Identification of Medical Research carried out by Atos Healthcare for WCA
Dear Department for Work and Pensions,
The DWP states that the structure underpinning the Work Capability Assessment is derived from "evidence based medical research carried out by Atos Healthcare to determine the functional consequences of specific clinical signs".
When I emailed Atos Healthcare to request identification of this medical research I was directed to contact the DWP for it. I was surprised, as since it was conducted by Atos Healthcare one would expect them to take responsibility for it. I pressed them further, but they repeated that "any enquiry related to an area of Atos Healthcare's Business is a FOI" and that contractually the DWP is responsible for dealing with these. Very surprising.
Regardless, I must then request from the DWP, as I did from Atos, details of what this research constitutes. I would expect an extensive and comprehensive body of research, including all relevant material such as: Names of researchers involved, evidence generated, methods, conclusions, meta-analyses etc in such forms as reports, journal articles, conference reports and so on.
Yours faithfully,
Gill Thorburn
This is an automated confirmation that your request for information has
been received at the DWP Central FoI Team.
We will forward your request to the relevant information owner within the
Department who will respond to you direct.
Should you also have any further queries in connection with this request
do please contact us.
For further information on the Freedom of Information Act within DWP
please click on the link below.
[1]http://www.dwp.gov.uk/freedom-of-informa...
References
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Dear DWP Adelphi Freedom-of-Information-Request,
I have not received a response to this request by the date required. I am informed that you should have done this by 26th August by law. I think this matter is of great public interest, and any research that Atos have produced legitimises the WCA and therefore should be available to be scrutinised by those who are undergoing this process.
Yours sincerely,
Gill Thorburn
This is an automated confirmation that your request for information has
been received at the DWP Central FoI Team.
We will forward your request to the relevant information owner within the
Department who will respond to you direct.
Should you also have any further queries in connection with this request
do please contact us.
For further information on the Freedom of Information Act within DWP
please click on the link below.
[1]http://www.dwp.gov.uk/freedom-of-informa...
References
Visible links
1. http://www.dwp.gov.uk/freedom-of-informa...
Dear G Thorburn,
Thank you for your Freedom of Information request dated 28 July 2011
that was received by Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Adelphi and
forwarded for response by the DWP Commercial Management of Medical
Services Freedom of Information Officer. In your email you asked to be
provided with information answering the following questions:-
The DWP states that the structure underpinning the Work Capability
Assessment is derived from "evidence based medical research carried out
by Atos Healthcare to determine the functional consequences of specific
clinical signs".
When I emailed Atos Healthcare to request identification of this
medical research I was directed to contact the DWP for it. I was
surprised, as since it was conducted by Atos Healthcare one would expect
them to take responsibility for it. I pressed them further, but they
repeated that "any enquiry related to an area of Atos Healthcare's
Business is a FOI" and that contractually the DWP is responsible for
dealing with these. Very surprising.
Regardless, I must then request from the DWP, as I did from Atos,
details of what this research constitutes. I would expect an extensive
and comprehensive body of research, including all relevant material such
as: Names of researchers involved, evidence generated, methods,
conclusions, meta-analyses etc in such forms as reports, journal
articles, conference reports and so on.
In response to your comment above, the Freedom of Information Act 2000
applies to certain Public bodies including the Department for Work and
Pensions. Atos Healthcare is a private company and is therefore not
subject to the Act. They are, however, carrying out functions on the
Department's behalf and for questions relating to these matters the
Department has an obligation under the terms of the Act to answer.
Please find attached link to the DWP website which contains the
Transformation of the Personal Capability Assessment report as per your
request for the research that underpinned the Work Capability
Assessment.
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/policy/welfare%2Dr...
/
If you have any queries about this letter please contact me quoting the
reference number above.
Yours sincerely,
DWP Central FoI Team
Gill Thorburn left an annotation ()
Ok, to anyone who was following this I would just like to say that I have now had two contradictory responses from the DWP to this request.
The first came as Atos had passed on my request to the DWP and they responded by email. The result was they sent me a whole raft of 'evidence based' documents which spans the whole of the conditions spectrum and which underpin (legitimise) the WCA.
They are in the form of zips which contain word docs under the categories of Cardio (including Respiratory), MH (Mental Health), Muscolo (MusculoSkeletal) and Neuro+Infec (Includes CFS, HIV&Aids and the intriguingly titled 'Medically Unexplained Symptoms' - which contains only the sentence: "This is a new protocol which is under review.", lol)
As this particular FOI has been unproductive (I had thought it would be a way of sharing these docs). I have now put them in the Public area of my Dropbox account for anyone who wishes to download them. There is also an Introduction document.
The links are as follows:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32109159/ATOS/Me...
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32109159/ATOS/Me...
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32109159/ATOS/Me...
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32109159/ATOS/Me...
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32109159/ATOS/Me...
If there is any problem with the links please leave a note and I will arrange some other way of sending them to you. I believe they may also be available in other places on the net, but have not seen the full set so far.
Mr Peterson left an annotation ()
Very helpful zips Gill, many thanks for those. No problems downloading them either.
Best Regards and keep up the good work in the fight against the Atoscaust Denial
Gill Thorburn left an annotation ()
You're welcome :)
Glad the zips downloaded ok. Thanks for the feedback for the dropbox thing, I hadn't been sure how effective it would be for others to download from. Good to know it works! I'm hoping that all the sharing people are doing will eventually come to something. What's been going on with Atos in support of this (and the previous) government's 'reform of welfare' is nothing short of abuse of the sick and disabled. The sad thing is people don't realise until they are exposed to it, so its hard to convey to people how twisted it all is.
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Gill Thorburn left an annotation ()
I have marked this as a partial supply of information, though they have supplied none, bar a link to irrelevant general pdfs on the WCA. It does however inadvertently reveal a refusal to supply information that is anything to do with Atos, either by the company themselves or the DWP. Draw your own conclusions!
Please see the following annotation for access to this 'medical research conducted by Atos'. It is basically a set of what they call 'Evidence Based Protocols for the Disability Analyst'.