Shocked By DWP Fibromyalgia PDF on Here

Hi Asbo,

Not to argue your point or anything, but bear in mind that document is dated 2001, so it's very far out of date now! The entire system of disability benefits has changed hugely since then, what with several successive governments moving the goalposts - Atos Healthcare would have been but a twinkle in someone's eye back then, and the DWP actually (shocker) employed their own "disability analysts" to assess claimants, instead of farming them out to a contractor. So, as it was written to train DWP Medical Services staff internally, bear in mind that particular document is almost certainly not being used anymore (I hope??)

But yeah, you're absolutely right about how enraging it is (I couldn't finish reading it myself, lost the stomach for it after a few pages! ). I have ME, and my doctor now thinks I have fibro as well - been ill for 7 years so I've been round the block a few times with a cast of thousands of underwhelming NHS, DWP and Atos employees! But, in my experience, those who are truly wedded to the biopsychosocial model are fewer & further between than I was expecting (although I do, still, expect it).

I think claiming benefits for these conditions is much like seeing a new doctor - you don't know who you're gonna get until the person walks in the door, and it's just your luck whether they're "on our side" or thinks we're having a laugh. Best we can do is be honest, explain things as fully as possible, provide evidence, and then just pray that our form lands on the desk of someone good!

Oh, sorry. I stand corrected.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/110114/re...0V5%20Final.pdf.html

starshaped wrote: Oh, sorry. I stand corrected.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/110114/re...0V5%20Final.pdf.html

I was just looking for this doc in my database

This Fibro : site may also be of interest to members who are not already aware of it :

www.fmauk.org/phpBB3/

bro58

starshaped wrote: Oh, sorry. I stand corrected.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/110114/re...0V5%20Final.pdf.html

It is alarming to see that this document was still being used as recently as 2011

Thanks for all your replies. A note to admins, for some reason I'm no longer getting email notifications when there are new replies to a topic I'm subscribed to or created. I've tried to email for help but it's still not fixed hence I have to login and search for any new replies

@Starshaped - unfortunately the biopsychosocial model is at the very heart of these reforms. This is the model that Lord Freud is pushing (even many of the Lords hadn't heard of it, during the debates) but this is the model that UNUM Insurers used in the States (and of course UNUM, Atos and the DWP are all inter-connected). Basically they only recognise 'temporary sickness' or what they call 'disease' anything else they can and do put down to 'psychological factors' 'malingering' 'playing the sick role' and all sorts of outmoded and demeaning ideas to undermine those of us with fibro, ME, MS, heart disease and many more.