Upset by way govmt is managing disability benefits change

I thought they said under 22 in the context of those who are currently claiming PIP and UC.

I didn't think DLA was even mentioned other than the age is going up from 16 to 18 when you switch to PIP if needed.

Yep, and still, on the millionth thread about this subject, not one single person can explain how they think this will be better. How they think they are going to benefit.

The Tories made sure it was difficult or even impossible to access basic health care.

Quelle surprise that the nation is full of unhealthy people.

The Tory's wanted a voucher system.

I am at a lost really about what happens to family like ours and it’s like when ever I see these threads it always turns in to nuero divergent and mental
health but what about the others.

my daughter is currently still a child but older end and it won’t be long before we know it when she is 16 and applying for pip but until 23 won’t be entitled to LWCA.

I don’t think she would even qualify for pip looking at the assessment.

she has complex health needs but we have really tried to not let it effect but ultimately she suffers daily and she wants a career she does but she won’t be employable for very long with the amount of time she will be off sick.

from the pip side of things I think she would score 2 on a few diff areas but even in eating and nutrition her biggest problem she would only score a 2 which is absolutely madness.

Everyone knows that a sizeable chunk of people are milking the system. Theres nothing wrong with them. The government needs to cut benefits deep. Much much deeper than what they have said.

You need help filling in the forms. If your child has severe difficulties and the mental age of a 5/6 year old there should be no issue getting PIP or anything else. My oldest is severely autistic but can do lots of things and is very good at maths and English, but he is definitely unable to take care of himself and is at a daycentre everyday. I am not worried about losing his PIP and I think there is a lot of alarmist stuff being posted that will really scare people who are unable to think a bit critically about what they read online.

seems like other organisations assume the same - the burden to care for those who lose PIP and their carer (due to loss of carers allowance) will largey fall on already cast strapped councils and will cost a lot more than £81 per week. It's just absolutely bonkers.

www.theguardian.com/society/2025/mar/22/government-plans-to-cut-pip-benefits-could-pile-more-pressure-on-councils

There's no vitriol stop being a drama llama

It's not necessarily a cognitive impairment not to follow a conversation, quite often it's just a lack of bothering to follow the conversation.

It's pointless trying to have a conversation with people who are here to only be goady.

Obviously severely disabled people should not have their benefits cut. Let’s just put that aside because it’s not realistic or humane.

Since people are posting on these threads that they’ll lose up to 1k a month and yet are genuinely too disabled to work, does it not strike you that the government proposals may not be the correct course of action?

I'm a 'lesser' disabled person. I actually can't work. I would love to, but it isn't physically possible.

There are no adjustments that can possibly be made, unless you can think of a job I can do in bed and requires only the movement of my eyes. If you can, I'm keen to hear it.

I think the solution needs to be a better assessment process and/or a better appeals process.

Very few people claiming these benefits right now are going to say, fine, I don't need them after all, I will just go back to work. They will inevitably say that they are too ill to do so, and many of them may believe this wholeheartedly. That doesn't necessarily mean that they couldn't go back to work if they were appropriately supported to do so. (Which is a big "if", I acknowledge.)

So there needs to be some sort of effective professional assessment, carried out by an appropriately qualified individual who isn't under pressure to meet performance targets etc, to determine whether these people would be capable of work and what support they might need.

Pushing the most vulnerable people into poverty cannot be the solution.

No, they don’t seem what I would call mildly unwell. And I don’t agree with the Green Paper or think they deserve to have their benefits cut. But it’s also true there are people who are even more unwell than those commenting, and you seem to think they should have their benefits cut?

I completely agree. Just imposing harsh cuts and offering no package of meaningful help is incredibly brutal, inconsistent with the (supposed) ethics of the historical Labour Party, and all round wrong. I don’t agree with the Green Paper at all.

But a lot of people commenting on these threads whose PIP awards are a t risk are not giving the picture that they are mildly unwell are they ? many are saying they won't be able to find work and will be plunged into poverty with the loss potentially of 1k a month. We can hope that they keep their PIP at re-assessment but with the four point ruling they are thinking they are going to lose their award.

I agree with you. The people who are severely affected by disability need adequate support, a) because they are amongst the least likely to be able to work and b) because they are likely to incur higher costs as a result of their disability/disabilities than those who are affected more mildly.

As a society, we have limited funds and we need to prioritise. However, I don't think we should simply cut benefits to those with less severe disabilities and demand that they go back to work. We need to put more support in place to help them recover and to help them get back into the workplace. That piece of the puzzle still seems to be missing at the moment.

How is it equally terrifying, though? I don’t agree that affecting the most unwell is “equal” to affecting only the more mildly unwell.

I don't want to see this happen but the alternative of is equally terrifying. We are seeing loads of people on these threads who are possibly on lower rates of PIP yet are still saying they are significantly disabled and cannot work. These people( an estimated 1 million ) are facing losing not only PIP payments but LCWRA as well, possibly £1k a month. You want to see cuts to the least severely affected but they stand to lose most of their benefits yet maintain they still have significant needs and won't be able to do any type of work.

@Pelican29 (I also find your suggestion very interesting because it’s actually super rare to see this proposed! Almost everyone acknowledges that at least the most unwell do need decent support.)

I think it’s ridiculous to suggest harming the most severely disabled by cutting their funding. I just don’t see how you can justify that if you actually think about what that would mean.

I would rather see cuts to the least severely affected than the most (obviously I am biased as someone in the severely affected group, here!), but I find it very hard to understand how it can be ethically justified to underfund (even further) those with such severe impairments. I’m not by any means eager to see cuts at all, or at least I would much rather see a functioning NHS so that people with milder problems can see improvements and not need to claim. But I don’t understand how you propose those with severe impairments to survive without a decent level of funding.

There really needs to be a practical thread where people with disabilities or MH/ND conditions can start preparing for the possibility of losing PIP or job searching etc

There’s been some great posts by disabled mumsnetters who work and how they adjust it around their conditions, they might be able to give advice.

Why should a million still with significant difficulties risk ending up with nothing? The government are effectively saying they can't continue to keep paying the benefits bill at it's current rate. Therefore there either needs to be less claimants overall due to stricter criteria meaning people can no longer get anything at all, or more continue to get it but get a bit less or rates are frozen. As I said there are no easy answers. Do you have any ideas for reform?

Why should those who are on the highest rates for very serious physical disabilities have theirs reduced? (Obviously I realise this isn’t happening, but under your proposed, hypothetical plan of reducing rates for all.)

I'll probably get flamed for this but I think it may have been better to reduce the amounts for all rather than the current propositions that will exclude large numbers from getting PIP at all as well as potentially losing the LCWRA element of UC as well.

Not by me, I agree with you.

If I was healthy, lost my job and couldn't find another, it would be in my interests to persuade people I was unwell with something, just so I could actually survive. I'm not saying that people are doing that, but it makes logical sense and I would find it hard to blame someone for doing that, given the pittance job seekers are expected to live on.
THIS! Universal Credit as a single person is unliveable on. It made my blood boil when they increased the amount for people needing to claim it during Covid - they KNOW no one can survive on the basic rate! I totally understand why people who lose their jobs might go after disability benefits. People have to survive somehow.
Add to this that “Job Centres” are not fit for purpose. My DP was briefly out of work years ago. He went to the job centre, thinking they would help him find work, or even access training as he wanted a new direction. Lol. He came home totally confused. I said, nope, that’s not what the job centres do anymore, haven’t for years.