AIBU to hate Universal credit, pip and the mental stress they cause people

[Mistlewoeandwhine]

Why does no one care about this? It’s so awful. We are a rich country and we can afford to give people their benefits. It’s a tiny amount of the tax spent. We spend more on nukes. I feel sick thinking about all the people suffering in pain and anxiety. It’s so cruel.
www.disabilitynewsservice.com/pip-claimant-took-his-own-life-after-paramedic-ignored-his-pain-and-dwp-cut-his-benefits/
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/universal-credit-depressed-mental-health-benefits-dwp-a9363776.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1582847446

I am on my way to my relative's PIP face-2-face meeting and am feeling super stressed. Last time it ended with going to a tribunal appeal. Going through the whole year before going to court and the day itself was a nightmare. We won the case but I never want to go through that again.

It would help if Capita didn't employ outrageous lying bastards staff and if they allowed you to record the interview on a machine that costs less than about £400.

They keep cancelling my daughters assesment for universal credit and been waiting since August last year

They could record all interviews and provide claimants with a copy if it for, say, £20 but that wouldn't suit their purpose. They don't want fairness. They want to cut the bill for DWP at all costs. I don't blame the government - they need to weed out false claimants but, IME, Capita aren't interested in the truth or fairness.

Currently waiting for the result of my face to face PIP assessment. YANBU!

Theyd save money not offering bonuses to capita etc. For failing peoples pip assessments to start with. The whole system is a farce.

I read ( don’t know if this is true mind you) that the standard policy is to deny PiP, then allow the person to have it when they go to a tribunal as it still saves them money. How anyone can do this for a job is beyond me. There are people starving and becoming homeless whilst also ill and in pain. People have huge waits before they get UC. It’s so awful. And so unnecessary.

Well thats the Tory Government for you that the British Public Not just the rich but the poor, too keep on voting in. This UC charade has been going on for years. Yet in 2015 they were back in, 2017, back in. 2019 back in again.
What is going to take for people to wake up, because it's not suicides ect.

@TheBigFatMermaid they have an 11 week wait at the moment

The guy who designed Universal Credit got a knighthood for it, that tell you all about what this country values

Pip is awful. The whole thing is awful. I am an appointee and do all this for a family member. If I didn't, they would just starve to death like that poor man in the papers again this week. It's just awful.

As someone who has been retired on ill health grounds and had to apply for both these benefits I can say Yanbu. You are really made to feel the lowest of the low. It seems your automatically assumed to be not telling /exaggerating your limitations.
I'm one of the lucky ones who got awarded pip however my medical report is full of lies/inconsistencies, the nurse spent 22 minutes in my home (how can she assess me in that time), my two medical reports contradict each other and the points system is inconsistent.
I'm well educated with a health care background so had some idea of how to fill in the forms in order to jump through their hoops however how many people can't do this? Accessing support to assist with this is near impossible. People are scared of appealing - I was, the first time I knew I should have been awarded mobility however wasn't but I was told if I appealed I may loose what benefits I was receiving, I therefore didn't appeal but then got criticised and questioned the next assessment because I hadn't appealed!
We are in need of reform. We're in need of change towards attitudes to claiming benefits (we shouldn't be made to feel second class citizens because we're unable to work /are disabled and need assistance in order to work).
The small % of people abusing the benefits system are causing everyone on benefits to be tarred with the same brush. Many people rely on these benefits to get by not live a luxury lifestyle.
The worry of benefits being stopped at any moment is also worrying for most of us. It's always in the back of your mind.

Currently awaiting the decision on my 5year olds DLA application, the 4th application I have had to send off in 5 years! He has a life long disability that he will never grow out of yet they make me apply again every year! It's soul destroying!

YANBU. Every time I get to a stable place with my mental health I get stuck starting the reassessment process all over again. Despite being born with physical disabilities that I will never recover from I have to reapply for PIP and ESA every 3 years.

I always go from the highest rate of everything to scoring 0 points, losing everything and then winning it back a year later at tribunal. This has happened 6 times now.

Every time it fucks up my care plans as I have no way to pay for stuff and sets back all my mental health treatment by years. I'm stuck in an endless cycle of poverty, relapses, and fighting every day just to stand still.

