To wonder if the new PiP is just the beginning of a systematic attack on the most vulnerable in society

[madhairday]

Posting this here because this issue needs to be raised.

I've just seen the possible new Personal Independence Plan criteria and am even more terrified about the future for the disabled and chronically sick than I was before.

The criteria has narrowed dramatically from DLA, and become even more of an automised tick list suitable for the ATOS robots to fill in, condemning thousands to a life sitting indoors staring at four walls. I notice the criteria goes straight from 'unaided' to 'constant help' with no inbetween. So many will be caught in the trap of not being disabled enough, so losing DLA, not being able to get ESA because of apparently being fit for work, then losing Jobseekers due to not being able to get to the Job Centre because they have lost their mobility allowance.

Is anyone else frightened about this? How many people are going to begin to believe life is simply not worth living any more? How is this society being civilised, and looking after its weakest? What is the future for disabled children? I notice there being very little (nothing) about autism, and very little about mental health issues. This criteria seems to me a cynical and hard way to get as many people off this benefit as possible.

The future looks cold to me.

I'm very worried indeed about it all. Thanks madhairday for the comments link - will do. It probably will be me in 10 years time. I shudder to think.

Bessimo

I know a bit about ASD (in final year now of PT MA in ASD, just research to do) and if you want to mail me am happy to see what I can come up with for suggestions etc. and pass on some powerpoints I have that may be related. My mail is asd and autism support uk @ live . co. uk (no spaces obv).

We live in a world where we are taught to be control freaks: caryy a phone at all times becuase people cannot possibly cope without you being in touch 24/7 etc etc etc; we have not elarned to deal with things that are outside that control such as disability, bereavement. All we can do protect ourselves is blame or find reason why it cannot be something we are at risk of.

Institutions cost ££££. Even when run as 'group living'. however supported living is already being run down; SW has put in my notes that he is confident I will care for ds3 forever. I am assuming he means until i die, after that is probably a little bit much to ask!

I am raising ds1 to believe he will work and fund his own life. DS3 no chance. We hope he'll get invovled in some communtiy project type thing- they do gardening and allotments locally, he'd love that- but it takes 3 of us to keep him on track getting dressed, hardly profitable for a business!

Thing is though a few years ago people cared. On MN if you typed something anti Sn people jumped on you. Maypole has put a few comments about including one on MN about people on benefits should be left to starve and only the Sn community cared. says it all frankly; as soon as money gets tight quite literally let the needy die before you downgrade your loo roll brand.

That Benefit Scrounger blog is fantastic but so very sad, reading some of the comments. Have shared it on FB. Trying to get it out there as much as I can with any strength I have which is not a lot today. Since when have we got to be a society where the weakest have to fight for basic dignity. So many people are so very frightened. Where will this end?

It won;t MHD, my Labour MP seems quite happy with the cuts tbh

I've just looked at the DWP website and it says the purpose of the replacement of DLA with the PIP is to simplify the system, to ensure that people are given it at the level at which they need and to make sure its not a barrier to work. I know the devil is in the detail but it doesn't seem such a dreadful proposal to me.

I'm going to email the lady who does the Benefit Scrounger blog later. Have been sharing it around also :)

Thing is though a few years ago people cared. On MN if you typed something anti Sn people jumped on you. Maypole has put a few comments about including one on MN about people on benefits should be left to starve and only the Sn community cared. says it all frankly; as soon as money gets tight quite literally let the needy die before you downgrade your loo roll brand

Peachy - this is so true. I've noticed the same old names defending disabled people on here lately. There was a thread 3-4 years ago (sometimes I like to look back at old threads, esp AIBU) about someone who was served by someone with Tourettes and didn't like it. Loads of people flamed her and other posters who were critical. I don't think that would happen as much now.

I think we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. The people I worked with who made my life hell were always moaning about the benefits disabled people get and how they're just lazy and could work... but when a disabled person worked with them they complained like fuck, I had too much time off sick, my illness wasn't fair on them - it must be SO hard being the person without the incurable illness mustn't it? Poor them.

Some people are bell ends and won't be happy whatever people do.

The problem is wikolite that all these things are assessed with a 'one size fits all' policy and the focus is very much on unchanging physical disabilities.

