Atos Employ Just 3 Doctors To Carry Out PIP Assessments

With many thanks to Benefits And Work.

Atos employ just three doctors out of a total of 2,000 health professionals who carry out PIP assessments, the company revealed in evidence from the three main assessment providers given to MPs last week.

Atos and Capita carry out PIP assessments, whilst Maximus are responsible for the work capability assessment (WCA) for ESA and universal credit.

All three companies were giving evidence to the work and pensions committee last month.

Dr Barrie McKillop, Clinical Director at Independent Assessment Services (Atos) told the committee

“We have about 2,000 health professionals in the IAS team, including those directly employed by ourselves and some from our partners.”

He went on to say that:

67% are registered general nurses,

17% are either registered mental health nurses or registered learning disability nurses

15% are occupational therapists, physiotherapists or paramedics, in roughly equal proportion

He added “We also have three doctors working in the service.”

Capita said they have “1,000 ex-NHS professionals” but gave no breakdown of their specialisms.

Maximus said they have 1,100 health professionals, down from a peak of 1,200 before the pandemic.

Many readers will be astonished that so few doctors are employed as part of the team that carries out PIP assessments, given the proportion of claimants who have multiple, complex and often variable conditions. 

The fact that adverts for doctors to carry out assessments currently offer starting salaries of £77,000 plus private health insurance and other perks does suggest though, that doctors are an expensive commodity.

You can read the full transcript of the evidence sessions here.