readily to mind – inhuman, unethical, and just plain wrong.


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Paul Farmer, Chief Executive of Mind (click to access source blog posting) [quote]

Why the WCA Isn’t Working [...] In July 2010, I joined a the Harrington Scrutiny Panel, which was set up to oversee the work of the WCA Independent Review team. […] Tens of thousands of people are being reassessed using a [WCA] test which is still not fit for purpose. Around 50 per cent of people are appealing against the decision, and a remarkable half of those appeals are being upheld, meaning that as many as one in four tests are wrong. The cost to the taxpayer of the tribunal system alone is £50m, around a half of the £100m a year being spent on reassessment. […] The time has come to call a halt in the reassessment process until real changes are made. It’s damaging people’s lives. It’s costing the taxpayer a fortune. And it certainly isn’t fulfilling its purpose of supporting people with mental health problems. […] I have taken the decision to leave the Harrington Scrutiny Group. Our concerns about the reality of the WCA have grown, but we see insufficient recognition of the need to change the approach, and the need to do so quickly, before more and more people are subjected to a process which isn’t working. [/quote]

~ Paul Farmer, Chief Executive of Mind, Mon 02 Apr 2012 • source blog posting » http://www.mind.org.uk/blog/6632_why_the_wca_isnt_working

2. A WCA’s imposed demands can not only be unmeetable – but can also jeopardise the well-being, the health, and the very lives of the severely sick and disabled folk upon which they are being imposed For people living with a severe mental illness, avoiding situations which induce stress and anxiety can be vital, since failing to do so is likely to provoke or worsen an episode of mental ill-health – as has already occurred five times in my case: 1. with the onset of an episode of severe bipolar clinical depression in late 2011, provoked by the stress and responsibility of negotiating the DWP/Atos’s transition process from IS to ESA-SG 2. with the worsening of that episode at the shock of being initially and erroneously placed in the ESAWRAG (thankfully rectified two weeks later, by the DWP correctly assigning me to the ESA-SG) 3. with the onset of my current episode of severe bipolar clinical depression in early 2013, provoked by the looming prospect of forthcoming changes to benefits Severe Bipolar Clinical Depression vs. WCA: In Error, Immoral, Unethical, and Impossible For Me To Attend

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4. with the worsening of this episode, provoked by the stress and responsibility of negotiating Lambeth Council’s CTB-to-CTS transition process 5. with the further worsening of this episode, provoked by the stress of being erroneously summoned by Atos to attend a WCA As you should be aware, evidence-based medicine reveals that severe bipolar clinical depression carries a high risk factor for suicide. Thankfully, so far I have been free from suicidal ideation, but worrying about the darkly looming prospect of a months-long bureaucratic battle to correct an erroneous summoning by Atos to attend a WCA crushes my well-being, threatens a further worsening of this depressive episode, and may yet provoke suicidal ideation. If the worst should happen, it wouldn’t be the first time the bureaucratic machinations of the DWP/Atos have driven a person with a severe mental health condition to take his own life – see the DWP/ATOS-PROVOKED ESA/WCA SUICIDES section below my signature, or just Google “ESA Suicide”. [quote]

Mental health problems such as depression and anxiety may not be picked up by the government’s new ‘work capability assessment’, critics warn (click to access source news report)

Critics say the [WCA] test is not sophisticated enough to identify the challenges faced by people with mental health problems and warn that the process is increasing the pressure on those already suffering high levels of anxiety and stress. A recent study for the mental health charity Mind found that: • three-quarters of people it surveyed said the prospect of a work capability assessment had made their mental health worse • 51% said it had left them with suicidal thoughts • 95% thought they would not be believed at their assessment [/quote]

~ Matthew Taylor and John Domokos, in ‘Mental health experts warn against pace of incapacity benefit cuts – Open letter to Guardian suggests changes to welfare system are having 'devastating' impact, driving some to suicide’, The Guardian, Tuesday 31 May 2011 • source news report » http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/may/31/incapacity-benefit-cuts-mentalhealth


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What’s even more chilling and sinister is that it seems the DWP cannot even be bothered to monitor the rates at which they are driving severely sick and disabled ESA claimants to commit suicide, as a direct consequence the bureaucratic machinations of the DWP/Atos – as revealed in the following Freedom of Information exchange. [quote]

