AIBU to hope that able bodied people will support disabled people against the tory attack on PIP?

Not always. I've been sectioned at work by police on a 136 due to a psychotic episode. Had no insight into how unwell I was & had been trying to go to work as normal.

There is also the fact that if we continually try to tell those who are net contributors that actually they shouldn't have access to things that should be universal services - which they fund for everyone else - like childcare funding or as many now suggest also disability support or state pensions - then we further increase the divisions in society the social contract is completely destroyed. I have never met someone who pays lots of tax who objects to funding these services for others, but do know lots of others who agree with me that it would be completely unreasonable for us to fund them for everyone else then not be allowed to use them ourselves should we need them. That is a step too far.

Cynically, the fastest way to undermine and destroy any system is to means-test it. Initially lots of naive people think it's a great idea, because why should someone who earns more than them (shock horror) receive a penny (neglecting of course that these services only exist for anyone because such people fund them)? Then, obviously, the threshold is never raised, fiscal drag kicks in, and before you know it, it comes back to bite them and they're all shocked apparently because "it was never meant to mean people like us were excluded!" 🤦🏻‍♀️😆🙄

Every time it is the same. If you want to effectively eliminate a service entirely the first step is to undermine universal provision, then gradually the threshold will be lowered in real terms (in terms of means-testing) or raised (in terms of criteria-based entitlements) until the service is effectively non-existent for almost everyone.

With this slow erosion you can take the public along, stirring up resentment against those who still receive it and using that as an excuse to further adjust the threshold until you've pretty got rid of the pesky demands from citizens to receive services in return for their tax money. It's so obvious that I'm astonished how many people seem to be obtuse about it even though we've seen the tactic play out in front of our eyes in various areas of public life, in an unusually compressed time period of 15 years, yet gullible people still seem oblivious to the motivations and are happy to get involved with the spite against anybody who earns just slightly more than they do.

There is a reason that in other, more civilised countries with effective public services nobody is suggesting that pensions, childcare funding, disability provision etc should be means-tested. I even saw recently - disgustingly - a suggestion that SEN provision for disabled children in schools should be means tested!

I think economics should be a compulsory core subject at school.

I don't think it should be means tested either. PIP is meant to mean that a disabled person is not out of pocket for being disabled.
Not only that, means testing is not usually done on an individual level... it is done on a household one (like it is for UC already). So someone who is disabled and not able to work, could possibly be denied PIP if their partner/spouse earns a certain amount.
Imagine being single and disabled.... that is hard enough, but throw in the whole thing about your partner being automatically assumed to take over the financial burden of your disability too.... it does not bear thinking about.

And being entitled to PIP opens up other help anyway that is not just financial.

Not to mention:

"... All of the 14 studies received at least one high risk or unclear rating on the strength of evidence criteria. One study was rated moderate to high quality [35], nine studies were of moderate to low quality [27,[31][32][33][34][36][37][38][39], and four studies were of low quality [28][29][30]40]. ..."

Great evidence base. 🤣🤦🏻‍♀️ Did you even read the link before you posted it?!

This research refers to police officers attending "debriefing". It refers to "a debriefing or face-to-face training session, of varying lengths". "One intervention involved getting workers to write about their emotions for 15 minutes per day in consecutive work shifts". It's a bit of a stretch to claim this constitutes anything resembling "therapy" let alone trauma therapy, and then claim that it provides evidence that trauma therapy is ineffective.

Given the time time trauma therapy takes, with careful background work beforehand to develop an appropriate treatment plan with very experienced specialist clinicians using specific types of therapy, I am guessing that the police are not providing this for their officers. A "face-to-face training session" isn't even a proper course of basic therapy, let alone one appropriate for trauma.

It's also well known that certain types of therapy can worsen trauma as they effectively mean the patient being forced to relive the traumatic experience rather than process it.

Your link mainly indicates - as many posters have said - how totally inadequate mental health provision is, even that provided by employers to staff who have suffered trauma at work apparently.

It’s more that you didn’t realise that was what I was calling exaggeration, not whatever experience you personally had

You responded to my post which stated my personal experience with "Total exaggeration". I am not a mind reader and you had not said that you were only claiming part of my post was a "total exaggeration". Then you followed up with a further post accusing me of making "a sweeping generalisation of the elderly" when in fact the part of my post referring to "the elderly" was clear that it was a response to the comment I had referenced about those in that cohort with mental health problems and I also stated "in many cases". So not a "sweeping generalisation". Perhaps you should examine your own exaggerations and misrepresentation.

