Jima1 wrote: Hi Jeff,
Prior to medical services being privatised, first to company called SEMA, then to ATOS, medicals were carried out by the the then DSS's own medical services called Benefits Agency Medical Services (BAMS).
I'm sure Crazydiamond ( a former DSS Adjudication Officer) will agree that when BAMS carried out medicals, there were very few problems.
Kind regards.
Jim
Up until the time the DHSS were split into two separate departments, those being social security (DSS) and Health (DH), all medicals were carried out in-house.
In the mid-eighties, the DSS was further split into agencies, a system of part-privatisation. The Benefit Agency Medical Services (BAMS) then carried out medicals still on an in-house basis.
Up until April 1995 under the old Invalidity Benefit system, the DSS doctors had the sole responsibility to decide if a claimant was fit for work. No decision makers, or adjudication officers as they were then, were involved in the doctor's decision.
Following the introduction of Incapacity Benefit in April 1995, adjudication officers assumed responsibility for the All-work test (the predecessor to the PCA), acting on advice from BAMS doctors. Although the amount of appeals increased, it was until the medical services were contracted out to the private companies in question, that there was a marked increase.
Wherever there is a propensity towards profit based upon results, as was inevitably going to happen where the DSS (now the DWP) were going to be the winners, this subsequently proved detrimental to IB claimants. In fact, it would be interesting to see the number of appeals year by year, since medical services were effectively privatised.
Now since the introduction of ESA, the number of appeals will go through the roof, especially when current IB/IS claimants are migrated.
