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Maximus Says WCA Backlog Could Take 18 Months To Clear

November 10, 2014

With many thanks to Benefits And Work.

The backlog of fitness-to-work assessments for benefits recipients could take as long as 18 months to clear, according to the company being brought in to deal with the problem.

Maximus Health Services UK was awarded a £500m three-year contract that starts in March, after Atos Healthcare ended its contract early following criticism about the number and speed of assessments it had carried out.

More than 600,000 appeals have been lodged against Atos judgments since the work capability assessments began, costing taxpayers £60m a year. In four out of 10 cases the original decisions are overturned.

Leslie Wolfe, president of Maximus, said it would aim to carry out assessments in a “timely manner”, but warned that improvements would not happen overnight. “It’ll take some time to hire the healthcare professionals. The expectation is that in 12 to 18 months, we should be able to catch up on the waiting times,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “We’re hopeful that if we [conduct] the assessments in a timely manner, some of that anger and resentment will go away.”

5 Comments leave one →
  1. govtnewspeak's avatar
    victedy permalink
    November 10, 2014 2:57 pm

    When everyone denied benefits appeals the decision (like with ATOS) how big will the backlog be then? Sadly, the disabled (as usual) will suffer.

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  2. patrickdaly472010's avatar
    November 10, 2014 3:00 pm

    more time to kill people off

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  3. sdbast's avatar
    sdbast permalink
    November 10, 2014 3:34 pm

    Reblogged this on sdbast.

    Like

  4. Mark Catlin's avatar
    November 11, 2014 6:43 am

    Reblogged this on markcatlin3695's Blog.

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  5. hugosmum70's avatar
    November 11, 2014 6:09 pm

    when they stop arsing about with peoples lives, both where the backlog AND the assessments results are concerned. stop finding people fit for work that clearly aren’t ,stop making things so difficult for people that either the stress kills them or they kill themselves, only then will the peoples anger maybe calm down.but it will never calm down where those who instigated all this horror is concerned.it will be there for years to come. only when they leave this mortal coil will people they have wronged,feel they can breath easier and lay things to rest.

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