Webpage Header Info (click to access source webpage)

“Dear Department for Work and Pensions, This is a Freedom of Information request for the suicide rates amongst those in receipt of Incapacity benefit (IB), those in receipt of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and those undergoing the transition from IB to ESA.” ~ George Potter, in FOI #111128 request by email, Mon 26 March 2012 “In answer to your questions I can advise that the Department does not hold any statistics relating to your enquiries; the Department is not informed of the circumstances surrounding claimants’ death.” ~ DWP Medical Services Contracts Correspondence Team, in FOI #111128 response by email, Thu 24 April 2012 [/quote]

• source webpage » https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/111128/response/276137/attach/html/2/FoI %201333%2024.04.12.pdf.html Not only have national and local state attacks on the benefit entitlements of sick and disabled people provoked and worsened my own current episode of severe bipolar clinical depression, but also this erroneous summoning by Atos to attend an unnecessary WCA – and the subsequent looming uphill battle to get this error corrected – threatens to deepen and prolong this episode of severe mental illness still further, which may entrain suicidal ideation, and subsequently provoke a suicide attempt. Surreal as it may feel to be discussing a scenario encompassing my own death with a state agency who is supposedly providing me with “support”, nonetheless there exists a huge weight of incontrovertible evidence showing that other severely ill people have been driven to commit suicide as a direct consequence of the DWP/Atos imposed ‘WCA > benefit cut > successful appeal to tribunal > benefit restored > WCA > benefit cut > [SUICIDE] > appeal to tribunal’ Kafkaesque wheel of torture nightmare, as illustrated in the harrowing testimony from a sister of a DWP/Atos-provoked suicide victim in the video below.


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Depression ➜ DWP/Atos WCA ➜ Suicide: A Sister's Testimony (click here to access video of a tale of DWP/Atos-provoked suicide, which I do NOT intend to allow to happen to me)

'Disabled people protest against Atos Origin' video, 4:08, at The Guardian (click to access VoD)

See also: • ‘The DWP-ATOS WHEEL of TORTURE - A Kafkaesque Killing Joke.pdf’ – PDF, 698 KB, pp1, attached to the same source email message as this document, and illustrated below


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Rather than being able to do the civilised thing, to enjoy living simply, frugally, and peacefully the best life possible for me, subject to being circumscribed by an episodic severe mental illness, instead I feel like Joseph K in ‘The Trial’, forever having to battle against the increasingly vindictive and cruel machinations of a faceless and Kafkaesque state bureaucracy. Despite our bearing no responsibility whatsoever for precipitating the current on-going global financial crisis, severely sick and disabled people like me are being forced to pay an unconscionably high price for it in the besieged degradation of our lives, entrapped into fighting to defend our benefit entitlements against a seemingly never-ending onslaught of state attacks at national and local levels.

“The measure of a civilised society is how it treats its most vulnerable members.”

~ variously attributed (amongst others) to: Aristotle, Pearl Buck, Mahatma Ghandi, Hubert Humphrey, Jimmy Carter By this measure, on examining these state attacks on the benefit entitlements of severely sick and disabled people, many would argue that the only possible conclusion is that our civilisation is becoming increasingly unethical and more barbaric. Man with Bipolar Disorder:

Hospitalised by DWP/Atos WCA, then Classified ‘Fit To Work’

The grossly unethical treatment of people with severe mental illness by Atos HCPs (sic) perpetrating DWP/Atos WCAs (click to access VoD)

• ‘Atos treatment of mental illness’ — a mental health segment from the BBC's ‘Panorama: Disabled or Faking It?’, Mon 30 Jul 2012 • source VoD, 2:19 » http://youtu.be/cFhi53oErTM


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IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO ATTEND

As described in the first paragraph of the UNETHICAL, PERSONALLY section above, the isolation symptom of an episode of severe bipolar clinical depression creates wholly insurmountable anxiety barriers to my participation in normal, everyday, social life. For instance, let’s examine two normal and enjoyable family events… 1. my only brother Jon’s wedding to his current wife Sarah; and 2. the joint christening of their two children, my nephew Sean and my niece Mya, …both of which coincided with the depths of episodes of severe clinical depression.

