After these changes to appeals come into effect, any claimants who disagrees with a decision made by Atos is likely to be forced to go without any benefit at all whilst ‘reconsiderations’ of their benefits take place. These people are not just already amongst the poorest in the country, but those with cancer, MS or other life threatening conditions.
This appears to be a vindictive attempt to bring down the number of successful appeals against sickness benefit decisions which have been a continual embarrassment to both the current and the previous Labour governments.
The new message from the DWP seems to be appeal if you want, but don’t expect to eat or heat your homes whilst you are waiting. The end of result of these changes will no doubt be less appeals. The price of that will be more people dying at the hands of this callous process, which increasingly seems precision-engineered to drive sick and disabled people into destitution.
UPDATE 13/6/13: Clarification, the DWP say that claimants ‘may’ be paid at the assessment rate once the ‘mandatory reconsideration’ has taken place if they pursue an appeal. There is no time limit on how long this process can take and this depends on whether they are able to provide medical evidence to the Department.