BY RYAN FLETCHER o fight back’


Shropshire, to carry out a health assessment in March 2018.


Despite suffering from constant pain and having previously qualified for PIP for six years, the Capita employee found that Victoria did not score any points on the assessment and her benefit was stopped by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).


Unite Community in Stoke-on-Trent have appealed on behalf of a number of disabled people whose PIP has been stopped after being seen by the Capita employee who assessed Victoria, with every case being successfully overturned at tribunal.


Within a few months of her PIP being stopped, Victoria died from a brain haemorrhage, with doctors saying that her underlying health issues, especially the fibromyalgia, had also worsened.


Victoria’s PIP was later reinstated at a tribunal a week after she had died, while the court case brought by Mrs Kemlo in the months after her daughter’s death ruled that Capita had made numerous incorrect statements in regards to Victoria.


Mrs Kemlo said, “The system is not fit for purpose. It’s like being in Victorian times when the disabled and the poor were treated as second class citizens. Without our money my daughter would have had no food. It’s just so wrong.


“It’s changed our whole family completely. We’re not a complete family anymore. I had two children, I’ve now got one. We’re having to cope with life without Victoria.”


In support of Mrs Kemlo, Unite community branch secretary for Stoke and North Staffordshire, Duncan Walker,


amassed 800 pages of evidence relating to Victoria’s case.He said, “In the tragic case of Victoria, this was just one more example of shocking maladministration by Capita at public expense.


“Every PIP case undertaken by Unite members in Stoke-on-Trent with the specific health care professional in Victoria’s case has been overturned by the social security tribunals.


“It is an abuse of public funds and plainly wrong that such reports are presented as fact and a shameful indictment of the government welfare reform ideology clearly persecuting disabled and vulnerable people.”


The decision by Capita to drop its appeal against the ruling should herald a new and more sympathetic way for assessing benefits, said head of Unite Community Liane Groves.


She said, “Despite the tragic circumstances of Victoria Smith’s case, we hope that Capita and other companies contracted to assess benefit claimants, on behalf of the government, will now adopt a new and more sympathetic approach to assessing claimants.


“Unfortunately, this case is not an isolated incident. Unite Community has an 80 per cent success rate in helping claimants with their PIP appeals. All too often the DWP and the private profit- driven companies that carry out work capability assessments choose to ignore expert medical evidence.”


Groves paid tribute to Susan Kemlo for “the courage and tenacity” she showed in pursuing justice for Victoria.


“We must all now work harder to ensure that what happened to Victoria is never repeated,” Groves added. “This is the


31 uniteWORKS Autumn 2019


message that Unite is strongly giving to Work and Pensions secretary Amber Rudd, as making a claim for benefits is stressful at the best of times and even worse if you are suffering from life- threatening conditions.”


Groves also lauded Duncan Walker for single handedly gathering the mountains of evidence needed for the case to be won, praising him for a “painstaking and diligent task carried out with dedication and great attention to detail”.


Though Capita apologised “for any additional distress” to Victoria’s family after reversing its decision to appeal the ruling, pledges from the firm to reform its deeply flawed assessment system have not been forthcoming.


Instead the firm said it had “considered this exceptional case on an individual basis (and) decided not to contest the original default judgement”.


In late July the outsourcing giant announced it had secured a two-year extension, worth approximately £112m, to its contract to deliver PIP assessments for the DWP.


The firm also signed an additional two- year extension, worth approximately £33m, to its PIP assessment contract with the Department of Communities (DfC) in Northern Ireland.


Mrs Kemlo’s voice cracked when she was asked if she had advice for disabled people and their families at the receiving end of inaccurate PIP assessments carried out by Capita and other benefit assessment firms.


She said, “God help anybody in that situation. I would tell them to fight back. Don’t take it lying down. You have to fight.”


Find out more HERE


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40