Jon and Sean, Mya and Sarah

On Jon and Sarah’s wedding day, I only made it half way to the tube station before becoming wholly overwhelmed with symptomatic irrational anxiety arising from the isolation symptom, turning around and locking myself away indoors at home. On Sean and Mya’s christening day, similar mind-crippling anxiety meant I couldn’t even get past the front door. If such archetypal depressive symptom syndromes mean I cannot even attend pleasurable family occasions, with people I love and who I know love me, when my sane core psyche knows doing so will very likely be both personally enjoyable AND do me the world of good, then how the hell can I possibly be expected to meet a demand to attend a WCA? Such a demand would require of me: 1. To use crowded public transport to traverse London • ⬆ [ Anxiety Red Flag #1 ] 2. To travel by a novel route, which is particularly prone to symptomatic errors when severely depressed • ⬆ [ Anxiety Red Flag #2 ] 3. To navigate to a destination building which I’ve never been to before, ditto • ⬆ [ Anxiety Red Flag #3 ] 4. To meet with a complete stranger, when the isolation symptom is screaming its demands at me for utter solitude • ⬆ [ Anxiety Red Flag #4 ] 5. Who would be the first medical professional I’ve ever met in a professional medical context, whose workplace agenda means s/he does NOT have my best interests at heart, but rather those of her/his private sector paymasters Atos IT Services UK Ltd [3] • ⬆ [ Anxiety Red Flag #5 ]


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6. Who will administer a procedure which is as infamous as it is notorious for disingenuously finding severely sick and disabled people to be ‘fit for work’ [3] • ⬆ [ Anxiety Red Flag #6 ] 7. Which finding would jeopardise my correct entitlement to remain assigned to the ESA-SG in perpetuity, and would thereby risk wrecking my precarious mood state and crippling my finances • ⬆ [ Anxiety Red Flag #7 ] 8. All the while knowing that one wrong answer, or measurement, or hesitation might very well lead to a further months-long, arduous, uphill battle in appealing against the consequent DWP Decision Maker’s incorrect judgement • ⬆ [ Anxiety Red Flag #8 ] 9. Which chain of events would undoubtedly lead to a deepening and prolonging of my current episode of severe bipolar clinical depression, leaving me even more debilitated and vulnerable, and hence even less able to negotiate the DWP’s arduous appeals process and self-advocate for my own best interests • ⬆ [ Anxiety Red Flag #9 ] 10.And which procedure, in and of itself, I would most likely find so stressful and debilitating that it would, as a direct consequence, force my mood state to sink lower than it has ever been before, drastically deepening and prolonging my current episode of severe bipolar clinical depression, and possibly leading to suicidal ideation and/or attempts • ⬆ [ Anxiety Red Flag #10 ] You probably only wanted one good reason why, as a direct result of the severe medical condition and hidden disability by which I am entitled to ESA-SG assignment in perpetuity, it is wholly impossible for me to attend a WCA; but I thought it best to set out the 10 most pressing, obvious, and self-evident reasons why forcing a person living with severe Type II Bipolar Affective Disorder to attend a WCA would be cruel, disingenuous, immoral, inhuman, unethical, and just plain wrong.

WCA: INFAMOUS AND DISCREDITED There now exists a veritable mountain of good evidence counting against the validity of the DWP/Atos WCA, all freely available in the public domain, only a minuscule smattering of which I present below. For instance, the British Medical Association (BMA) is the professional association and registered trade union for medical doctors in the UK. So here’s what the national doctor’s TU has to say about the infamous DWP/Atos WCA: scrap it, with immediate effect.

