The Tentacles of a Government Provider For WCA and Beyond

This Company was first given a contract in 1997 and  given a new contract in 2005 by Labour to carry out the WCA to get those it felt were left on the scrap heap of Incapacity Benefit when the Tories were in power to fudge the unemployment figures under Thatcher. Well the amount of stuff since then has been mind-boggling and I have followed all the stuff I could  since the Coalition got into power to investigate who and what this company were about. In this blog I am going to attempt to put it all together in some sort of order, but  it may not be in chronological order . I will post links and also a Dropbox link to enable readers to access documents.

https://www.dropbox.com/home/Public

This will be a very long blog.

To make things clear the Coalition re negotiated the ATOS Contract and tightened up the WCA because they felt it was too soft on the workshy scroungers  who were abusing the system albeit a very small minority that ‘Actually  Did So’.

As we all know the rhetoric of  the coalition is now infamous for, using language which included workshy, scrounger, benefit cheat, sofa surfers, shirker, hard-working people, taxpayer ,handouts, something for nothing culture, to name just a few of the awful buzz words to win over the voter who genuinely believed almost everyone on benefits was on the ‘fiddle’ while those working were getting a raw deal, when actually  wages had fallen consistently  which is what caused the disparity and the ‘hardworking taxpayer’ was  working long hours while others sat on their backsides getting ‘something for nothing’ ! Reality is it was touch of ‘green eyed monster’ of those on minimum wages who could not afford  what some had, as with each family unit,   some valued the flat screen tv and sky box , while others needed those two  holidays a year a claimant could only dream of, and some of the so-called items were gained by debt, or shrewd budgeting  by those on both sides of the argument. They then set up the Benefit Fraud Line  alongside the Fraud Department which was already in place and failed to catch the real few offenders of fraud who thus far had eluded them, and actively coerced the public into reported those they suspected of fraud  so they got the public to do their dirty work for them. This led to malicious calls to this line in 98% of cases were malicous and only 137 people since this was introduced have actually been prosecuted and jailed for it ,although press headlines would have you believe otherwise.

Claimants across the UK organised themselves to form groups like Disabled People Against The Cuts, Black Triangle Campaign, Boycott Workfare ,Spartacus, and many more individual campaigners who day in day out   to fight against the Austerity Cuts falling on those at the bottom of the ladder under the guise of a non-existent deficit caused by the bankers crash of 2008.

Here is where we begin this story of a company who were given a contract which would end up being a noose around their necks and so toxic they bailed out .

When the named groups started out not much was known about them  and through hard work and diligence of them all the operandi soon became apparent it was to cut Welfare State in its entirety. claimants were the target and the disabled are the group most affected by the WCA.   The WCA is in two groups Support group for those who most need help and unable to work, and the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) for those who in the future could do some work and should work towards that according to the Government’s ideology ,when in fact it was always about making it almost impossible to get any welfare assistance and cost cutting in such a barbaric way which we are all now familiar with.

To fight back they held Direct Actions, Lobbied MP’s, wrote reports and used whatever tools they could to put it into the main public arena to let the public know what they hell was going on  for many sufferers of this new Orwellian Regime enforced upon them  and they knew this was going to get much worse for all the population of the UK eventually, and even now most of the UK are walking into a nightmare scenario  to which they can never return and most things the British Public hold dear  will have vanished in the space of 5 years, while they were all looking the other way.

The whole thing started when Schlumberger acquired Sema an IT company and developed a software programme that could be adapted to be used for almost any environment to gather information. Then Atos Origin bought  this company and LIMA was born for use  to use for the WCA Assessments  for Work Capability  used by HCP’s to conduct their work and produce reports on those claimants who were deemed fit for work, or in one of the other two groups mentioned earlier. (LIMA Documents will be in Dropbox) HCP’s were recruited from Occupational Health, Nurses, and Doctors and the reign of terror began, this is what disabled people who have endured this test feel and justly so.

