Bonum Certa Men Certa

Understanding Thierry Breton: Atos Healthcare - “The Ugly Face of Business”



Overview





Understanding Thierry Breton



Further parts pending review and research




Atos comparing



Summary: "...2,380 people died after their claim for employment and support allowance (ESA) ended because a work capability assessment (WCA) found that they were found fit for work."

Atos Healthcare ended up at the centre of a major public controversy in the UK as a result of its provision of Work Capability Assessment (WCA) services for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).



The company became a lightning rod for public anger over the WCA scheme which was criticised by MPs and campaigners as inhumane.

Health assessments conducted by Atos were mired in controversy, including complaints over the qualifications of assessors, as well as the criteria used to determine fitness for work.

"In another case, a woman with stage 4 cancer, who was suffering from hair loss undergoing chemotherapy, was told she was also able to get a job, and had her benefits slashed."Thousands of vulnerable people were found to have been wrongly judged to be fit for work and ineligible for government support. In one case, a dying father, 34, diagnosed with emphysema was told that because he could "push an empty box" he was "fit for work". In another case, a woman with stage 4 cancer, who was suffering from hair loss undergoing chemotherapy, was told she was also able to get a job, and had her benefits slashed.

In 2013, Greg Wood, a former navy doctor decided that he could no longer tolerate working for the company and blew the whistle on practices within Atos after he was asked to change a report he had made on a claimant, in this case making it unlikely that the individual would be eligible for sickness benefit.

Wood left because he considered that the company was acting unethically by putting pressure on a doctor to change the conclusions of an assessment.

"Wood left because he considered that the company was acting unethically by putting pressure on a doctor to change the conclusions of an assessment."His decision to spill the beans made headlines in the UK because he was the first Atos-employed doctor to put his career on the line and articulate concerns about a system that had been criticised by charities and claimants for years.

Wood gave strong evidence to the BBC to suggest that the methods used to assess whether individuals were eligible for the new incapacity benefit - employment and support allowance (ESA) - were "unfair" and "skewed against the claimant".

The DWP’s own statistics revealed that in 2011 10,600 people died within six weeks of being found fit for work by Atos and another 2,200 died before their assessment was complete.

"The DWP’s own statistics revealed that in 2011 10,600 people died within six weeks of being found fit for work by Atos and another 2,200 died before their assessment was complete."It was reported that the Government had refused to publish statistics for 2012/2013 and had rejected a Freedom of Information request submitted by Mike Sivier of the Vox Political blog on the grounds that was ‘vexatious‘.

However, following a ruling by the Information Commissioner’s Office in April 2015, the DWP released statistics which revealed that, during the period December 2011 and February 2014, 2,380 people died after their claim for employment and support allowance (ESA) ended because a work capability assessment (WCA) found that they were found fit for work.

Atos protest
Dodgy health assessments by Atos led to widespread outrage and protests in the UK



In February 2014 it was reported that Atos was endeavouring to secure an early exit from its WCA contract, which was due to expire in August 2015.

Atos claimed that there had been about 163 incidents of abuse or assault on staff each month during the previous year and that it had found comments on social media accusing staff of being "murdering scumbags" who "won't be smiling when we come to hang you".

A month later the DWP confirmed that it had agreed to an early exit from the existing WCA contract after raising concerns about the quality of the work conducted by Atos.

"...2,380 people died after their claim for employment and support allowance (ESA) ended because a work capability assessment (WCA) found that they were found fit for work."However, as of October 2016 Atos was still undertaking work for the DWP in assessing Personal Independence Payment applications.

When Atos took over administering PIPs its estimates of how fast claims could be processed were over-optimistic as were estimates of how easily claimants could get to assessment centres. This led to delays in assessments, distress to claimants and unexpectedly high costs and to accusations that Atos had misled the government over its capabilities for processing claims.

In 2017 revelations that Atos and Capita were on target to be paid more than €£ 700m for their five-year PIP contracts, and significantly more than the original estimate of €£€ 512m, led to accusations that the DWP was "rewarding failure".

In December 2015, a report by the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee singled out Atos for its failure to show "an appropriate duty of care to the taxpayer" over an IT system designed to allow the extraction of data from all GP practice computer systems in England. The costs of the system, which started five years late, ballooned from an initially estimated €£€ 14m to a final total of €£ 40m.