[quote]

News from the BMA Annual Representative Meeting 2012:

Scrap Work Capability Assessment, Doctors Demand The computer-based system being used to determine whether people receiving Employment and Support Allowance are fit to work should be scrapped, the meeting agreed. London GP Louise Irvine said the WCA (work capability assessment) system was causing ‘distress’ to thousands of people with long-term health conditions deemed fit for work, as well as subjecting the doctors involved to ‘McDonaldisation’ of their careers. She said 40 per cent of those who appealed WCA decisions were successful and this success rate rose to 70 per cent for those who took up legal representation. Dr Irvine said: ‘There is no empathy in the system, it is all accusatory.’ […] Severe Bipolar Clinical Depression vs. WCA: In Error, Immoral, Unethical, and Impossible For Me To Attend

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The meeting supported a call on the BMA to demand that the WCA should be ended ‘with immediate effect and be replaced with a rigorous and safe system that does not cause unavoidable harm to some of the weakest and vulnerable in society’. [/quote]

~ from the BMA website, Fri 28 June 2012 • source report » http://bma.org.uk/news-views-analysis/news/2012/june/scrap-work-capabilityassessment-doctors-demand Then there’s Dr Greg Wood, a former Royal Navy doctor, who resigned from his Atos position in May 2013, after working as a WCA assessor for 2.5 years. Dr Wood’s good conscience could no longer stomach the morally obnoxious pressure from Atos bosses: to compromise his professionalism, to turn a blind eye to his medical ethical duty to do no harm, and to swindle severely sick and disabled people out of their entitlement to ESA, as a core function of perpetrating WCAs. After being interviewed by a BBC News team, Dr Wood got to blow the whistle on the national BBC News broadcast, lambasting the “cruel and unfair” WCA, revealing how Atos bosses instructed him “to change my reports, to reduce the number of points that might be awarded to the claimants,” and accusing the ConDem Government of trying “to catch more people in the net than the current test allows by pulling strings behind the scenes to get the result they most desire.” Atos Whistleblower:

WCA Test Is Cruel And Unfair

On the national BBC News, Dr Greg Wood blows the whistle the invalidity of the DWP/Atos WCA (click to access VoD)

~ from national BBC News broadcast, Thu 16 May 2013 • VoD, 3:43 » http://youtu.be/l7SITJdYvaU


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[quote]

“I was instructed to change my reports, to reduce the number of points that might be awarded to the claimants. I felt that was wrong professionally and ethically. My view is the government has tried to catch more people in the net than the current test allows by pulling strings behind the scenes to get the result they most desire. It’s very unfair on the people making claims, they deserve a fair assessment and as a taxpayer I’m pretty cheesed off about the £100m plus that’s being sprayed away on this dog’s breakfast.” ~ Dr Greg Wood, former Royal Navy doctor, who resigned from Atos in May 2013 after working as a WCA assessor for 2.5 years Dr Wood says some of the most severely disabled people are being asked to attend face-to-face assessments, instead of the normal practice of examining their application on paper. The DWP said between March and May 2012, 58% of decisions to award the full sickness benefit were made on paper only, so did not require a face-to-face assessment. Labour MP Tom Greatrex, who has asked a series of Commons questions on the assessments, said Dr Wood’s allegations were “serious and shocking” and he had written to the prime minister asking for an investigation. “The head-in-the-sand approach Tory ministers are adopting isn’t good enough,” he said. “They need to get a grip on this chaotic process which is not only causing misery for some of the most vulnerable members of our society, but also costing taxpayers a fortune at a time when we can least afford it.” [/quote]

~ Sophie Hutchinson, in ‘Disability benefit assessments ‘unfair’, says ex-worker’, BBC News, 16 May 2013 • source news report » http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22546036 I find it remarkably noteworthy that, in response to Dr Wood’s complaint that “some of the most severely disabled people are being asked to attend face-to-face assessments, instead of the normal practice of examining their application on paper,” the DWP seems to be rightfully proud of the fact that “between March and May 2012, 58% of decisions to award the full sickness benefit were made on paper only, so did not require a face-toface assessment.” As a severely disabled person living with a severe mental illness, I was relieved to find myself in that proudly highlighted majority cohort, being awarded the full sickness benefit in Feb 2012, after a DWP examination of my application on paper. So I hope and trust that this recent error of summoning me to attend a face-to-face assessment will be corrected in short order. The DWP/Atos WCA has wrecked/ended the lives of sooo many severely sick and disabled people that the content of the Parliamentary WCA Debate, on Thu 17 Jan 2013, was an unrelenting stream of criticism of both organisations by a host of Members of Parliament, beginning in fine style with Michael Meacher MP.