Loads of people don't fit the brackets because;

• they have mental health issues, they may be capable of amazing acrobatics physically but be mentally unsuitable for work, or need support/supervision as a result
• they have Special Needs, so Autism etc - again could be physically capable but may need supervision. If someone has severe sensory issues it can make all sorts difficult, so a noisy office environment is hard for someone like me, I have well below average ability to block out noise and concentrate on a task. They may be unable to spend long periods of time shopping because they can't cope with the noise, the queues etc
• They have a fluctuating illness such as Multiple Sclerosis, Fibromyalgia, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus, Sjogrens Syndrome, ME etc - they may be capable of work on some days, but not others. If someone needs to be off sick a lot they're going to struggle to hold down a job. They're also hard to classify under the current system as they may not need help every day but need a lot on other days etc.
• they may have multiple disabilities which affect different areas, say they might have AS and ME, so the things they could do with AS are made harder by the ME

I suspect there will be many people like me, struggling but struggling with things DLA don't recognise. So I struggle to cook but am physically capable, I enjoy cooking but I do tend to injure myself due to the dyspraxia, this is made worse by a chronic painc condition which makes it harder for me to use my hands. I'm most likely not bad enough for LRC. However I really struggle with the cleaning, I struggle with food shopping as I don't drive and am severely limited in how much I can carry due to the pain. I'm also hypermobile and my ankles are some of the most affected joints, carrying shopping back even a 5 min distance puts a major strain on them. If I didn't have DP to help I'd have to use taxis etc to do the shopping, this is an extra expense. I find the act of being in the supermarket tiring, sometimes I struggle to stay standing/not faint etc. I hate the sensory overload they give me, the noise, the people, the difficulties navigating the aisles etc. It's very distressing for me.

The parameters for whether or not people need help are narrow and don't reflect the variety of disabilities out there. Also many people are assessed by people who are not qualified in the field of their disability. Someone with neurological problems should be assessed by a Neurologist etc. When people with multiple disabilities are being assessed it should be by the most relevant specialist, or someone who is educated on the different conditions someone has.

ps: I don't drive for medical reasons, the dyspraxia in my case is severe enough to make driving inadvisable. I almost ran over 3 people and almost killed myself, the driving instructor and someone driving a lorry. In 9 driving lessons.

Wikolite, the DWP site does make it all sound very reasonable and couched in the whole 'empowering' language. However, it covers up an ugly depth of trying to get as many people off DLA as possible, screwing the consequences. So for instance, lets say one of the criteria for the new PiP says that someone in a wheelchair has the wheelchair to get around, so doesn't need the extra monetary help of HRC/equivalent. So, their mobility allowance is gone. This then stops both their blue badge and their motability car. They can't get to work. They lose their job. Empowering? No. Narrowing someone's life to the extent that they are completely trapped.

This is only one example of someone with a more obvious disability. Like Minty said, it's the thousands out there with disabilities more difficult to see/quantify that pose the problem. The narrow ticklist system doesn't take all the parameters into account. And they won't even bother to read consultants reports etc. If they made their decisions based on what the experts in people's conditions said it would save a hell of a lot of money - no need for ATOS, but as I cynically suspect it is more about cuts than empowerment they won't do this.

My illness is fluctuating. It's a lung disease sister to cystic fibrosis and I have good days and bad, good weeks and bad. On the bad I can do nothing and would qualify for HRC then, because I need care in teh night also with physio and meds etc, but on the good I take care of myself and my children although could not work still (or be employed at least, I do contend I could work for an understanding employer; I am an intelligent and articulate woman with a first class degree and it's all being bloody wasted because no one will emply someone off sick so much) - but because ATOS may see me on a better week, there would be no accounting for the worse times, so I would fall into the 'too well for PiP, too ill for JSA' trap. If I didn't have dh to support me I'd be screwed. Do you see what I mean?

Wilko doesn;t sound bad does it?

It's the way it's being brought in.

First some stats: DLA is known by the DWP to have a 0.5% fraud rate and be 40% underclaimed. They wish to cut the DLA claim rate by 20%.

There's an obvious thing tehre that genuine people will suffer, no?

Theya re dropping the lowest rate of claim and going from 3 levels of care to 2.

Now they hire a group called ATOS to don tehn assessments. In a half hour visit. They will not look at reports from professionals etc. So, if you ahve a non visible disability- autism, mental health problems, heart disease, MS...... you are stuffed.

ATOS decisions are over turned at appeal with an average rate of 40%; would you have such an incompetent company working for you? personally we wouldn't (we do have our own business). A different stas is that when someone goes to appeal without representation the rate drops to around 30%, with representation around 70- but they withdrew legal aid for appeals. A little worrying, no? Then you get all the epople who can;t manage an appeal themselves and Social Services have cut expenditure hugely so they probably won't get any help. And of course Appeals are running at a backlog in which time the person isn't getting money, no carer's is being received if their carer gets it......... there is a genuine risk people will die here. There are often not people who can cope. And of course many with significant MH issues, Autism (ASD is my speciality both through family and professionally) cannot manage or face an appeal.

