Atos assessors told to keep disability benefit approvals low, film suggests

GP applied for job with Atos assessing whether benefit applicants were fit for work, and secretly filmed his training. If someone can sit and propel a manual wheelchair, they are not eligible for the benefit, one trainer in the films explains. Photograph: Rex Features.

Secret filming of training given to doctors recruited by the private company Atos to assess whether sickness and disability benefit applicants are fit for work suggests that staff are monitored to ensure they do not find excessive numbers of claimants eligible.

The footage will trigger a new debate over whether there are fixed targets for the number of people who should be granted the new incapacity benefit – the employment and support allowance – something the government and Atos, the company hired by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to conduct the fitness for work tests, have consistently denied.

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