Firm to negotiate over closure of disabled forum

Atos Healthcare, which is paid £100 million a year of public money to put disabled people through "fit for work" assessments, threatened disability campaign group CarerWatch with legal action due to allegedly libellous content on its forum.

The forum was shut down this week after its US host was not prepared to risk leaving it up, even though CarerWatch was not told which posts were libellous.

Atos Healthcare has now contacted CarerWatch to ensure the site is put back online.

A spokeswoman said: "We acknowledge that the closure of the forum has caused unnecessary concern for CarerWatch members and would like to assure you that this was never our intention.

"Our request was that the libellous content relating to Atos Healthcare and our employees be taken down in order to protect the reputation of our employees and company against the false and malicious allegations that were posted.

"We fully support the right of people to express their opinions and intend to work with CarerWatch to ensure the site is reinstated as soon as possible."

But Labour Representation Committee national committee member Sarah Evans said that getting the forum up and running again is the very least Atos Healthcare can do.

She said: "It's people power that has elicited a response from Atos about the way it sought to silence CarerWatch's members-only forum.

"I think it's good that Atos acknowledge the concern but it's no good saying there was libellous content if you can't back it up.

"Where's the evidence?"