To think that this government are at war with disabled people and always have been?

[MyopicBunny]

I am assuming that the part of their UC that will be cut is the disabled element? Most people can’t even get this at all if you are disabled. The rules to receive it in the first place are extremely strict.

Why us nobody talking about this? Has our society now become brainwashed with the idea that it’s acceptable to call disabled people with significant needs benefit scroungers?

Why is it the most vulnerable being shat on from a great height, over and over??

Wasn't David Cameron claiming DLA/PIP for one of his children?
You are right, it is not means tested and not about someone's inability to work.
Even if someone does not need the money that comes from claiming it, having an active claim opens other gateways to further support.

Yes @XenoBitch - I thought exactly the same thing about David Cameron. I really doubt he needed the money(!) but he presumably claimed it because it was his child's right to do so. And that's all anyone does who has a disabled child.

The Government have been telling civil servants to get back in the office. Where are all those WFH jobs that untrained people without transferable skills with chronic health problems, disabilities and mental heath conditions are going to be able to do?

Yes you have anxiety and depression so of course you can WFH .Of course, nobody cares that you are actually unable to get out of bed because your condition is crippling. That your medication makes you slow and fatigued and you can’t concentrate. That your anxiety is so severe you can’t even make a decision about what to wear that day. You are going to be marvellous in your new WFH job that doesn’t actually exist.

So you’ve got mobility problems? No problem. You can work at home at a computer for 8 hours a day. Never mind that sitting in one position is so excruciatingly painful that you can’t do it for very long and you might well be a bit out of it on pain killers so liable to make mistakes and that the pain makes you irritable and depressed. Never mind that you will need specialist equipment to even sit at a desk, if you can sit that is. Of course you will manage to use a laptop with your fingers stiff and swollen with arthritis or shoulders that are so painful you can’t even get your clothes on properly in the morning.

Your employers are going to love you when you take days off to attend numerous health related appointments, hospital visits, scans, xrays and regular blood tests, or psychiatric appointments along with visits to the GP or maybe a weekly therapist. The appointments that take all morning because of your disability it takes ages to get ready and go anywhere and you have to sit waiting in outpatients for more than an hour and then you have to sit and wait for your blood tests because the NHS has been starved of funds and there aren’t enough staff and then you have to wait in Pharmacy for another 45 minutes, if you are lucky, to collect your medication. After that you still need to get home and have lunch because you are human and need to eat and it could be 3pm by then and you are far to exhausted to work the rest of the day and the following day because of the knock on affect of doing too much, which is a thing for people with certain conditions. Rinse and repeat for the different consultants you are under for your varied conditions. Your employer is going to love you when your condition flares up and you are off work AGAIN for another few weeks, or you need surgery or a course of physio therapy AGAIN.

These are only some of things people with health conditions and disabilities have to deal with. There are dozens of different conditions and scenarios but all of them difficult to manage and keep on top of. This government hasn’t got a clue and I don’t think Labour will be much better, sadly.

I'm worried about my mum. She's either all of her life and was signed off last year. She's had knee replacements and is waiting for a new hip. She's got a crumbling spine and skin cancer

She's unable to leave her flat without help. She's petrified

@Babyroobs

Agreed. I'm not sure that the messaging is right, because those people are not lazy and that is what the "sanctioning those who refuse" line is straying into. But it is correct to say that those people do need to be helped back into work so far as possible and should not be encouraged to see not working permanently as the "cure", for a whole host of reasons.

My relative with social anxiety absolutely could work. I can think of many many things she could and would be able to do well. Whether there is a WFH job that only has the bits that wouldn't cause her anxiety to start with, or whether she would have the necessary support to work through the anxious bits without triggering panic attacks, that is another question.

Tbf , your dd will never be expected to work , even by the harshest of govts.

It's not just a phenomenon linked to the Covid timeline.

Around 10 years ago it was enormously difficult to be awarded DLA for purely mental health reasons. Approximately 80% of all rejected applications were eventually awarded once they had been pursued through mandatory reconsideration and then Tribunal. These were only the rejected application that were actually challenged though, not ALL rejected applications. So the long and short of it is that the majority of people who absolutely should have been awarded DLA were not, and at best, they'd end up on JSA and be subject to the strictures that come with that.

Over the years, increased exposure of just how unfit for purpose the Capability assessments were, and scrutiny of the processes used by ATOS served to temper somewhat the DWP's thirst for finding people fit for work who clearly were not. Of course, this pressure for "targets" came from Government, which is in itself utterly beyond ridicule. The idea that you must find people perfectly fit for work lest doing otherwise takes you over a completely arbitrary threshold. Complete and utter nonsense to begin with.

So the reality is that this picture of a vastly increased number of disability-related claimants is a bit misleading, because we're not "more ill", the Government was just getting away with finding many more ill and unfit for work people fit for work, until the nonsense of how they were going about this was laid bare for the scandal it was and they rowed back from it.

The numbers claiming these benefits now are a fairer reflection of reality, and more akin to where they always should have been, not some sort of indicator that vast numbers of people are "at it". Of course, the Tories don't care about that, and would far rather have the public blaming the unfortunate for their own misfortune, rather that question why we have a society that creates huge numbers of mentally ill people who are incapable of work.

Well I agree that Labour isn't perfect but they certainly did things better than this lot, who have created nasty mindsets like some of those on this thread.

New Labour did a lot of progressive things. The first thing the Tories did was to shut all the Sure Start centres. They do not care about a level playing field and they do not want to enable social mobility.