Or you could read some research like this, which demonstrates that those police officers who were forced to attend mandatory therapy sessions in the wake of a police shootings, were still suffering with higher incidence and severity of ptsd than those police officers who didn't attend.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247827040_An_Evaluation_of_a_Police_Debriefing_Programme_Outcomes_for_Police_Officers_Five_Years_after_a_Police_Shooting

The conclusion being that therapy can exacerbate suffering. And there's other similar outcomes in other settings, like women getting therapy support with cancer treatment. Burns victims and anxiety levels after therapy.

These are only ones I know because I listened to a podcast with Abigail Shrier who writes on the topic, with the main point being that it's not good enough to want to help, it has to actually help. And yet we've launched ourselves wholesale into this idea that more and more therapy, therapeutical language and methods - is an unmitigated good thing - a better thing - than doing nothing for everybody.

https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/may/06/we-all-want-to-cut-out-the-bad-parts-of-ourselves-it-wont-work-and-it-wont-make-us-happier?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQGsAEggAID#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17149957541048&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Flifeandstyle%2Farticle%2F2024%2Fmay%2F06%2Fwe-all-want-to-cut-out-the-bad-parts-of-ourselves-it-wont-work-and-it-wont-make-us-happier

Interesting given some of the assertions made here.

Actually, on a society wide level, a stiff upper lip and ignoring things is a far more useful tool to employ for better mental health than a society wide push towards talking therapy and encouraging rumination.

Obviously individuals with poor mental health need mental health interventions but for those with untroubled mental health histories who must overcome trauma, a culture of dwelling on your pain, endlessly rehashing it and building that pain into a narrative of who you are as an individual, is a detrimental and significant driver towards poorer mental health after the event.

I think a culture of a stiff upper lip will have failed many individuals in the post war era who felt stigmatized and discouraged to seek help when they would have benefited it but, on a population wide level, it was probably the best approach to get an entire generation through a fuck load of trauma.

This is only a response to the idea that old people are repressed and deficient as a result of it, it's not a response in any way to the original question of people on pip being hammered.

Oh for heavens sake. It was "many cases". An entire country of people were impacted by devastating worldwide events. Some on the front line, some at home. It was hidden, self-medicated and denied because "stiff upper lip". Yes "things got done" despite that, not because everyone just dusted themselves off and "got on with it".

I repeat, people are not robots.

It’s more that you didn’t realise that was what I was calling exaggeration, not whatever experience you personally had

You don't understand the phrase "in many cases", then? Hardly a "sweeping generalisation". 🙄

Apart from I didn’t do that did I? I said your sweeping generalisation of the elderly as repressed and unempathetic is a total exaggeration which it is.

@Welovecrumpets how nice that you think you're in a position to call my experience of abusive parents which has resulted in me living with trauma for decades a "total exaggeration".

I rest my case about the callous lack of empathy from people who hold such views about "resilience".

That's us told then. No middle ground, no consideration thar humans aren't sodding robots, only the money matters. Ignore decades of research that proves that continual trauma re-wires the brain, observabley, and impacts ability to "just get on with it".

Just shout at people until they do as they're told, and if they don't, sod 'em. Or punish them.

Glad we've sorted that one out.

Total exaggeration. And they got things done - being emotionally incontinent and constantly rehashing your feelings is a totally unrealistic way to live for most of the population. We don’t even have enough counsellors to cater to it. In the meantime our economy suffers as everyone is signed off yet wonders why there’s no money for everything. Let’s stop agonising over feelings and just get on with things, it’s the only way.

They did cope. How many elderly people did you know growing up who were shaking anxious wrecks? I didn’t know any. Trying to make out everything was probably hidden because you didn’t see it makes no sense. They were just tougher people, less introspective and not encouraged to lie in bed and dwell on feelings. With children and no generous welfare state, people were incredibly resilient.

No. They were traumatised, dysfunctional and in many cases became dissasociated and unempathetic and actually quite abusive, which I suspect is one of the contributory reasons for the generational trauma and mental health issues being so prevalent in society now.

Always the same nasty people I notice, usually of a certain generation, who bang on about "introspection" and "resilience", usually in fact when they in fact are cold and callous even to their own family. "Resilience" is often a rebadging of living with and ignoring trauma and therefore causing huge harm to those around you as well as yourself. It's not something to celebrate, and I am thoroughly sick of this manta (as somebody who had an abusive childhood and had it drummed into me to shut up and be "resilient", and is still trying to unravel the enormous trauma caused through EMDR therapy decades later - while also working full time I might add). Was this a good idea, rather than me being given some support and love when younger so I didn't live my entire life to date in torment? Categorically - NO. It was not.