http://secfilings.nyse.com/filing.php?doc=1&attach=ON&ipage=1333487&rid=23  Link to Schlumberger acquisition

http://disabilityuk.com/dla/sema_group.htm

http://www.zdnet.com/atos-origin-resumes-government-projects-3040090083/

http://unuminsurance.blogspot.co.uk/

Atos had links to Private Insurance  Company Unum who were banned in USA in 15 states due to maladministration.

http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2013/08/28/unums-unaccepatable-influence-in-the-formulation-of-uk-dwp-atos-disability-assessment-regime-letter-to-president-of-the-faculty-of-occupational-medicine-royal-college-of-physicians/

http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2011/10/01/unum-the-dwp-conflicts-of-interest-insider-trading/

https://www.facebook.com/SupportNurseWhoBlowsWhistleOnAtosAssessments?fref=ts

Meanwhile back in UK  many found their lives turned upside down  being found fit for work when clearly they were not, decisions where they should be in Support Group but were placed in WRAG, and Job seekers were thrown into a brutal regime of Work Programmes, Workfare, Sanctions and denial of benefits which left many penniless, and some soon faced with the Under Occupancy Bill aka Bedroom Tax which would place further stresses and strain on family life as well as individually and  some of those so grossly affected (by mental health conditions) started to DIE yes I said that awful word where some poor souls felt the only way out was the ultimate thing they could control in their lives was to commit suicide or they died due to fact they were denied benefits they were entitled too down to serious life threatening illnesses after having to fight appeal after appeal and stress that was induced by this harsh regime. On top of all this we now have Benefit Cap affecting many, Homelessness rising along with incidences of Disability Hate Crime and of course last but not least Universal Credit debacle and a redesign of DLA soon to become PIP where more people will have benefits removed  for no other reason that a money grabbing exercise unless they get pulled too, which if so means the wheels of the  governments welfare reforms come to a standstill  or car crash  would be best description. Many of our MP’s have vested interests in Healthcare Companies like Circle Holdings and IT  Software Companies too. The Blog Below has many more links re NHS.

http://socialinvestigations.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/141-peers-have-financial-links-to.html

So I decided to take peak at what they were about and very little was available at the time on their website Atos Healthcare, But after a lot of digging the picture began to emerge that this global company was a lot larger than anyone knew about and my journey into sourcing Atos stuff began. I came across  Why Wait Forever site http://www.whywaitforever.com/dwpatoscontract.html and scoured what info and links I could get from that. It has taken three years research to come up with some of the information I will be putting in this blog, as well as any campaign work I have had to do. I’m not going  into a long drawn out blog as such, I will post documents and links and you can search into stuff yourselves but I’ll give you a decent heads up on what this company is about, but ultimately they were a business given a job to do, that was toxic from the start and ironically became victims themselves of the Governments demands which created a pressure cooker that led to their exit of WCA, while gaining new contracts for PIP and the NHS. They are not only Company who carry out this test Capita,G4S & Serco are all involved in various ways as this governments key 4 contractors, who sub contract work out to others and have sub companies themselves. Salus is operating in Scotland  but globally this company is in 48 countries inc Africa.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-24/lamb-for-12-on-400-monthly-shows-south-africa-welfare-addiction.html

http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?page_id=16

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atos

http://www.atoshealthcare.com/

http://hec.campusgroups.com/gml/blog/ceo-speaker-series-with-mr.-bernard-bourigeaud/2828/

http://worktestwhistleblower.blogspot.co.uk/

http://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=15609

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/HOW+ATOS+SCHMOOZED+NHS+CHIEFS%3B+REVEALED%3B+Golf+days+and+black+tie…-a0309936401

http://www.nhslanarkshire.org.uk/boards/2013-board-papers/Documents/October/PIP–October-2013-Board.pdf

http://uk.atos.net/en-uk/home/your-business/government.html

http://uk.atos.net/en-uk/home/your-business/government/g-cloud-services.html

http://uk.atos.net/content/dam/global/case-study/case-study-government-gateway.pdf

