How helpful is your GP? Mine lambasted universal credit and the job Centre, and I have no idea what she did but she was so angry at what was happening she got me 5 months backdated disability premium (or whatever it’s called).
My ‘work coach’ kept refusing to refer me for an disability assessment, although I’d got a sick note saying I was permanently disabled and unable to work, & a universal credit person had come round to the house to verify all my details and look at medical letters etc, as I was home bound (well, bed bound really).
Then followed months of terrifying (phone) interviews and processes where she kept saying she ‘had’ to tick yes I was looking for jobs for 35hrs+ a week and I was saying of course I haven’t done that, the issue isn’t LOOKING, it’s actually WORKING. I’ve been in bed unconscious for 22 hrs a day and this call is hugely painful and will impact my health for days after… and she’d just sigh and say ‘well you’ll end up being sanctioned and if I sanction you I can make sure you don’t get benefits for two years, so you better start trying to get better hadn’t you?!’
The first time I thought she hadn’t understood it was a permanent, degenerative condition that you don’t ‘get better’ from. And that I’d worked in a professional job for years, slowing cutting back my hours as I became ill, until it was impossible to work any longer. Due to my health. So carefully explained again. Emailed over more evidence. Huge amounts of evidence. Helpful websites. Doctors notes explaining it again for her Etc.
But after the fifth call I realised she was doing it deliberately. Blocking the disability assessment, & refusing to move me off the full on job seekers track, taking pleasure in terrifying me each week by setting hurdles it was impossible for me to do… grim times.
I completely sympathize with you OP. My mental health took a battering and I was pretty resilient at the beginning, but by the end of 9 months I was in bits.
I’ve blocked a lot of it out now, as thank goodness it was a number of years ago, but I do remember a particular highlight of the way she behaved was this:
She told me (threatened me) that she was putting me to work in Sainsburys, shelf stacking, in their ‘get back to work’ scheme. Where you have to work to get your universal credit (I think they might have stopped this now? Or maybe not, I remember the outcry at the time though, modern day workhouse slavery!)…. Anyway…
Me… shelf stacking. It would hugely impact my health to even try and lift one or two light products for my own shopping, let alone for a job. I have carers to do my shopping for me for that reason. Perhaps she was expecting the carer to come along too and do it all for me whilst I just sat there directing them like a very embarrassed gooseberry?!
That’s assuming I lasted long enough to get up, dressed, and out of the door, and to the shop, wherever it would be. Oh and if it wasn’t in wheelchair distance that would be a problem as I have to take ambulance transport to get anywhere further as I have to travel lying down flat. And oh yes, sitting us really hard for me too, as well as staying awake… so just a few barriers to this terribly good and appropriate, humane, plan!
All of which she, and her manager was well aware of.
At this point my wonderful GP finally flipped and phoned ‘a few people’ at universal credit, and it all went away… thank god. I no longer have to talk to the job centre. And have been recognized as disabled. And got 5 out of 9 months backdated.
I love my GP.
My GP was grimly satisfied when I told her that her intervention had been successful, and observed that doctors still have some ability to be heard and fight on behalf of their patients. I suspect it’s rare though… but worth trying?!