To wonder if all those gleeful about PIP cuts are going to welcome people with serious mental health conditions as colleagues and employees?

@Frowningprovidence all the corporates ive worked for for the last 10 years have already had:

• mental health policies
• wellbeing champions
• flexible working
• the option to wfh in times of crisis
• free helplines for mental health support
• access to occupational health and adjustments for disability as standard
• quiet rooms

This isn't new. A lot of places already have a lot in place. I've got colleagues with cancer, chronic heart & respiratory conditions, depression, adopted DC with SEN & trauma, autism. I've worked in offices with colleagues with assistance dogs.

@Frowningprovidence all the corporates ive worked for for the last 10 years have already had:

• mental health policies
• wellbeing champions
• flexible working
• the option to wfh in times of crisis
• free helplines for mental health support
• access to occupational health and adjustments for disability as standard
• quiet rooms

This isn't new. A lot of places already have a lot in place. I've got colleagues with cancer, chronic heart & respiratory conditions, depression, adopted DC with SEN & trauma, autism. I've worked in offices with colleagues with assistance dogs.

This is what worries me when people say "they can get a job in a care home, they're crying out for carers". Most people just don't have the ability to do this job and why should the vulnerable elderly be expected to be on the receiving end of someone who has been forced into such a role? What could possibly go wrong?! Sure, do the gardening or answer the phone, but care for an immobile, incontinent, in constant pain, at risk of aspirating palliative care resident? Um, probably not.

Most of the one million people aged 16-24 not in education, training or work were not old enough to vote in the 2016 referendum. Also, what evidence do you have that people with mental health conditions turned out to vote in large numbers? Rather than being in the 28% who did not vote.

My husband was senior management in a large company, overseeing hundreds of staff and multi million pound projects all over Europe. He had to travel to other countries on a regular basis.
Out of the blue he developed psychotic depression. He tried to keep working but in the end was not functioning , even basic tasks.
He qualified for high rate pip. We are 3 years on now. He cannot work, hardly ever leaves the house, is a shell of eho He was, has to take high strength high dosage medication that cause very severe side effects. I am his carer and also work full time.
There is no way that he can go back to work, we've already dropped from his 4k a month wage to £700 a month pip and now they want to take that from us too.

I knew who you were referring to. I have two nephews and their dad who claim pip. Admittedly the father does now need it because due to his lifestyle (drink, drugs etc) he is now genuinely disabled and would not be able to work. The two nephews suffer from anxiety. One in particular saw a distressing incident when he was 17 (someone got hit by a car) and he has never worked since. Admittedly yes, this is an awful thing to witness but I have watched two women die in a riding accident and seen a fatal car crash and I am not on a pip due to anxiety. I do suffer from menopausal anxiety but I have to try and work through it with some adjustments. As a PP said we have encouraged low resilience in this country.

I live in an area where there is a military base and a lot of people who do work for us are ex-military (window cleaner, taxi drivers, gardeners etc) and I think of all the things they may have witnessed and seen and probably suffer from some form of PTSD and they still work.

There is a culture in the UK of generational benefit families where it is the norm for people to claim PIP. The grandparents, parents and now children claim benefits and don’t work.

I am fed up reading that this is not the case, I live in an area that it is prevalent, I know these families and their circumstances and know it to be true.

Tax assets or riches only works to an extent. What happens when the so-called rich decide they don't want to work and generate said riches? Or would rather live elsewhere - like the 10,000 millionaires that left the UK last year. What then?

We cannot run a society where a quarter of the working population are not working - and the elderly and children also need taking care of. The numbers just don't stack up.

It is all of our responsibility to contribute to a functioning society - to the best of our ability. Much of the issue is mindset and access. For many grades of physical and mental disability, you will find people who are supported to work and contribute.
And those who cannot shouldn't and should be looked after. But that is not 10 million people and counting.....

Replying to Waldrusess, but quote has disappeared!
Well, I bothered to read what @Differentstarts said and I suppose I have skin in the game, having a sister-in-law who suffered an aneurism several years ago and who has short-term memory loss and has lost the ability to read, a DiL with scoliosis and a nephew with GSS syndrome (which is similar to Huntingdon's and hereditary but not on my side of the family). DiL and SiL receive PiP - but DiL thinks she will lose it. I think my DN will continue on all the benefits he gets as he is wheelchair bound and fed through a tube into his stomach (used to be a builder) and also my SiL. They all have gone through the numerous hoops required to get benefits and are all in need of help.
I think the majority of people on PiP require it and we are being spun a yarn about lots of people who are liars and malingerers.
I do think Wes Streeting is right about over-diagnosis of MH issues but I veer towards the rise in neurodiversity, ADHD, autism spectrum etc - this is where I think the over diagnosis lies. Personally I suffer from depression and have anti-depressants that enable me to sleep but hey, no problem, my DB hanged himself and my DH of 30 years and my DM both died last year - oh, and my DN has GSS and brother and sisters and all their children are in line to inherit it. No reason to be depressed, really! I don't get PiP, of course (nor do I need it).
If the economy was run for the people we could afford to support those who need it - but since the 80s the people have had to be subserviant to a neo-liberal capitalist economy that espouses wealth for those at the top and trickle down and austerity for the rest of us (and neither trickle down nor austerity work) at the expense of the Welfare State. We need Keynesianism and the social contract back.

