Do they realise what they've done?

[constantlytired]

My mum has had a pretty horrific life. She had an abusive upbringing (my grandad used to batter her, or wake her in the middle of the night when he was fighting with my gran to get my mum to spit on my gran or else...) . My mum got married to my dad at a very young age and was the best mum in the world to my sister and I, even when my dad had affair after affair. She eventually left and brought my sister and I up by herself. Fast forward to now, and she suffers from terrible ill-health, the worst being the chronic osteo-arthritis in her spine and all her joints. As a result of this, she suffers from severe depression because of the constant pain and has recently had her medication doubled to help her deal with this. She also has menars disease (dizzy spells),asthma and agoraphobia (which unfortunately meant she was unable to even attend my wedding)...Anyway, she has been on the middle rate of disability living allowance for 3 years and her renewal recently came in. Despite a number of letters from doctors / surgeons, etc saying she has got worse in the past 3 years (obviously, as arthritis is a degenerative disease), they have now taken her off saying, and i quote 'you may not realise it, but your condition is in fact improving'....AIBU to think the person that made this decision has in fact sold his/her soul in order to meet some ridiculous target of getting people off DLA? I feel so sorry for my dear mum, she has been in tears for days now...and what can i do?...precisely nothing.

Did she have an ATOS medical? If so has she asked for a copy of the report? I've seen some (my dad's etc) that were so unbelievably untrue it wasn't funny.

Atos are indeed bastards. This is coming from someone who worked for the DWP. I could shock you with tales of who they had passed as fit to work. Over 60% of ESA appeals are upheld and I imagine DLA which is a much harder benefit to get would have an even higher success rate. That of course does not compensate for the months of worry and stress.

liberalconspiracy.org/2011/09/30/national-protest-against-atos-today/

This is a little out of date, but the events are on-going.

At least 40% of ATOS appeals are successful. Get some help.

I don't know where you are located,but try these guys for support. They do deal primarily with debt,but will take on cases with the DWP.

www.z2k.org/

Thank you for your kind messages, i'll let my mum know there is support out there for her. I just feel terrible for her, she's in constant pain and then this happens. She's only in her 50's as well, she's had most of these conditions since her 30's. I've been trying to think kindly of these people, i.e., they are just doing their jobs to meet whatever targets they have for taking people off DLA, but when i see them blatantly ignoring medical letters and spouting utter nonsense in their feedback, i can't help but feel they should be utterly ashamed of themselves.

Utter, utter bastards

Its all about the government putting money into the pockets of a private company instead of to the people who need it. We get DLA for our DS and get assessed every two years - yeah, like his autism is just going to go away .

Stories like this make me very angry at the disproportionate way in which the government is targeting the sick and disabled.

A friend's son who is 19 and has severe learning difficulties, is non-verbal, has epilepsy and cerebal palsy had to go to an interview as they didn't believe from his medical records (several consultants, GP, physio, OT, speech and language therapist) that he was unfit for work! It is disgusting. I wish you every luck with reversing this travesty.

Your poor mum. She's lucky to have such a lovely daughter.