ATOS medical

Gordon,

The site where this allegation appears first seems to be one run by the Brighton Benefits Campaign. The page at issue (which dates from 2008) is:

brightonbenefitscampaign.wordpress.com/2...arsher-test/#more-29

They describe there the workings of the LiMA software. ATOS claims that it is thoroughly grounded in "Evidence-based medicine", but no one can challenge its assumptions or logic, as the DWP says that it is protected by "commercial confidentiality" rules and its logic can't be inspected.

I note that this site said the secrecy over LiMA was "unlawful" back in 2005.

LiMA secrecy illegal

It draws chains of inference from the "facts" presented to it by the HCP, and uses those "facts" firstly to choose which questions to ask and then what inferences can be drawn from those extra facts. This is a common features of expert systems. If they are badly done, then all sorts of conclusions can be produced by very shaky trains of "logic".

The time pressures under which ATOS HCPs work means that they rely heavily on the software.

I hope that Tribunals examine the ATOS evidence with extreme scepticism. It is not only the judgement of the HCP which is involved, but the hidden medical judgements of the computer "expert system" and those who wrote it.