the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues
Disabled people have been failed by the government’s inability to manage the assessments for disability benefits that are carried out by outsourcing giants Atos Maximus and Capita, according to the chair of an influential committee of MPs. Labour MP Meg Hillier, […]
Damning new evidence suggests that senior figures in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) covered up a coroner’s warning about the grave dangers posed by a new disability assessment. Disability News Service (DNS) has seen a series of letters that […]
Ministers and civil servants were “ruthless” and “reckless” in forcing through their new “fitness for work” test and refusing to abandon it even after they were told of the harm it was causing, according to a former government adviser. Professor Geoff […]
Government plans to cut support for many disabled people on out-of-work benefits could harm their mental health and make it harder for them to return to work, according to a review led by a disabled peer. The review by the disabled […]
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 […]