"The costs of the system, which started five years late, ballooned from an initially estimated €£€ 14m to a final total of €£ 40m."As a result of this "IT cockup", the Public Accounts Committee urged the Cabinet Office to review Atos’s relationships as a Crown supplier, and to ensure the reasons for the project’s failure were "disseminated widely to reinforce the steps that need to be taken to avoid such mistakes being repeated again".

In December 2016, Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron questioned how Atos and Capita could have been paid over €£500m from tax payers money for assessing fitness to work in view of the fact that 61% who appealed won their appeals.

Farron stated, “This adds to the suspicion that these companies are just driven by a profit motive, and the incentive is to get the assessments done, but not necessarily to get the assessments right. They are the ugly face of business.”

OH Assist
If your reputation is in shreds, it may be time to rebrand…



By 2014, the Atos brand had become so toxic in the UK that Atos Healthcare "reinvented" itself as OH Assist. The Atos Healthcare brand was reserved for use in connection with activities relating to the PIP contract.

In 2016 it was announced that Atos had sold off the OH Assist business to CBPE Capital.

One positive outcome finally emerged from the Atos Healthcare saga in April 2017 when the Scottish government adopted legislation prohibiting the use of private firms for carrying out benefit assessments in Scotland.

"One positive outcome finally emerged from the Atos Healthcare saga in April 2017 when the Scottish government adopted legislation prohibiting the use of private firms for carrying out benefit assessments in Scotland."Social Security minister Jeane Freeman declared that profiteering companies had no place in assessing a person’s fitness to work:

"One of our fundamental principles is that profit should never be a motive nor play any part in assessing or making decisions on people’s health and eligibility for benefits."

In the next part we will return to Thierry Breton and explore some of his connections with the upper echelons of French plutocracy.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Wayland Pushers Lose the Argument, Use LLM Slop and Chatbots to Make Up Arguments for IBM
Another new low and low blow
What is "MATA"?
Think of it as GAFAM or "Meta"
WebProNews is a Slopfarm
Please avoid linking to WebProNews
Another "Told You So!": XBox Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Many Recent Reports Were Chaff and Spin), Many Other Divisions Affected
With mass layoffs at Microsoft the world would be much better
 
