1,000 new PIP claims per day?

[flashbac]

Is this true? (From someone who is naturally cynical of government info.)

If it is, is there something else behind the statistic? Is it because people have to reapply or something like that?

This is from the government website:

"Monthly PIP awards have more than doubled since the pandemic, rising from 13,000 to 34,000 - a rate of around 1,000 new claims per day, or the population of Leicester every year."

I find the statistic unbelievable.

Why can’t disabled people be trusted to spend it where they need it? Benefit fraud is very very low (compared to tax fraud and avoidance).

Being disabled comes with a load of extra admin (hospital appointment l, therapies, EhCPs, blue badges) without vouchers because we aren’t trusted.

The issue is it will be gatekept by somebody with little understanding. Life is hard enough, I don't want to justify why each voucher is needed or quibble over the provider because one is cheeper .
I don't want to justify why an item may help my child. I'm the parent I'm doing everything I can to give my child what they need.
When we had sleep difficulties as a small child (no diagnosed sleep disorder), I asked for help so many times I was fobbed of with advise like a bath and story before bed as if we had no idea of sleep routines. As if we hadn't tried everything already before asking for help.
The judgement that parents like us are just bad parents is hard to deal with. Parenting courses are encouraged so we can sit in a room and be told how to do it right by people with no idea of our day to day lives.

Because as pointed out above by a few posters MH problems or ND are really not that hard to fake or amplify. They are pretty unverifiable, people can amplify some things to make things sound worse than they are. I’ve had mild depression which I still worked with but I could have definitely made that sound awful.

It would never have occurred to me to try to claim any be benefits for my MH however if someone said “we’ll sub your therapy” I would have wholeheartedly signed up. What else could I have possibly spent it on to improve my condition other than therapy, thats all i really wanted, to feel better.

Similarly, opticians can directly refer people to private providers for cataract surgery.

GPs can refer patients directly to Specsavers for hearing aids (and in some areas, patients can self-refer direct to Specsavers).

And for decades, people have been able to "self refer" to opticians and dentists for NHS eye tests, NHS spectacles, NHS dental check ups and fillings etc.

People can "self refer" to pharmacists for contraception and now antibiotics in some cases.

These are all mostly "private" firms subcontracted by the NHS to do certain treatments. We need more of it!

The percentage of found benefit fraud is just above 2%, that 6.5 billion. The defence budget is something like 50 billion. Thats an extraordinary amount in absolute terms.

Also I don’t think people understand just how vulnerable overburdened systems are to collapse. The reality is the more and more people claiming and not working (I know PIP is available to people in work) the more we borrow to finance spend not investment the more likely we are to have the shit kicked out of us by the financial markets. Either we control it ourselves of they will force us to. I wouldn’t prefer the UK does itself and preserves access for the most needy.

Yeah, I don’t see a problem with it all. I would have happily used it myself.

I'm not sure if maybe just I misunderstood the person suggesting paid therapy.

My thinking was that if this was what you were awarded PIP for (solely) then subsidised private services would be perfect for this.

I don't think anyone's advocating for vouchers in full for PIP (or I'm not!), that was mooted by the conservatives wasn't it and went down like a lead balloon.

Yes thats what I meant, precisely. Specifically for MH issues.

Also how much would it cost to have trained staff (who would have to be well trained so as not to fuck up important appointments) going through payments and issuing vouchers?

Checking that the requests match the claim. Checking that the providers exist. Checking the amounts are correct. Keeping a check on what is spent or left in the Pip award.

Then what happens if the person checking the payments doesn't agree? Do they have the power to say no? If I want to use an extra 30% because her usual respite isn't available do they get veto it?

Would all of that actually save any money whatsoever or would it just end up costing more than it does currently?

It very much depends on your circumstances. When my DH was so unwell that he couldn't work, what he could claim was limited because we owned our home (mortgaged), I was working and I was earning too much for him to be eligible. So other than PIP, and child benefit for the kids, he wasn't entitled to anything else. To qualify for those additional benefits (income related ESA, universal credit, housing benefit, council tax relief etc) he would have needed to be single, or I would have needed to be on a very very low wage, and we would have had to be renting our home.

