Around 20 000 medical assessments of benefit claimants by the private company Atos Healthcare in 2010-11 failed to meet basic standards, the UK government’s public spending watchdog has disclosed in a highly critical report.1

Margaret Hodge, who chairs the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, criticised the Department for Work and Pensions’ management of its contract with the French owned company Atos as “unacceptably loose and [permitting] loopholes that can all too easily be exploited by contractors.”

The company was paid £112m (€140m; $180m) in 2011-12 to carry out face to face assessments of 738 000 people as part …