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 declared 'fit for work' formally appealed against the decision, at which stage 40% of decisions challenged were overturned and the claimant moved onto ESA, not JSA. By May 2017, fewer than 3000 people were still receiving the old payment. The number of claimants of sickness benefits increased rapidly from the mid-1980s. The trend was investigated in a series of studies commissioned by the government in 1991 and published in 1993. Several possible causes were identified: The House of Commons research paper that summarised the studies' findings in the 1990s concluded that the number of new claims and their general pattern