Atos Contract Management Meeting Minutes (2)

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Dear Department for Work and Pensions,

In DWP Ref FoI 1672 of 7th May 2013 the DWP stated in response to the question “Why are nurses prohibited from completing assessments on paper (see CSHU in minutes)?”:

“In response to Q 3 nurses are prohibited from completing paper based assessments because
they are not currently routinely trained in this method of conducting medical assessment reports.

Q1 - Why are nurses not routinely trained in this method of conducting medical assessment reports?

Q2 – Does this mean that nurses are unable to conduct WCA in claimant’s homes?

Q3 - Are Doctors routinely trained in this method of conducting medical assessment reports?

Q4 - Are Physiotherapists routinely trained in this method of conducting medical assessment reports?

In DWP Ref FoI 1672 of 7th May 2013 the DWP stated in response to the question “Please tell me what the significant IT issue was that was reported under CSHU (Customers Sent Home Unseen) and which organisation was responsible for it (DWP or Atos)?”:

“In reply to Qs 1 2 & 4 the minutes referenced verbal discussions that were undertaken within the meeting which were not supported by documentation, so therefore it is not possible to provide you with a copy.”

Q5 – It is simply not credible that the DWP does not have written information about the “significant IT issue” discussed at the meeting in question. If it really is the case that significant IT issues are able to occur resulting in medical assessments having to be cancelled but nothing is recorded as to the cause, how long it took to rectify and what actions were taken to ensure that the same problem does not occur again, then someone within the DWP is guilty of gross negligence. Please provide the information that answers the question below:

Please tell me what the significant IT issue was that was reported under CSHU (Customers Sent Home Unseen) and which organisation was responsible for it (DWP or Atos)?

Yours faithfully,

Gerald Jones

DWP DWP Medical Services Correspondence, Department for Work and Pensions

1 Attachment

Mr Jones

Please see attached reply to your Freedom of Information request

Many Thanks

Business Management Team | Department for Work and Pensions | Contracted Customer Services Directorate | DWP Operations | Room 306, Block 3, Norcross, Norcross Lane, Blackpool FY5 3TA | www.dwp.gov.uk | Please consider the environment before printing

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Dear DWP DWP Medical Services Correspondence,

Thank you for the information.

Yours sincerely,

Gerald Jones

Phil Howard left an annotation ()

forgive me if this has been answered on another occasion.
Can we the customer demand to be seen by a doctor and to have a 100% paper WCA report
home visits are done by GP's only because of a lack of IT support at the home.And they are the only HCP's trained to do paper WCA reports(esa85).
Can we demand just paper reports because it has been seen many a time, That LIMA is not fit for purpose.
Just a thought.
Phil :)

Gerald Jones left an annotation ()

Phil,
The relevant legislation only states that a WCA will be carried out by a HCP approved by the Secretary of State (SoS). It is silent on the merits of one type of HCP over another (i.e. Doctors versus Nurses). It is also the case that the use of LiMA is not mentioned within any legislation, it is simply the SoS opting to use LiMA as opposed to HCP completing a paper based report.

My view is that as the use of LiMA is not defined in legislation and the DWP has admitted that it has not been independently tested or validated then it has not been shown as being fit for purpose. As far as the Courts are concerned there is no definitive evidence that LiMA is not fit for purpose. However, someone with strong IT knowledge could build a compelling case that LiMA has not been developed and tested using IT Industry best practice. I would use the argument that there are many examples of complex IT systems that have followed ‘best practice’ and yet failed so on the balance of probabilities it is more likely than not that LiMA is flawed. A number of FOIA requests on this site have forced the DWP to admit that the so-called comprehensive evidence based information is far from comprehensive (especially where medication is concerned) and is extremely out of date (a lot of the information tends to come from American sources which are not peer reviewed and appear to have their own agendas (anti benefit)).

There is nothing in any of the relevant legislation that states claimants cannot request their WCA be conducted by a Doctor and that LiMA is not used. The DWP will no doubt claim that the claimant is refusing to submit to a WCA and remove / deny their claim. However, given that Doctors carry out home visits and complete the WCA using a paper based form then I think the DWP would find it hard to prove this.

If the matter went to a tribunal (I’m not sure if the DWP would want this to happen) then I think there is enough evidence in the public domain that claimants could use to show that any reasonable person in their position (this should be the test used by the Judge) would not want LiMA used.

As far as insisting on a Doctor as a separate issue to LiMA being used I think it would be harder to argue. I would use the fact that the DWP itself doesn’t regard all HCP as being equal. Clearly the answers provided by the DWP here prove that Nurses are regarded as being less capable than Doctors. If the person’s previous WCA had been carried out by a Nurse and they could show it was grossly inaccurate and untrue then you could argue that it was reasonable to assume that all Nurses would be that bad (especially as LiMA is supposed to ‘help’ Nurses). If the person had complex medical issues then they could argue that it required the knowledge and expertise of a Doctor to ensure that a fair and accurate WCA was carried out so that the Decision Maker was presented with accurate and appropriate evidence.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that someone could insist that their WCA only be completed by a Doctor and that LiMA was not used. However, I suspect that the DWP would use all the threats available to it to bully them and that the claimant would have to be prepared to take the matter all the way to a Tribunal.

Phil Howard left an annotation ()

Thank You Gerald.
I will attempt to find out via the DWP if you can have,demand a paper only WCA.
I will get back to you if I find out any information on the matter.
Thanks again
Phil :)