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A senior opposition MP is to write to the minister for disabled people to ask how she plans to penalise government contractors Atos and Capita, following last week’s “devastating” revelations about their “shocking” failings in delivering disability benefit assessments. Stephen Lloyd, […]
A watchdog is examining the failure of two healthcare regulators to punish nurses, paramedics and physiotherapists who write dishonest benefit assessment reports. The Professional Standards Authority (PSA) is looking at concerns about the way regulators deal with complaints about nurses, physiotherapists […]
Disabled campaigners have reacted to the political row over the Motability car scheme by calling for the organisation that runs it to use part of its huge financial reserves to increase support for disabled people. Details emerged in a newspaper last […]
A Deaf chief executive has won the right to question the government’s “discriminatory” cap on Access to Work (AtW) payments in the high court, in the latest legal challenge to the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) disability policy agenda. David […]
Lawyers and campaigners have raised fresh concerns about the government’s approach to providing legal advice to people who need help with discrimination and special educational needs (SEN) cases, after ministers abandoned efforts to award new contracts in those areas. The Ministry […]
Disabled activists have attacked the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) for hosting a conference on “choice at the end of life” that was little more than a “love fest for euthanasia”. RSM said before the event that the conference would “question […]
Outsourcing companies have been failing to request vital evidence from GPs and social workers that would help disabled people secure the benefits they are entitled to, confidential Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) documents have revealed. The “absolutely shocking” reports, released […]
Scores of healthcare professionals may have been able to continue carrying out disability benefit assessments despite being the subject of multiple complaints about their behaviour, competence and honesty, confidential new documents have revealed. The official reports, prepared by outsourcing giants Capita […]
Nearly one in three of the disability benefit assessment reports completed by a private sector contractor were significantly flawed, confidential Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) documents suggest. The figures were revealed through a government audit of personal independence payment (PIP) […]
The head of the government’s national suicide prevention strategy has refused to call on the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to highlight the high risk of suicide faced by people who receive out-of-work disability benefits. Louis Appleby, a professor […]