Links 25/06/2025: Elon Musk’s Lawyers Caught Lying, WhatsApp Faces More Bans
Links for the day
Brian Fagioli Created Another Slopfarm Targeting "Linux" After BetaNews Became a Slopfarm of Phantom Accounts and Pseudonyms
Mr. Fagioli even had slop about a dead Torvalds (hypothetical) as clickbait
Wayland is Perfect, Nobody Can Escape Its Perfection! (Or Not)
Do not form on opinion on Wayland based on politics
Moral Duty for "Linux Sites" to Speak Out Against LLM Slop
My wife has long complained about "Linux bloggers" keeping quiet and thus passive about a growing problem: slop
In Recent Hours Google News Promoted at Least 3 Slopfarms That Relayed Linux Foundation Propaganda Made by Bots or LLM "Bullshit Generators" (as Dr. Stallman Dubbed Them)
Google is circling down the drain and Google News too is hopeless
Linux Journal is a Slopfarm, It's Experimenting With LLM 'Authors'
Is Slashdot next?
Microsoft LinkedIn is Dying and Many More Layoffs Are on the Way
LinkedIn is just a failed acquisition of Microsoft. It causes losses and debt.
Gemini Links 25/06/2025: Combinatorial Music and Self Hosting
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Coming Back to Europe This Autumn to Give More Talks
His last talk in Europe attracted about 400-450 people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 24, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Social Control Media, Technology & Catholicism: Synod on Synodality review and feedback
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
How Many More Women Will Managers at Microsoft Strangle and Tell to Kill Themselves (or Try to Kill)?
The world needs to know what happened
The New BetaNews: 7 New 'Articles', All of Them LLM Slop
BetaNews is basically defunct. Nobody writes there anymore.
statCounter Estimates Only 1 in 300 Iranians Would Use Microsoft for Search
Iranians don't quite trust Microsoft
Gemini Links 24/06/2025: ftpd on FreeBSD and Online Small Web Magazine
Links for the day
Google News Does Great Harm by Promoting Slopfarms as Legitimate News Sites
Slopfarms are sites which are 100% LLM slop
Links 24/06/2025: Trouble at "Open" "AI" and ‘Siarhei is Free’
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/06/2025: Stimulants and Subscription Costs for DRM
Links for the day
When the Microsoft Aggressors Rely on Several Law Firms ('Attack Dogs', 'Guns for Hire'), Not Just One, Lawyering Up Against Techrights (Acting on Behalf of Americans Against UK Publishers)
From serving customers at some restaurant he has moved on to bullying people with demand letters
Links 24/06/2025: OpenAI [sic] May Soon Die (Too Much Debt) and Social Control Media Accused of Being Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda Amplifier
Links for the day
Nirbheek Chauhan in Planet GNOME Explains Why Wayland Pushers Are Losing
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
Polygamy, from Catholic Synod on Synodality to Social Control Media & Debian CyberPolygamy
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Only a Third of or 1 in 3 Web-Connected Devices is a Desktop or Laptop, According to statCounter
we can expect Android to widen its lead
The Days Are Getting Shorter, the First Half of 2025 is Almost Over
We're gratified to see significant increase in traffic and also positive feedback on the work we do
Turning GNU/Linux Into a Political Football
X (not the site) is Free software
X Server Still Works for Many People
A lot of people will grow suspicious of Wayland boosters/pushers if they persist and insist on using these tactics
Exactly a Week Ago "BetaNews Staff" Said "Betanews Is Growing Alongside You". Since Then Every Article (All by "Camila Nogueira") Has Been LLM Slop.
BetaNews is basically a slopfarm
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 23, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 23, 2025
The "Tarzan Effect" in Compilers and Software
What happens when you forcibly make things 'work', either by hacks or by disregarding warnings (like those that compilers tend to issue)?
Gemini Links 23/06/2025: Mass Tourism, Hair Love, and Google Gemini as a Googlebomb
Links for the day
Law Firm Burgess Mee Does Not Fully Deny Participating in Abusive Litigation for Serial Strangler From Microsoft
I am not unfamiliar with these tactics
The Modus Operandi of Wayland Pushers: Make It Political
do what I say or you're a nazi...
Links 23/06/2025: RFE/RL Contributor Vladyslav Yesypenko Released, Recording Industry Cutbacks
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Solicitors (M): Over 99.9% of Our E-mail is Self-Marketing, We Send You 3.5MB E-mails for Less Than 1KB of Text
Why would tech people entrust legal matters to such people?
Peter Moon's (Computerworld) Interview With Richard Stallman
Stallman: If you want freedom don't follow Linus Torvalds
At What Point Does Outsourcing Constitute Malpractice?
Brett Wilson LLP's new staff page is misleading
United Arab Emirates (UAE) Sailing to GNU/Linux, According to statCounter
countries in that region will quickly learn the price of neglecting digital sovereignty
From Do Your Own Research to Do Your Own Search
The Web is full of garbage; search engines amplify this garbage
More People Moving to Geminispace?
at age 6+ Gemini Protocol seems to have gained some maturity and it seems like more people use it
Permutation in LLMs Does, Inevitably, Change Meanings and Therefore LLMs Cannot Properly Rephrase or Summarise Texts
LLMs lack actual grasp or comprehension of what they spew out
Links 23/06/2025: Many Security Breaches, Population Declines
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/06/2025: "America at the Crossroads" and OpenWRT Surgery
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 22, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 22, 2025
Pure Dove
Different means different, and sometimes those who "deviate" from "the norm" have a point
Censorship is a Sign of Weakness Which Invites More Censorship Attempts
revolutionaries don't succumb to pressure from bullies
Why It's Unlikely That LLM Slop Will Dominate the Web in the Long Run
Slopfarms will eventually perish (they have no actual value) and "survivors" on the Web will be sites that never depended on search engines and social control media
GNU/Linux in Argentina Now Measured Near 5%
Like in central Europe, they must be seeing an increasingly hostile US
BetaNews is Fake News, Composed by LLM Slop
nothing in BetaNews is written by humans anymore