To think this will just increase pressure on the poorest/vulnerable?

[Zebedee55]

Sanctions increased, putting more (often unrealistic) pressure on parents, carers, and sick/disabled.🙁

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/universal-credit-sanctions-hunt-budget-b2298836.html

A fair proportion of the residents are self-funding, at least until the money from selling their homes has run out, but the rest are funded through Adult Social Care, I guess.

The home can't renegotiate with ASC for existing residents in the current financial year though, so they're making loads of cuts: reducing the number of managers, reducing staffing levels to a minimum, stopping staff's free meals while on duty, all sorts of trifling things.

According to friend, every care home in her town is in the same boat when it comes to recruitment, really struggling for staff. I'm not surprised, when people can earn more money in Macdonalds and not have to deal with shit and stuff, and get punched and bitten by residents every now and then.

At the time the coalition came into power, the DWP’s own figures showed a fraudulent claim rate for DLA/PIP of 0.5%.

The DWP were set a target of getting 20% of claimants off disability-related benefits. So knowingly removing 19.5% of people that by the DWP’s own admission were genuine claimants in need of financial support to cope with their disability.

Who do we think more likely to be punished by that approach? The fraudsters who know how to game the system, or the genuine claimants (like my husband, who was refused PIP at first claim and MR, then granted it by a tribunal based on the bundle alone, no appearance required, because the most cursory read of his medical evidence demonstrated he was in genuine need of it) who do everything by the book?

The fraudulent claim rate has been consistently lower than the unclaimed benefits rate (i.e. the savings made from those who would be entitled to disability benefits not claiming, either through ignorance of their eligibility or choice).

Anyone thinking this was an economic, rather than an ideological, strategy is simply deluded.

@XenoBitch a very good point about @Moonicorn 's inpatient experience. It should also be noted that the people who are being admitted to inpatient units now are far, far more ill than they were 10 to 15 years ago. There are far fewer beds, because this government closed so many. Mental Health beds are like gold dust and you need to be very seriously ill to get one. This means that many people who would have been admitted 10 years ago are now being left to fend for themselves with no or very little support. Expecting them to just get better like that is completely unrealistic.

It's actually quite hard to get deemed unable to work at all if you solely have MH issues. Getting the right number of points in the relevant descriptors is pretty damned difficult.

Most of the cases I've dealt with that have been successful without going to appeal have been those where people have been deemed to be "at risk of significant harm to themselves or others" if they have to work. The "significant risk" test is a pretty hard one to meet, and I've only ever achieved it where there has been strong supporting evidence, save for a couple of cases where the assessment itself has freaked clients out so much that the assessor has felt it was unsafe to complete it.

That’s very sad but sorry I meant these south Asians who’ve been employed - are they paying for their own 6-12 month training or is it the UK tax payer?

👏

Seconded 👏

Need to stop this ‘I’m a carer for my husband with his bad back’ and then saying ‘my husband is my carer for my depression’ how the heck can two people living together be each others carers…it’s a bloody con to get extra money…this happens a lot, and have personal experience of my lazy niece and her useless slob of a partner who both smoke like chimneys on the back of the tax payer, they’ve never had a job between them!

How much do carers get?

At my most unwell I struggled to get in and out the bath, make a meal, take my medication. All things a carer would do. If someone is that unwell to require that level of support it saves the public purse huge sums of money to give a nominal amount to a spouse to be designated carer.

Carers allowance is 69.70 a week and makes you ineligible for some other benefits and support. You also can't work while recieving it.

However, there will also be those people who claim MH and then use it as a cover to get out of working. The idea that all benefits claimants are innocent and genuine is as bizarre as the idea that they’re all gaming the system.

I don't think anyone's suggesting every single case is a genuine one, @clairelouwho , more that it is far from easy to game the system and that those who succeed in doing so form a very small minority.

I do a lot of PIP applications and capability for work questionnaires, and I work solely with clients with MH issues. I could count on both hands the number of times when I've thought a client might not be successful but that they've succeeded, and I've done 2-4 applications every working week since ESA started in (iirc) 2008, and PIP in (iirc) 2014 (and DLA prior to that).

Around 30% of my work capability cases, and 50% of my PIP cases, aren't awarded following assesssment but have to go to appeal. The stats for our team are comparable, so it's not to do with the way I fill in the forms!

I have yet to lose an appeal, and the team overall has a 98% success rate at appeals, so that's an astonishing ratio of worthy cases that are incorrectly knocked back by the DWP.

I think the attitude to benefits in Mumsnet comes from middle class people who have never met anyone that’s cheating the system and don’t want to believe that they exist.

Exactly. Posters saying they know someone who claims to live like that to somehow make the point that benefits are too generous, are talking out their arse.

I'd be happy not to accept one, provided they refund all the NI paid instead as a lump sum.

The state of it all is shocking.

Carers should be paid an amount at least equivalent to minimum wage. People with disabilities should be provided with far, far more than they get through PIP. And agree with a PP that the reassessing of lifelong conditions is absurd.

Meanwhile many people who are not unwell completely take advantage of the system and it needs changing so that it is always significantly better financially to work. I thougjt UC was meant to do that but it hasn't.

As for pensions etc, like in many other countries the state pensions should reflect the level of contributions made. Ridiculous to give everyone the same amount. Would also have helped if it hadn't been set up as a ponzi scheme and the money individuals paid in had actually been invested for their own retirements so that it would not become a problem when the predicted demographic shifts happened. Utter incompetence from our Governments for decades.

I find people on both sides talk out their arses regularly when it comes to benefit discussions.

Often you get the well meaning middle class guardian readers who other claimants and then you have the hard liners.

Those with genuine lived experience tend to sit comfortably in the middle and can see both sides

You can work p/time, as long as it's less than 16 hours pw and (iirc) £152pw, and you can get it alongside UC and ESA.

I always advise clients to claim it if they can, as it gives them NI credits towards their pension.

Yes to net producers from Australia, NZ, USA, Canada, Scandinavia, South East Asia, South America (except Brazil), China, Japan, Philippines, and most EU countries.

None of these people want to move to the UK anymore! People are moving in the opposite direction. Understandably.

Australia has a big recruitment drive to recruit tens of thousands professionals from the UK.

This. These are the people I sympathise with

Absolutely, well said Sendbob.

Watch out though - this makes you ‘very right wing’.

Exactly, never mind the fact that I am not and never will be anywhere near right wing!

Oh I'm under no illusion that by the time I get to "pension age" it won't exist if we don't do something.

But that's 30-40 years away, and in the mean time pensions account for c.42% of all welfare spending. We could save ourselves trillions if we address this now.

Meanwhile many people who are not unwell completely take advantage of the system and it needs changing so that it is always significantly better financially to work. I thougjt UC was meant to do that but it hasn't

This myth that people who are unable to work are rolling in cash needs to stop. Under UC, it does pay more if you are in work.
If you are unfit to work (LCWRA), then you get less than £700 a month in UC.
If you do work, and are on a low wage, then you can claim top ups from UC.
No one on UC who is unable to work, is better off than someone who does work. ... and if they are, it will be because they have disabled children.

Carers should be paid an amount at least equivalent to minimum wage.

Depends what ‘caring’ means. Looking after somebody who is quadriplegic, needs turning, washing, lifting, feeding? It should be £25k minimum.

Driving them to a couple of appointments a week, filling in forms or just keeping them company? That’s a much greyer area.