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10,600 Atos-Related Deaths

Michael Meacher MP's Speech on Atos and its Work Capability Assessment

Michael Meacher tears DWP/Atos a new arsehole by exposing their repellent and disgraceful treatment of severely sick and disabled people, forced through their WCA meat grinder, and including details of 10,600 Atos-related deaths (click to access VoD)

“The present [WCA] criteria and descriptors do not at all take in to account fluctuating conditions, especially mental health problems.” ~ Michael Meacher MP, Parliamentary WCA Debate, Thu 17 Jan 2013 • source VoD, 11:23 » http://youtu.be/VuFw9DT-RlA So not only is the WCA so disgracefully disreputable in general that the UK’s medical doctors, through their British Medical Association, say that it should be scrapped immediately, but in particular it is utterly useless at taking “in to account fluctuating conditions, especially mental health problems.” So on this prima facie evidence, logic self-evidently dictates that severely disabled people like me with “fluctuating mental health problems” should especially NOT be subjected to a WCA, since its results are, de facto, necessarily INVALID.

[quote]

OFFICIAL NOTICE FROM THE I.H.R.C.'s COUNCIL FOR DISABILITY HUMAN RIGHTS As can be seen in this exclusive BBC special report [3], a physician who worked for ATOS for 2 1/2 years has come forward as a whistleblower against ATOS, confirming the International Human Rights Commission’s Council for Disability Human Right,s (IHRC-CDHR) initial suspicions that the United Kingdom has purposely violated the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in numerous ways, with one being through persons with disabilities’ health assessments via ATOS.


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Although the IHRC-CDHR is in the process of finalising a thus far, 300+ page preliminary report, we openly condemn these practices and demand: 1) that the United Kingdom remove ATOS as the agency conducting claimants health assessments and replace it with a consumer-operated non-profit agency for persons with disabilities; 2) that the United Kingdom repeal and/or amend the Welfare Reform Act of 2012; 3) that the subjects of the United Kingdom who are persons with disabilities be given full participation at any and all policy-making decision tables; and 4) that the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities appoint a Special Rapporteur to intervene on behalf of all those negatively affected. […] At this time, the IHRC-CDHR representatives, who are working diligently on these issues, ask for the support of all our IHRC family and the international community as a whole. Respectfully Submitted In Sincere Solidarity with All Who Suffer, [/quote]

~ Cynthia Ralls, President of the IHRC-Council for Disability Human Rights • source » https://www.facebook.com/photo.php? fbid=138017026390920&set=a.133838563475433.1073741828.131177423741547 Now that the invalidity of the DWP/Atos WCA has attracted the concentrated attention of the International Human Rights Commission’s disability rights activist community, I think it’s fair to say that “The Whole World is Watching!” Given the veritable mountain of good evidence counting against the validity of the DWP/Atos WCA, which is now freely available in the public domain, I hope and trust that you don’t expect sick and disabled folk in the UK to hold the whole WCA process in anything other than the utter contempt it so richly deserves. Furthermore, since the Steve Topley debacle in Nottingham [4] illustrates that sick and disabled people are at risk of acquiring a criminal record as a direct consequence of participating in a WCA, it would seem only prudent for us to adopt the winning tactic by which direct action activists confound police interrogation Machiavellian machinations in station interview rooms: decline to participate by answering “No Comment!” to every question put by the interlocutor, be they police or Atos WCA assessor.


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CONCLUSION

Despite my archetypal depressive symptomatic difficulties with maintaining prolonged concentration, I have nevertheless, over a period of five days, assembled my considered response to what I believe to be an erroneous summons to attend a WCA, most likely issued by a disgruntled Atos employee, or else arising from some other bureaucratic misdemeanour. So now I ask that this error be corrected, in line with standing DWP/Atos policy to assign severely sick and disabled people to ESA-SG by examination of evidence on paper (as has already happened for me in February 2012), without subjecting them to the additional unnecessary stress of a WCA. Even if the DWP/Atos will not openly admit to such an error having arisen, I have set out above as how to force a severely disabled person with the severe mental illness of Type II Bipolar Affective Disorder to attend a WCA would be… • immoral, within the current socioeconomic landscape, • unethical, within the personal domain, and • a demand which it is impossible for me to meet anyway, given my archetypal depressive symptomatology, which arises from the permanent, life-long, hidden disability and severe incurable medical condition which entitles me to ESA-SG assignment in perpetuity. Thanks for your time and attention. As mentioned above, do please forward this message within the Atos and DWP email domains in order to rectify this error, or otherwise to withdraw this impossible-to-meet demand. Needles to say, for the top 10 reasons stated in the IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO ATTEND section above and more, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that I shall be able to attend the Marylebone Medical Assessment Centre at 15:20 on Fri 14 Jun 2013, so do please feel free to reassign this scheduled slot. Due to the severe nature of my disability, I cannot use the phone to help resolve this DWP/Atos error, so please ensure communications are in writing – by email for preference (with an accurate email address to which I may respond in your message header’s [Reply-To] field), or by snail mail as necessary (but please include an email address to which I may send any required response). I trust I shall be hearing from the DWP/Atos all in good time.

