BBC Scotland investigates new government plans to end the UK’s sicknote culture by getting a million people off benefits and back to work. We reveal how, in Britain’s modern welfare state, private companies are paid billions to carry out medical assessments on claimants to determine if they are fit for work, and ask if… they are putting profits before welfare. The film hears claims that patients across Scotland with severe mental illness and cancer are being denied benefits and told they must find a job.
Archive for May, 2010
Employment and Support Allowance: a new harsher test
May 8, 2010Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) is the new sickness benefit introduced in October 2008, which will eventually replace Incapacity Benefit. Its new test, envisaged by the legislator, is extremely difficult to pass and almost nobody is exempted from the test. Brighton Benefits Campaign joins the emerging national campaign against ESA, and the methods used by private provider Atos Healthcare to assess sick people for this benefit.
