Another Outrage: Local Health Authorities Tells Benefit Claimants Doctors too Overworked to See Them

This story comes from the Void. The Bro Taf Local Medical Committee representing doctors in the Cardiff area has written to its GPs telling them not to see claimants, who wish to have a medical examination for the Atos assessment. The Medical Committee object to these examinations, as they have not been contracted for and are not funded. They see it as an intrusion on the doctors’ proper medical workload. The article begins

The Bro Taf Local Medical Committee which represents doctors in and around Cardiff has written to GPs asking them not to help claimants who need medical evidence for benefit problems.

The LMC claim that providing this vital medical evidence for people facing the notorious ATOS work capability assessments is impacting on GP’s workloads.

Most people might have thought that a GP’s workload would include helping sick or disabled people stay alive by ensuring they are not wrongly assessed and thrown off benefits where they could then face workfare on a Groundwork or Conservation Volunteer chain gang.

However the Bro Taf LMC are unrepentant and even seem to be trying to make doctors feel guilty for supporting their patients. The letter states: “GPs need to have a consistent approach to this issue and colleagues who do this work make it more difficult for others to resist and it spreads the belief with patients and local authorities that GPs are happy to take on this non contracted and unfunded work.”

The piece shows the increasing marginalisation and disenfranchisement of Benefit claimants and the disabled targeted by Atos. We really do seem to be heading with the Tories back to the principle of ‘less eligibility’ under the Tories, in which life was deliberately made as hard as possible for the poor so to dissuade them from going on welfare.

The full piece can be read here:

Doctors Told To Snub Desperate Benefit Claimants

Tags: Atos, Cardiff, Disabled, Health Service, Local Medical Committe