I agree with poster on first page. Universal basic income. The jobs market is shrinking and a lot of people don’t want to work anyway.

Of course there are problems: it would be even harder to find people to do unpopular, poorly-paid jobs (eg care work). I can’t immediately think of an answer to this.

But yes, it would do away with increasingly suspect claims - and if you wanted more money you could always get a job on top!

It very much depends on your circumstances. When my DH was so unwell that he couldn't work, what he could claim was limited because we owned our home (mortgaged), I was working and I was earning too much for him to be eligible. So other than PIP, and child benefit for the kids, he wasn't entitled to anything else. To qualify for those additional benefits (income related ESA, universal credit, housing benefit, council tax relief etc) he would have needed to be single, or I would have needed to be on a very very low wage, and we would have had to be renting our home

If he had been working and paying NICs in the last 2 years was he not able to claim Contributions based ESA?
That wouldn't have been affected by your income or your mortgage.

The terminally ill? IIRC if you have a diagnoses of 6 months you can apply for PIP and it’s fast tracked. Of course they aren’t saying how many people end PIP each year because they died.

Only 20% of Pip claimants work at all. 80% of Pip claimants arent working.

I completely agree! My DC has been awarded PIP and i sent no evidence just the contact details of his GP and hospital consultant ( who haven’t been contacted…i asked). He was awarded the highest rate for 6 years!

It's now changed to 12 months

Why on earth should the people who don’t want to work be included? It’s a joke. The people who do work have to prop up enough people.

I was diagnosed with autism last year at the ripe old age of 29. That's 29 years I've struggled throughout my daily life. I was awarded PIP at the end of last year.

My PIP helps me travel, by allowing me to get taxis instead of busy unpredictable public transport, it allows me to buy my safe foods and pre-cooked meals because I find planning and sequencing extremely difficult beyond cracking open a cold can of ravioli and eating it from the tin, it helps me arrange regular food shop deliveries, it helps me pay for my hair to be washed because I have extreme sensory sensitivities with water and struggle excessively with transitions and also cannot prioritise personal hygeine due to sensory sensitivities, it helps me buy news clothes because I have poor interoception and urinary incontinence because of this, which was made worse after I had a child, it helps me pay for someone to come and help clean, it makes up the shortfall for relatives that have to take time off work to support me when I need help at appointments due to delayed processing and overwhelmed, it helps me buy sensory aids so that I don't just rip the skin off the bottom of my feet or give myself bald patches pulling hair out from trichotillomania when I am stressed, it helps fund therapeutic activities that form part of my routine, and it helps me buy specialist equipment to help me with transitions.

A big part of my assessment as a late diagnosed adult was evidencing areas where I have muddled through, highlighting that just because I haven't been receiving help there was still a need for help to be provided.

Thankfully I was awarded without needing mandatory reconsideration or appeal.

There are many ways in which PIP is beneficial but it is based on need and not diagnosis so if you feel that you get all the support you need from the CMHT and the adult autism team then that is really good but PIP can be the make or break for some of us who aren't really thriving, we are just surviving.

Until very recently DH's employment history was pretty patchy, due to his health conditions his work history until we married was very spotty. These days, he would met the eligibility, ironically because he's been well enough to hold down a job. Back then, he didn't.

Is the statistic is true then that's really worrying isn't it? I was hoping it was an exaggeration!

I think it depends how you view PIP. I don't think it's worrying if more people are being helped to fund the costs of disabilities, whether they are disabilities that were previously not recognised, people feeling like they have to fund their own costs or people not realising there were aids out there to help them.

But costs would rise. Then we'd be back to square one. I'd like to see British farmers paid to grow healthy food for our own people. Good diet improves quality of life and it will reduce our import emissions and it will give jobs to people. No more sitting on your ass getting JSA, you get in the field and pick food. You're welcome to go home and apply for jobs in the evening like all of us working full time.

I completely agree! My DC has been awarded PIP and i sent no evidence just the contact details of his GP and hospital consultant ( who haven’t been contacted…i asked). He was awarded the highest rate for 6 years!

If you've already been made their appointee then your DC's assessment for that could have been used.

Hes never had an assesment

They would have taken information from what you put on the form. Did you have a telephone assessment as well, or face to face assessment?