What people are you talking about people with schizophrenia that struggle with any added stress in their life and it impacts their mental health or people who have low level anxiety and bouts of depression that are not always able to work (which many people do suffer from) having purpose, having a routine, having structure often is more often than not very beneficial in such cases but people do need support to get into work

there is no suggestion that this is going to impact those with life long serious mh issues, its being proposed rather than having to reassess them every few years (which is stressful and an unnecessary worry) that there will be a lifetime assessment (assuming with some for of contact with PIP but not having to go through the stress of being reassessed)

I'm 100% gleeful. But just for the ones scamming the system having their lifestyle changed, actually over the moon if it happens.
The government aren't stupid and aren't targeting the genuine people that require additional support, and I hope that they continue to receive it.

The ones that simply choose to live off the state I hope the rug is pulled from their feet ASAP
Is that so wrong?

Sorry to bore you but the tax justice UK are cranks and this is BS. Go ahead. do it, tax anyone with anything as much as you can and see what happens. I'm so sick of the constant narrative about rich people and multinationals not paying enough - if it was so bloody easy then it would be done. It isn't because firstly it is not that easy and secondly people will leave rather than pay.

I think in other countries people turn to family first before seeing themselves as an individual entitled to x,y,z from the state.

I'm talking about the work shy that claim fraudulently.
Also my husband (ex forces) works with quite a few disabled people that have lost limbs etc during military careers, and they're the back bone of his area, as they strive to do more than most able bodied colleagues.

Not people thst feel down or sad and treat every day as a Saturday.

I have a serious mental health condition, diagnosed around 20 years ago now. During that 20 years I’ve had a number of significant episodes and protracted periods of being unable to work. My colleagues (when I had colleagues) were nothing other than supportive at the time. As I would be if a colleague had a serious mental illness and became unwell. I’m not sure what exactly this “shit show” you imagine is going to be. There are many many people out there who are not, and will not ever be, able to work.
There are however many people with serious mental health diagnoses who are more than capable of working and should be supported to do so.

Instead of complaining about people on benefits they will be complaining about their colleagues' adjustments. They just want disables people to perform exactly the same way as non-disabled people.

You clearly don't have a clue what you are talking about. The coalition and conservative governments that GO was chancellor for brought in more tax increases and anti-avoidance than had been implemented in the previous 50+ years. There is little or no tax avoidance in corporation tax anymore due to the high levels of anti-avoidance legislation and international cooperation (OECD). I don't know what your SIL did but she obviously didn't work in tax or she wouldn't be coming out with such BS.
The irony of your comments is that they are as ignorant as people saying everyone on benefits is just lazy and sitting on their arse i.e. you have no clue what you're talking about.

Perhaps if they funded the NHS and fixed the issues less people would be on pip?

Person A has a hip problem needs a replacement finds themselves unable to continue full time work NHS waiting list means it could be years but you have to eat right? So they go part time and apply to pip to bridge the gap the worsening condition means they have to quit so they then end up on UC and going through a disability assessment getting a LCWRA award and sit and wait for an operation to fix the issue operation day comes and its worse than they expected because it's been so long they also check the quality of the other hip and reality is it's just as bad because it'd been carrying the load for five years so your back on a waiting list for five years waiting for another hip operation being told to lose weight and move more but your in agony and it's hard

Now imagine what would have happened if you could have had the operation sooner? You would have time off work and return to work within a fairly short period of time

Person B has a mental health condition they find it crippling the go to the Dr's who say they need to get out more perhaps if they lost weight they might feel better and send them on their way they also apply for benefits but they have no evidence they are mentally unwell and end up with sanction after sanction eventually they return to the Dr's who after much hemming and hawing decide to try antidepressants telling them it's not a quick fix and that they still need to get out there eventually they find work and spend a long time on antidepressants the Dr's are unhappy with this and keep removing them saying they shouldn't be reliant on them all the while not even considering the reason behind the depression eventually they give them four sessions of therapy and find out they have being horribly abused and are struggling with suicidal thoughts unfortunately after four sessions you have to pay privately so they apply for benefits (pip) to cover the extra expenses while the Dr continues to sign for the pills so they don't die

Now imagine if they were given therapy first with the option of having it for longer if needed

I could go on I could tell you about my friend who tried and fought and died my other friend who committed suicide after fighting his demons alone but somehow I don't think that people care until it happens to them

So, were you part of the task force Osborne put together to go after corporate tax evasion? Because my sister in law was, and apart from lots of trips to Brussels to keep them busy, they were never allowed to actually do that job.

Did the BBC amongst their programmes of " Saints & Scrounger" "can't pays we'll take it away" etc, ever do a "Corporate bastards who pay no tax" episode?

The HMRC work to rules set in place by government, it doesn't take much to work out in whose interests our governments are working for, they don't leave office and go to work in a soup kitchen do they, no they sit on the boards of ftse 100 companies.