And that's even before you look at the history of ATOS with some of the appalling decisions and ways they treat peopel: my personal fave was hte person with months to love who was told they could still work.

I have spent some time browsing groups reading up on this and have found that many people with disabilitities are talking about suicide due to ATOS issues. Gien that many disabilities (well, all but to varying extents) palces people at risk of MH disturnbance anyway- well I guess that would cut Government spending.

Thing is ATOS are shite. pretty much everyone in the field knows that. Yet the Government has rehired them to manage the new PIP. Woohoo etc.

And the Minister has conformed that a family with middle rate claiming children (that dosn;t mean severe, just that the child sleeps between 11 and 6) will see a drop in income from 2013 although it's apparently pahsed in so people can get used to it. Erm, do tehy eamn move to cheap housing? Where, exactly, is this cheapo hosuing I wonder? It's a fall on today's rte btw, with the cost of living rising as it is. And based on a low icnome working family like mine.

Nice one Minister, cheers for that. Eat or heat. I wonder which i will choose.

Remember that thread Minty, was it really 3 yeras ago? Must get a life !

I think it was like 2007... I was about to post an outraged comment when I realised it was an old thread.

Your point about ATOS is good - no other business would get away with such poor performance. Scrapping it, trusting GPs and other medical professionals, Rheumatologists, Neurologists etc would be much cheaper. Could still audit the procedure, make sure no-one's turning cartwheels in the GP's office and is claiming to be a wheelchair user, or whatever it is the Daily Mail thinks we like to do in our spare time BUT it would cost the costs of appeals, the cost of hiring ATOS etc. Plus the stress saved to disabled people is likely to prevent some people from getting worse and may help support them in to working if they feel they might be able.

After that the government needs real measures to get disabled people who can work in to work, forcing people off benefits won't do it. Companies need to be given real incentives to hire disabled people, and punishments if they flout the Equality Act.

And attitudes need to change for the above to happen as well, people need to see people with disabilities as valuable members of society. Like Madhairday I have a good degree and whilst I cannot find work my skills are not being put to good use, it's like people hear you have a disability and suddenely no longer see the skills they saw before, they just assume you're useless.

This is so scary

Just seen this thread. DS has ASD, he is 6, still in nappies, not sleeping through the night, has a 1:1 TA at school. I had to give up work to care for him and even now he is at school FT I can't find work that computes with my life as his carer. I use his DLA to pay the bills.

People don't care. I think even people who know me still secretly think I shouldnt be getting benefits for DS (I used to work hard in paid employment, I never would have thought pre DS I would be living on benefits with a disabled child). My BIL has a disability as a result of a bad accident, his condition will get worse and worse. Both our households live with 'the fear' that we are reliant on a government, and for that matter, a society who would quietly judge us and let us go hungry/ homeless.

That is a good point about ATOS' viability as a performing company, Peachy. They are hardly showing great things here.

I contend that if the gov cut out ATOS and went with consultant reports etc there would be no need for the cuts anyway. DLA is far from perfect and needs overhauling but this is an overhaul for the bad. I feel sick whenever I think about it. When are we going to start seeing suicide reports. I guess we already have. When will this lead to a shift in thinking about value as people and commodities and eventually euthanasia/abortion laws being changed for the most severely disabled. It's like something from a 1970s dodgy sci fi novel. Survival of the fittest rules, it seems.

The money they'd save on scrapping ATOS would be a lot, makes much more sense to me - why doesn't the government trust GPs and Consultants? Even if someone did fool their GP the chances of them fooling a Specialist as well are slim.

All my problems are invisible, 7 GPs and 3 Specialists have agreed I have problems. It's just not feasible to suggest I've pulled the wool over all of their eyes and convinced them I have problems which don't exist.

My medical records from childhood show that the problems I claim to have had were dealt with then, they show a history of bladder problems, sleep problems, that I had to see a variety of psychiatrists/child pyschologists. They can see that for a while the Hospital I was at as a toddler thought I might have developmental delay/stunted growth. If you look back and piece it all together you can see I had SN which was missed, they never thought to assess for dyspraxia in the 80s and 90s.

It's not like I just woke up one day and decided to get myself diagnosed with dyspraxia - I can provide evidence that many of the problems I had as a child were known to Drs. My school reports/letters/records show that the difficulties I had at school with maths, learning to write and social interaction were all present. I had to write with a special pencil, I even had extra help with TAs at one point as the school felt I was 1 of the children the TAs should focus on.

