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
Work Capability Assessment appear to have been adjusted upwards to reflect the more severe disabilities experienced by the people being tested from 2011 onwards. In 2013, the Work Programme's training providers - outsourcing companies who coach and train people put into the Work-Related Activity Group after their WCA - complained that claimants who were "clearly unfit for any type of work-related activity" were nonetheless being put in the Work-Related Activity Group rather than the Support Group, and that "claimants with terminal cancer, whose life expectancies were shorter than the work-ready prognosis" had been referred to them for pre-employment training. Years later, after much