Take no part in DSP assessments - Pain specialist

A particularly qualified (from what I can see anyway) pain specialist has come out scathingly in his assessment of the assessments for us DSP'ers. What this gov wants for us DSP'ers under 35.

I mean seriously, what happens at 35, and who made up this stupid number? 

Anyway, this bloke rips apart the proposed new assessment system:  

To return to the definitions I have given above, determination of work ability is a mixture of disability and handicap, and not as simple as impairment assessing. You simply can’t reliably determine from a single assessment whether a person previously judged as eligible is currently still eligible because you can’t determine disability and handicap in a work setting in a single sitting. It’s about as scientific as phrenology. The evidence from previous exercises of this sort is that the initial assessment is virtually never overturned. Weeding out the small numbers of flat-out rorters will be more expensive and generate far less in savings than Treasury imagines. 

I for one will decline if invited to be part of it. It would be unprofessional to be part of a political initiative which is not evidence-based and not supported by those who have disabling conditions, their carers and health professionals. I have previously written that I would welcome new money into the sector if it was going to be spent according to best practice. We’d happily work for something that would leave our disabled clients better off. I urge my colleagues in Rehabilitation Medicine to consider their own possible participation in such a program, and whether they can in conscience offer their professional skills to such a futile and wasteful exercise. more