the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues
A senior US executive decided to offload millions of dollars-worth of stock in his own company, just two weeks after it began delivering the controversial UK government contract to assess disabled people’s fitness for work. Maximus took over the £595 million […]
Disabled activists say government-funded research, which concludes that the programme to reassess people on incapacity benefit through the work capability assessment (WCA) was linked to 590 suicides in just three years, is both “damning” and “timely”. Campaigners, doctors and psychiatrists have […]
The Department of Health, doctors’ and nurses’ unions and the contractors paid to carry out the assessments have refused to pledge to take any action following new research linking the government’s “fitness for work” test with about 600 suicides. The study […]
In the run-up to the general election, civil servants sketched out plans to charge claimants a fee if they tried to appeal to a tribunal after being found ineligible for benefits, Disability News Service (DNS) can reveal. The policy proposal was […]
A Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) contractor saw its share price plunge in the US after revealing that it has struggled to recruit doctors and nurses from the NHS to assess disabled people’s “fitness for work”. Maximus took over the […]
A disabled man died of a heart attack, just an hour after being told that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was threatening to stop paying his out-of-work disability benefits. Alan McArdle (pictured), who had previously been homeless but was […]
Disabled activists have called for ministers to face a criminal investigation, over their apparent failure to hand a crucial coroner’s report about the discredited “fitness for work” test to their own independent expert. Earlier this week, a Disability News Service (DNS) […]
Ministers appear to have failed to hand a crucial report about the work capability assessment – warning it put at risk the lives of thousands of people with mental health conditions – to the expert they commissioned to review the test. […]
Ministers appear to have allowed a controversial disability benefits assessment to be rolled out to hundreds of thousands of long-term claimants with mental health conditions, even though a coroner had warned it was a threat to their lives. Employment minister Chris […]
The father of a man who took his own life after being found “fit for work” believes his son would still be alive if he had not been failed by the benefits system the government and its contractor, Atos. Stephen Carre, […]