Work Assessments for the Mentally ill - Don't Panic

The Work Capability Assessment Ordeal - the commonest cause of anxiety and distress amongst the mentally ill.

Please take an old man's advice - that of someone who is an advocate, offering FREE advice and help to ANYONE in need.  Allow me to sum up this Atos Work Capability Assessment, if I may be so bold ?

Having attended at least five of these 'assessments' lately, I can give you my qualified opinion that these tests are the most biased and unfair way of assessing your capability to work.  The most obvious first question to ask is "Where are all the job vacancies - just waiting to employ someone with a mental health problem, or any disability, in fact".  Obviously they aren't any, or they are already taken up by Poles ( in agriculture ) or other migrant workers who are prepared to work for less than the minimum wage, and have no intention of ever becoming 'British'.  The other problem is that you have huge ethnic groups - particularly those in Cardiff who wouldn't look out of place in Mogadishu - where the unemployment rate is in the working age groups is as high as 98%.  You have to ask yourself, "Are they getting the same work assessment test and being placed in jobs as a priority - or - even on equal terms with the mentally ill ???????   I suggest that the answer is a resounding 'NO', as the softest target is US - the mentally ill, and discriminating against us doesn't have a 'racist' label which prevents GENUINE equality.  Why ? ( I hear you ask ) Because your illness can't be seen, and also, the unqualified members of the Universally Inept Health Board ruled that "If a patient can walk from Whitchurch hospital into the village, he/she doesn't need a hospital bed; Any care he/she needs can be given ine the community; and, lastly - he/she is fit enough to work."  Thus they have climbed the Everest of stupidity, having no knowledge of Psychiatric treatment..

The test itself is so biased, my first client was asked "Are you able to move that box of tissues... ( on the desk ) ?"  I told my client not to answer.  Instead, I asked the nurse ( we're being assessed by a nurse ? ), "Are you conducting an assessment based on the physical or mental health of my client, and, are you sufficiently qualified to conduct either type of assessment ?"  The reply, " I just ask the questions on the computer screen and fill in the answers."  What an outrageously biased and unscientific system.  Without boring you ( as usual ), this test has no genuine legitimacy or legal obligation on ANYONE, because it is ( simply ) as bent as a butcher's hook in its' bias towards concluding that EVERYONE, regardless of mental or physical disability is fit for SOME kind of work is just plain stupidity.  What type of work ?  Where are the jobs ?  I haven't a ruddy clue, and neither will you.  ( Perhaps 'Big Brother', or a similar type of moron, knows ? )

My advice - take someone with you and do not answer any 'closed' questions ie. that require only a yes or no answer.  Until the tests are fair and agreed by the patients as being so, and conducted by a qualified consultant in Psychiatry, thay are invalid, being a charlatan's way of tricking you into something you don't understand, or don't accept for the inequity.