In an ideal world everyone would have enough money for everything, including all luxuries. But we’re not in an ideal world. There isn’t enough money to cover everything, there’s not enough people working and there’s the col crisis. There are lots of people going without, services needing more funding, NHS and education overstretched. We cannot afford to be giving out benefits for luxuries at the moment. We cannot afford for this amount to be off work, or in part time work and claiming, and the number rising. Not without other services getting more stretched and being cut, or people who are already stretched paying higher taxes. It’s not jealousy, it’s just being realistic.

Again, @Overthebow PIP is not an out of work benefit. Many of the people who receive it are still net contributors to the tax system despite receiving it. It is to level the playing field for disabled people. It has nothing to do with the issues you mention about many people not working. If that is your concern then you need to start a separate thread about Universal Credit.

This thread and the many others like it in the last few days are really shocking.

As PIP is supposed to be money to help cover the extra costs that come with being disabled or living with a long term health condition, why so much angst about the possibility of vouchers for services or expenses being provided instead.

Because the "services" doubtless won't exist except in theory, or won't accept the vouchers, or will severely limit choice to only using substandard and overpriced services, or the prescribed list of services will not actually be those the person needs, or won't have sufficient resource so will try to ration their services illegally despite what the law says as happens now with social care and the NHS, etc. Introducing yet another layer of bureacracy would also - obviously - add even more unnecessary costs to the system with a third party contracted to administer it making it either a) vastly more expensive, or b) meaning even more money that is meant to be spent on supporting disabled people actually being spent on administration of the system.

How would this list of providers willing to accept such vouchers, across the country and varying from sole traders to listed international companies be administered exactly? How would they reclaim the money from the voucher and be paid? How would suitable contractors be approved and monitored? What if the services the disabled person needs won't accept them? Would they be audited and the records matched to invoices and the disabled person's specific needs? What if no local contractor had been approved that met their specific needs? How would they provide change from the nominal value of a voucher? Do you expect e.g. all taxi drivers to do this? Cleaners for those who can't physically clean their own house? Handymen doing odd jobs disabled people can't do for themselves?

It's a completely ridiculous suggestion.

It's also completely against the ethos and purpose of PIP which was to give disabled people a level playing field (it doesn't come close to that as it is) and the dignity to determine for themselves what help they need and how best to spend it in their circumstances given that disabilities are so varied and have such different impacts for different disabled people.

I know, I’m talking about what I think it should be, not what it is. I think it should be means tested. There’s limited money and someone on £100k for example doesn’t need it.

@Overthebow do you realise what care needs cost? PIP does not come close to touching it for many people. The costs a disability can indeed absorb most of a £100k salary after tax. That is why different levels of needs are awarded (or meant to be awarded....) different levels of financial support, based on the needs arising from the disability. PIP is not an out of work benefit and has nothing to do with normal living costs.

Someone can be intellectually capable and earning significant sums of money and simultaneously be physically incapacitated and unable to do essential basic daily tasks that you take for granted. You have literally no clue and your ableism is disgusting.

A return to means tested DLA linked with jobseeker benefit is likely

DLA has been abolished for adults and will not return.

It was never means tested.

DLA, like PIP, was not an income replacement benefit.

DLA, like PIP, was never related to employment status or ability to work.

If you are going to comment, at least educate yourself so you can make informed comments.

PIP is for the chopping block regardless of who wins later this year

Evidence,?

Do you enjoy trying to scare vulnerable people?

Labour will not abolish PIP. I will donate £100 quid to your favourite charity if it does.

What they may reform is out of work benefits (although sadly even their own shadow ministers get PIP and ESA confused).

This thread is a fucking disgrace.

Agree entirely, @IClaudine. There is an astonishing level of ignorance in these comments.

PIP is for the chopping block regardless of who wins later this year.

A return to means tested DLA linked with jobseeker benefit is likely.

That would be an exceptionally stupid and economically illiterate idea given that - as so many posters have stated - PIP is entirely unrelated to whether people work, and the problem apparently is too many people claiming out of work benefits and not working. In such circumstances only somebody beyond stupid would consider the idea of removing the support that enables many disabled people to continue to work and pay tax, and increase payments to people for not working. What do you think would be the effect of such a peverse incentive?

Guess you don’t really understand the concept of a level playing field.

I agree with this and a good living wage for all that work (so some shall be topped up if working part time which is what some can manage)

there will always be people that can not work or have periods where they can not work of course more money should be available to support them and to help them engage in studies, groups etc if they can

Exactly this.
If we don't support Ukraine and are dragged into a world war, there's not going to be a lot of money left for the £100 billion benefits bill is there ? It would be catastrophic for the economy and then really tough decisions will need to be made.