The entire process is dehumanising and destroying any quality of life for disabled people. Being sent to a room over and over again where you have to tell a person just how fucked up and broken your are. Forced to explain in excruciating detail every little detail of what I can't do and how I will never live a normal life. All to someone who doesn't give a flying fuck about me and will actively lie to make my life worse.

I'm sick of feeling like a sub human "thing" that the system wants dead. I'm sick of a system that's meant to help me activly making my health worse. I'm sick of being terrified of brown envelopes.

It's awful.

I don't have experience of UC as yet, but have been being advised from medical people to apply for PIP for years, and haven't, because of the well known stress and pressure it causes.
Thankfully, Social Security Scotland are taking over our disability benefits from this summer, and promising to make it an easier process.

JemimaPuddleCat - hopefully it should be easier for you. The Scots seem to look after their people better than the English do.

My pip assessment came back lies ffs. I had normal grip ! The “nurse” didn’t check that ! She also obviously had never heard of lupus or had any knowledge of how it works. So off to appeal we go.
On a esa assessment which in hindsight I should have taken to appeal the assessor said I could walk normally to the room she was twent foot ahead of me so unless she had eyes in the back of her head she was a fucking nasty bitch in her report.

I’d love to know who the 18% are that think it’s fine to treat people like this. People are ENTITLED to their money. We have a welfare state. And if anyone is worried about fraud - start looking at companies and rich people who pay zero tax into this country. Look at MP’s expenses. Look at how much money Boris has pissed away on vanity projects. He whole thing makes me sick. People are dying because of this. We now have more food banks than McDonalds and Burger King outlets put together. There should not be any food banks in this country. Not one,.
And, yes, I know they started under Blair but I am no fan of his either.

I bought two Argos tape recorder machines for £25 each last year for my PIP assessment and a pack of £10 tape cassettes. I ran them simultaneously and presented one copy to my assessor and kept one. This was fine. I advise anyone dealing with state sponsored cunts to do this. Good luck OP. It is a shitty state of affairs and has made my mental and physical health so much worse.

Yanbu. I'm still hanging on to tax credits but I feel sick every time a brown envelope drops through the door in case it's moving me over to UC.
I daren't change my working hours or job in case it triggers a change.

Yanbu. Writing my PhD thesis was easier than the writing to get PIP (which didn't get as far as tribunal but did require two years of proving I'd sent docs by recorded delivery, and arguing about accessibility of centres and getting my MP involved, so they clearly thought coughing up might be easier).

I would recommend to anyone having a face to face assessment to take someone with them, ideally who can introduce themselves as Dr X. My DP's doctorate is in nothing to do with medicine but he didn't mention that.

Dreading when my autistic kids hit 16 and have to get moved to PIP and be expected to claim themselves.

Sadly some of us have no one to go with us, let alone a doctor.

The whole system is extremely unfair to ill and disabled people. My. ESA assessment was full of lies, luckily it was recorded, but the dwp and capita weren't interested, even at appeal I was told I should complain. However, at appeal there was a doctor present who was able to correctly judge my condition. What are people meant to do financially in the meantime though?!

I'm sick of being terrified of brown envelopes

That is so true

From their pov it saves money if people just kill themselves out of desperation instead.

I am a YABU. Not because I am evil and think it is OK to treat people like this but because your OP is not thought through. So you "hate UC and PIP" Bravo! Virtue signalling.

We all hate it. No-one wants to be on it, or be assessed for it. No-one is going to say "Oh yes I love my PIP assessments".

Let's say we abandon them and let everybody have it who wants it without an assessment. Let's say everyone can have UC without an application, a work coach or a means test. Great. Now everyone pay extra tax to pay for that. Happy with that? (It would have to be an indirect tax as income tax wouldn't cover it). (Or shall we just let "the rich" -ie not us) pay for it.

Think it through OP. How would you run the system? How would you decide who got what and who paid what? How would you decide the level? £10k a year? 20k a year? More? Including or not including Housing Benefit for rent? And if I really don't want to do more night shifts at Amazon can I just claim UC instead - beacuse I am telling you night shifts at Amazon are not how I want to spend my time.

So that's why YABU. Neither is a great sytem but nor is it anywhere else in the world. How should we change it?

(Me I would go for a Universal Basic Income - but that is unlikely to happen anytime soon).