Yours in anxious depressed distress, Tim Jones


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FOOTNOTES [1] The infamous and discredited ‘Work Capability Assessment’ – for instance, see: • ‘The disturbing truth about disability assessments’, by Dr. Margaret McCartney, general practitioner from Glasgow, Wed 08 Aug 2012 • BMJ 2012;345:e5347 » http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e5347 • See also: WCA: INFAMOUS AND DISCREDITED section above [2] @Atos – your profit-centric enterprise (£100 million per year from the DWP!) – widely quoted, for example by Channel 4 Dispatches investigative journalist Jackie Long, in: • ‘Britain on the Sick’, a Channel 4 Dispatches investigation – Using covert undercover filming by Dr Steven Bick inside Atos, reporter Jackie Long investigates the controversial processes used to assess whether sickness and disability benefit claimants should be declared fit for work • VoD, 27:15 » http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/4od#3458594 [3] To seek to classify people living with permanent, life-long, and incurable disabilities as ‘fit for work’ by measuring them against a deliberately skewed model worker archetype; and... Who would be the first medical professional I’ve ever met in a professional medical context, whose workplace agenda means s/he does NOT have my best interests at heart, but rather those of her/his paymasters Atos IT Services UK Ltd: • Dr Greg Wood, a former Royal Navy doctor, who resigned from Atos in May 2013 after working as a WCA assessor for 2.5 years, told the BBC the WCA system was “skewed against the claimant”. • source: ‘Disability benefit assessments 'unfair', says ex-worker’, by Sophie Hutchinson, BBC News, 16 May 2013 » http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22546036 • See also: WCA: INFAMOUS AND DISCREDITED section above [4] The Steve Topley debacle in Nottingham illustrates that sick and disabled people are at risk of acquiring a criminal record as a direct consequence of participating in a WCA – see: • ‘Man Jailed After Comments Made In Atos Assessment’, 25 Apr 2013 • news report » http://atosvictimsgroup.co.uk/2013/04/25/man-jailed-after-comments-made-in-atos-assessment/ • Free Steve Topley • freedom campaign blog » http://freestevetopley.wordpress.com


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DWP/ATOS-PROVOKED ESA/WCA SUICIDES

A Week of Action Against ATOS Origin beginning with a protest outside the London HQ of Atos Origin, Mon 09 May 2011 [quote]

At the protest outside Atos’s headquarters last month, one young man, nervous and clearly not accustomed to addressing rallies, took the microphone to explain how his uncle, who had severe mental health problems, committed suicide after the test gave him zero points and found him fit to work. Dismayed to find his benefit claim rejected, he had appealed against the decision, and won at tribunal. But shortly after that decision, he was called in for another assessment, and for a second time scored zero points and was told he did not qualify for the benefit. He began appealing against the decision again, but a few days before another tribunal date was set, he hanged himself. His family did not want his name in the paper, but sent through a copy of the serious incident review carried out by the local jobcentre, which concluded: “We need to review the WCA and appeal process to take the needs of our vulnerable customers into account.” His sister acknowledges that it is hard to know precisely why someone kills themselves, but said she was clear, after reading all his correspondence, that he was finding the prolonged assessment and reassessment process profoundly stressful. The DWP would not comment on an individual case, but said that improvements to how the test handles people with mental health problems are under way. This is an extreme example of a frequent problem. “Failing the WCA can have a detrimental effect on an individual’s mental health, which is further compounded by the pressure of challenging unfavourable decisions at tribunal,” the Scottish Association for Mental Health says. The government knows that the new test has many problems, not least because a detailed independent report set out the numerous shortcomings of the system last November. Its author, Professor Malcolm Harrington, concluded that much needed to be done to make the assessment “fairer and more effective”.