With everything else, you can see from my medical records as a teenager that I had the early warning signs for a chronic pain condition, all developing after a nasty bout of glandular fever.

To suggest I'm lying is madness. Yet people still do it, I think I've already said on this thread that my father had 3 strokes whilst at work. He was still accused by some colleagues of malingering...

With attitudes like that no wonder we have ATOS to do the government's dirty work.

I didn't even really notice this thread, it's been on the page for days and, because of the subject and the fact that I don't know very much about disabilities, I didn't post on it for fear of putting my foot in it.

I've read the thread now, all of it, and I'm very sad. A few points have immediately leapt out at me - David Cameron... he's never going to know what it is like in the real world. The loss of Ivan was as sad for him as for any parent, I believe that, but he will never have known the fear of living hand to mouth, dependant on the government for money rightfully due, and I expect he had other people to help when he and Samantha were engaged elsewhere.

The other point was, Mumsnet itself. The lack of interest in real issues, even those affecting a significant proportion of its members. It's a pattern. I suppose that people post here for distraction from their daily routines and they like escapism. Threads like this don't accomplish that. Anything that ican't be sorted by a quick retort of "grow a pair" or "tell them to fook off", just doesn't fit into that distraction. I understand it, I'm guilty of it myself, but that doesn't mean that I don't have fears, worries and concerns for society, it's just that they don't impinge on my daily life the way that they do for posters literally struggling with this on a day to day basis.

I agree, there ought to be more support if not interest. There but for a twist of circumstances can go any of us. So I want to ask... are there any journalists known for having a particular penchant for disabled rights? Mumsnet like journalists, they like being in the media very much, its the rarified air that they breathe.

I have very little experience of SN children but have great affection for a local special school that caters for children of varying disabilities, from mental to severe physical impairments. I thought of them as I read this thread and I don't want them - or anybody in the same boat - to be left to the mercy of a government that won't stand up for the people in genuine need of help.

I don't know what I can do to try to help. Write to my MP? Respond to a consultation? I would like to do something.

It looks to me as though it is an attack on the vulnerable. Tory-led government picking on soft targets

The Guardian is on side wrt to PIP, have published quite a few articles.

There's another aspect to this that really sucks:

if someoone is faking, then a thirty minute ATOS assessment is easy to blag: clutch my back, refuse to get up, moan when I sit down. ATOS tick boxes and off I run with stolen DLA.

If someone has one f the invisible or fluctutaitng SN, they cannot fake that; they re not visible.

PIP using ATOS and not log term consultant documenttation actively enables fraud. It really does. ds1, AS, has 5 yeras of aperwork, a SNU plscement and a statement on record: none of which shows in an assessment.

Nuts.

It's cuts and no more. At least have the guts to admit it politicians.

Thanks LyingWitch. There are a couple of links to respond up the page. Any help appreciated. I think some of us tried to get MN interested in an appeal against DLA reform but the lack of interest killed it off somewhat. We can keep trying though. Writing to your MP is good too. I wrote to mine and he forwarded it to Maria Miller, and I got a patronising C&P post back saying how it's all about making sure the right people get the right benefit and how it would be enabling people more. Bollocks.

YY Peachy re faking at ATOS interviews, I imagine people who fake would find that easy to do, and as you say they'd be taken in if they didn't bother reviewing consultants notes. I have a file too thick to pick up now full of notes going back 20 years or so, but no, it'll all be decided on 30 minutes and a tick list

Peachy - you're right, it's so much easier to fake being ill in a 30 min assessment than it is to fake years worth of medical history. If they must have ATOS they should at least be given the patient's medical history.

all about making sure the right people get the right benefit and how it would be enabling people more. Bollocks

That way it stops ATOS ignoring significant health problems, I know someone whose leg clot (meaning she can barely stand) was dismissed at her ATOS 'medical' - they said as she refused to walk around for them (because she can't) that they had to presume she was able to walk with no problems! They also ignored a number of other things she told them about as well.

It would be much easier to let the Drs decide. The woman above was seen by someone whose specialism wasn't even remotely related to ANY of her disabilities. My Rheumatologist won't comment on my Neurologist's findings of my Dyspraxia because he isn't qualified to discuss neurological problems which don't interact with Rheumatological ones (i.e. ones that aren't ME, etc which could be confused with Rheumatological issues). A patient with Autism should be seen by someone who specialises in Autism. A Rheumatologist in that situation would be about as useful as a chocolate teapot. Someone with Lupus shouldn't be seen by a Neurologist etc.

I don't know why the government can't see that.

Madhairday - true, that's such an easy soundbite for the government when it's actually bovine excrement that they're spouting.