Criticism of the Work Capability Assessment awarded, Atos said: In August, the whistleblower expanded on his allegations in a first-hand account published by the "British Medical Journal". He suggested that the DWP's alleged actions might have been at least partly driven by pressure to "reduce government debt". The DWP's senior doctors made no reply but the clinical director of Atos did respond. In relation to the claim that some Atos assessors had been led to interpret the test's criteria too harshly, she did not deny that the "bogus rules of thumb" had been used in training talks but she said that assessors were expected to follow
Incapacity Benefit had not changed significantly; what had changed was the rate at which recipients were coming "off" the benefit to move back into work (after their illness had begun to improve, for instance, or by finding a job "despite" their disability) - it had fallen. The bulk of the rise in the caseload occurred during the late 1980s, the 1990s and the first years of the 21st century. In 2004, the caseload began to "fall" slowly. Ministers complained about a "sick-note culture" that allowed people to drift onto Incapacity Benefit. A medical certificate from a GP is the first step onto