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He warned that some conditions were “more difficult to assess than others. This appears to be the case with more subjective conditions such as mental health or other fluctuating conditions. All the evidence shows that the longer an individual is off sick, the less likely it is that they will return to work,” he writes. [/quote]

~ Amelia Gentleman, in ‘The medical was an absolute joke’, The Guardian, Wed 23 Feb 2011 • source news report » http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/23/government-reform-disability-benefits

Anti-Atos Protest in Northampton, Tue 28 Aug 2012 [quote]

Julie Tipping, an appeals officer for the charity Disability Solutions, […] said many people with mental health problems had had their benefits cancelled and appealed successfully, only to be told their case needed to be reassessed again. “This is having a devastating impact on people with mental health issues,” said Tipping. “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 deliberate grinding down process. It is devastating to see.” 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. “These were really serious attempts, not cries for help, these were people who had just had enough and this was the final straw for them … do we really need to wait to such a stage where people are trying to throw themselves from a bridge before somebody listens to how chronically affected they are by their condition? Is that the kind of society we want to live in?” [quote]

~ Matthew Taylor and John Domokos, in ‘Mental health experts warn against pace of incapacity benefit cuts – Open letter to Guardian suggests changes to welfare system are having ‘devastating’ impact, driving some to suicide attempts’, The Guardian, Tue 31 May 2011 • source news report » http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/may/31/incapacity-benefit-cuts-mental-health


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DWP, ATOS – YOU HAVE BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS! Anti-Atos Protest at the Royal Courts of Justice, 16 Jan 2013 [quote]

Fatal Consequences Of Benefit Changes An Open Letter from: • Paul Farmer – Chief executive, Mind • Paul Jenkins – Chief executive, Rethink Mental Illness • Prof Bob Grove – Joint chief executive, Centre for Mental Health • Dr Jed Boardman – Consultant and senior lecturer in social psychiatry, Royal College of Psychiatrists, • Bill Walden-Jones – Chief executive, Hafal, • Billy Watson – Chief executive, Scottish Association for Mental Health Reform of the welfare system is steaming ahead, and already we’re hearing about the devastating effects this is having on the mental health of hundreds of thousands of people across Great Britain. While much is made of the impact that changes to benefits will have on people with physical disabilities, it is vital that those with “invisible” issues such as mental health problems are not forgotten. Reassessments of people on incapacity benefit (IB) via the deeply flawed work capability assessment are due to start next month, and the new personal independence payment test is being trialled over the summer – just some of the changes already alarming many people affected by mental distress. We’ve found that the prospect of IB reassessment is causing huge amounts of distress, and tragically there have already been cases where people have taken their own life following problems with changes to their benefits. We are hugely worried that the benefits system is heading in a direction which will put people with mental health problems under even more pressure and scrutiny, at a time when they are already being hit in other areas such as cuts to services. There needs to be a shift towards a more sympathetic and supportive system that genuinely takes into account the additional challenges people with mental health problems face and can make a real objective assessment of their needs rather than placing them into a situation where their well-being is put at risk. [quote]

~ from Letters to The Guardian, Tue 31 May 2011 • source Open Letter » http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/may/31/consequences-benefit-changes-mentalhealth Severe Bipolar Clinical Depression vs. WCA: In Error, Immoral, Unethical, and Impossible For Me To Attend

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And Finally...

THE GALLERY – A Selection of Atos-Inspired Artworks

Here’s a little light mood music from graphic artists as well known as The Guardian’s award-winning cartoonists Steve Bell and Bluelou, to ordinary sick and disabled folk forced into disability rights activism and artistic inspiration by the plethora of state attacks on their benefit entitlements. Only it’s really rather heavy mood music, rather than light – but when a Department of State and their private sector sub-contractor lickspittles at Atos are driving severely sick and disabled folk to commit suicide, it’s no surprise that such an enterprise draws parallels with the worst excesses of [ human | machine ] cruelty and horror.


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