http://www.serco.com/about/ataglance/profiles/index.asp

http://uk.atos.net/en-uk/home/your-business/healthcare/business-intelligence/gp-extraction-service.html

http://uk.atos.net/en-uk/sitemap.html

http://atos.net/en-us/home/investors/analyst-coverage.html

http://www.computerweekly.com/guides/Supplier-profile-Atos

http://archive.is/LSMew FT  Story breaking news that Atos were Going

http://worldline.com/en/1/Home.html

http://atos.net/en-us/home/we-do/atos-worldgrid.html

http://www.canopy-cloud.com/

http://uk.atos.net/en-uk/home/your-business/government/how-to-buy-from-atos.html

http://uk.atos.net/content/dam/global/case-study/case-study-dimpact.pdf

http://uk.atos.net/content/dam/global/case-study/case-study-abn-amro.pdf

http://uk.atos.net/content/dam/global/case-study/case-study-scottish-government.pdf

http://atos.net/en-us/home/we-are/news/press-release/2014/pr-2014_02_24_01.html

http://atos.net/en-us/home/we-are/partners-alliances.html

http://www.backbase.com/home

http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_GB/uk/research-and-intelligence/deloitte-research-uk/deloitte-uk-centre-for-health-solutions/bb6e38f609817310VgnVCM3000001c56f00aRCRD.htm

http://www.performe.co.uk/OH-Assist.htm

http://www.ohassist.com/

https://www.ohportal.co.uk/helpfiles/OH_Portal_User_Guide.pdf

http://www.ohassist.com/page-sitemap.xml click each link it will take you via back door to pages

https://www.facebook.com/AtosPHWFM

Latest newspaper links

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/27/benefit-mismanagement-hurting-sick-and-disabled-atos-capita

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/why-has-atos-been-taken-on-to-handle-nhs-caredata-despite-the-unmitigated-disaster-of-fitness-for-work-tests-9154197.html

http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/2648-repeat-esa-medicals-deferred-for-two-years

http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/2645-all-repeat-wca-medicals-to-be-stopped

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10661359/Atos-awarded-contract-for-NHS-records.html

http://www.leftfootforward.org/2013/06/jp-morgan-wants-europe-to-be-rid-of-social-rights-democracy-and-employee-rights/

http://secfilings.nyse.com/filing.php?doc=1&attach=ON&ipage=1333487&rid=23 first link again

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/WTC/Salomon_Smith_Barney.html   names linked to first link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroders
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_Thirty
http://www.sachsforum.com/vc/vc_comp.html

You Tube  and other Links

http://youtu.be/00lM-DtyZ84

http://bcove.me/ih06vydt

http://youtu.be/5I1PanpyOSA

http://youtu.be/_SEpwFBhqA4

http://youtu.be/4GwUSa63tX0

http://youtu.be/YkzHxXg0rfQ

http://youtu.be/WiCINnMXDig

http://youtu.be/IkaGlA04rkY

http://news.sky.com/story/1217380/nursing-staff-cuts-linked-to-higher-death-rates  WOW debate

<script src=”http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Embed/js.ashx?14912 460×322″></script>

If this Information don’t blow you Brains out it just a small amount of stuff other stuff in press  is available on the internet. This is  fraction  of stuff without mentioning those benefits coming in at beginning of blog or the national disgrace of the Food bank debacle which is leaving the poorest in society on their arses with no food or gas and electric a simple choice of HEAT or EAT. That’s without all  the publicty on Sanctions and Bedroom Tax which could end up being Part Two of this blog. The information is out there go and see for yourselves, just open your eyes turn into detectives and see what this and other companies are up to and your Governments. The Uprisings across the globe are not for nothing it’s because we are all  facing the global agenda called ‘Austerity ‘ . Everything you do day to day you will find this  company and many others named lurking in the background if you look hard enough.

UPDATED  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/atos-given-responsibility-for-new-childcare-scheme-despite-previous-fitnessforwork-fiasco-9203256.html