Developing the evidence to challenge ‘welfare reform’: the road to ‘Cash Not Care’

Abstract

Nine years ago I would not have described myself as a ‘researcher’. Nine years ago I had no need to be a ‘researcher’. That all changed in September 2008 when I was confronted by a staff member employed by a company generally known as ‘Atos Healthcare’. They were under contract to the British government to conduct the Work Capability Assessment (WCA), introduced by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to limit funding for the new Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) income replacement sickness benefit. The Atos Healthcare visitor claimed to be a doctor, yet refused to offer any form of identity when he entered my home for what was meant to be a medical review of my War Pension. He behaved unethically, going out of his way to create tension; refused to offer eye contact when devoting all his attention to firing off meaningless questions and entering my answers in his laptop. When I attempted to hold a conversation, he unceremoniously dismissed me with an offensive wave of his hand. A War Pension is not a benefit and, until April 2005, it was the medical pension provided for disabled personnel who were medically discharged from military service with a permanent and significant disability. It is unrelated to long-term sickness benefit funded by the DWP. In December 2008 I hadn’t heard of the WCA and I wasn’t anticipating any problem with the War Pension review medical. I had no idea that the DWP had adopted a ‘non-medical’ assessment model, as influenced by the discredited corporate American healthcare insurance giant, UnumProvident Insurance, who were appointed as official government advisers for ‘welfare claims management’ in 1994 in order to reduce the future DWP welfare budget.