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Ministers have refused to say if they implemented 10 measures – recommended by their own civil servants – that would have made it less likely that “vulnerable” benefit claimants would lose their lives. The 10 recommendations were taken from some of […]
After 21 months of smokescreens excuses, obstruction and secrecy, work and pensions ministers have finally been forced to publish some of the conclusions reached by their own civil servants about the mistakes that led to 49 benefit claimants losing their lives. […]
The discredited US outsourcing giant contracted to carry out “fitness for work” tests on behalf of the government has been accused by an MP of “falsifying” the results of assessments. Labour MP Louise Haigh attacked the track record, ethics and even […]
The shadow minister for disabled people has implicated New Labour in an apparent cover-up of the government’s failure to respond to a coroner’s report on the suicide of a disabled man found “fit for work”. Debbie Abrahams has repeatedly refused to […]
The Ministry of Justice is refusing to investigate why the Department for Work and Pensions failed to fulfil its legal duty to respond to a coroner’s report that linked a disabled man’s suicide to its “fitness for work” test. The coroner’s […]
Proposals by two groups of English GPs that they and their colleagues should no longer be responsible for providing “fitness to work” certificates for their patients have alarmed disabled activists. GPs from Kent’s local medical committee (LMC) have proposed in a […]
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 […]
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 […]