THE UK Government has been asked to give family doctors more time to complete paperwork for patients whose benefits are under review amid complaints from GPs in Scotland that they are being overwhelmed by the demands of the welfare reform agenda.
Concerns over flaws in the system that assesses whether claimants are fit to work has led Health Secretary Alex Neil to recommend to Whitehall that the time limit to return additional medical information be extended from 14 days to 21 days.
In some cases, GPs can be asked to provide information from health records in only five days.
With recent figures showing that 40% of requests for further medical evidence are not met within the timeframe, Mr Neil has also written to health boards in Scotland to seek assurances that GPs are meeting their duties in returning the documents. Should the company running the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) be left without the paperwork, patients can be sent for an examination to establish the reasons behind their benefit claim.
Mr Neil, in his letter to health boards, said large numbers of these patients were subsequently winning their cases on appeal.
He added that, if the figures on paperwork returns were accurate, "the inability of some GP practices to return forms within the specified timescales suggests that a review of the new timescales is more appropriate".
Dr Alan McDevitt, chairman of the BMA's Scottish General Practitioners Committee, said that GPs were "propping up" a flawed system and that the Department for Work and Pensions should make appropriate adjustments. He added that the BMA would be happy to work with Atos, the firm contracted to carry out the assessments, and the DWP to make improvements.
A spokeswoman for Atos said the timeframes for returning paperwork was set by the DWP.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article