Is she getting PIP ? I honestly don't think that this group of people need to be worried. I think these proposals have cause scaremongering unecessarily.

I'm angry about this for several reasons but the truth is that the piss takers are the ones who have brought this about. This includes the piss takers in government who have cut health and care services to the bone.

But there are individuals who are so blatantly taking the piss that they have helped create this situation.

I had a perfectly normal life until I was hospitalised with severe, sudden neurological symptoms. I have an incurable progressive neurological condition. Having worked all my life I assumed there was a safety net there, I just hadn't needed it before.

The whole process of applying for these benefits was utterly degrading. My PIP was awarded at the highest rate first time and the assessor was lovely and was frankly embarrassed by the whole thing. The vibe I got was very much: you have the kind of severe illness that these benefits were designed for and I am so sorry that I am asking these degrading questions because some absolute piss takers have forced us to make this a punitive process.

The irony is that very ill people don't have the energy to fight this system - the piss takers have the time and energy along with the brass neck to do it.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX

We do have a higher proportion of people claiming (since the pandemic) than equivalent EU countries though. Probably this is about our health service failing people.

My DD is an adult with anxiety, she has not left the house in 2 years, she had to leave school in her final year before completing her final exams, she now has OCD as well. She won’t even apply for any benefits because of the likes of people on this thread as she doesn’t look unwell, even applying gives her panic attacks and anxiety. We are extremely fortunate in that as a family we can still adopted to feed and house her. Her life is a living hell and there is nothing she would like more than to have the normal life of a teenager and be working or at uni/college.

As for myself, I have spent all night in bed in pain from working today, I have had to cut back my hours from full time to part time as I physically cannot cope anymore. I already get ADP and I don’t know how long I will be able to keep working. I am absolutely terrified of not being able to work due to ill health. It give me great anxiety.

I also look after children with severe and complex needs and some of the comments on here about disabled people are disgusting. Their parents are their carers, they cannot work themselves due to their care duties so need the CDPs in order to live. I don’t grudge them a penny, it’s a 24/7 job the only respite is when they are at school. Some never get a full nights sleep. Maybe the Government want to go back in time and lock them up in hospitals, chained to beds until they die and are buried in the hospital cemeteries? No autism in those days! That’s what a lot of the old folks say “there was none of this autism in my day?” that’s because everyone was locked away?!

And if she has already been awarded LCWRA on ESA or UC then she won't have any further assessments from 2025 unless her condition improves for example she gets her hip replacement and it significantly improves her mobility ( likely as that's why joints are replaced ). in this case she would need to report that her condition has improved and may be re-assessed.

Will those with learning disabilities be made to work from home? What kind of jobs are available if you've never worked before?

Sorry just saw regarding her spinal problems which are not likely to improve so very unlikely she would be re-assessed. Please try to tell her not to worry !

I read a report on a personal that said they'd been seen waking across the car park. That person was dropped off and picked up at the door so that was a blatant lie on the report.

The irony is don't most wfh jobs insist you have a dedicated quite area. I'm assuming whoever is making these decisions has never spent much time in a disabled person's home. Wheren't most of the forced to move because of the bedroom tax if they lived in social housing. Those I private renting are probably scared to pick up the post notifying them of unaffordable rent increases or section 21.

I reckon they are readying for a June election.

And people with anxiety and depression who have worked in high pressure jobs, overcoming obstacles in their way who can no longer work due to disability getting worse? Due to disability having no confidence and severe anxiety/panic attacks and depression? They have paid into the system too. Don't they deserve to be protected? Tell me what wfh job a deaf person brought up in mainstream school, worked in the land of the hearing, can no longer use a phone, and has mental health issues do from home? BTW I used to be a top earner

Yep. I have hated the lot of them since we were one of the first lucky postcodes to change from DLA to PIP and my autistic 16 year old, who previously qualified for lower rate both care and mobility - a fair assessment - suddenly scored zero points. And there was me thinking you couldn't cure autism but the Tories somehow managed it! This also meant we lost the disability element of tax credits so, in total, lost out on about 3k a year.

I never liked them anyway but I will never forgive them for the stress and upset caused by the assessment (the assessors pants must have burst into flames when she wrote her report) and subsequent failed appeal after which my son refused to apply again as it was so traumatic for him.

We were ok and he never went without but so many people had it worse.

I hate them all.

Adam hills said he spoke to Penny Mordaunt when he visited the HOC and she reassured him...
Nothing will happen until 2025.
Those already disabled and on pip/ limited capability will not have anything to worry about.
It's more aimed at those who have sat and home and not worked or attempted to try after 18 months.

We may have a different government by then.

Exactly this. I wish people would stop panicking.

I don't love the underlying vibe here (not a tory voter)

But I do struggle with the sheer percentage of people these days who are apparently unable to do any labour at all. As a society i feel like we're getting something so wrong if so many people can't cope, struggling with depression, anxiety etc.

For the vast majority of people, work helps mental health and improves their life. A life on disability benefits is not a great life. I can understand wanting to support people to find work they can manage that might help. The onus needs to be on employers to be as flexible as possible to accommodate.

Yes, that's to be expected considering what a shambles our government made of handling the pandemic, but the point I'm making is that changes in the landscape re "disability" benefits were well underway prior to 2020, and it's not solely a consequence of Covid 19.

There was a distinct change in how CWA were carried out between 2010 and 2017, the time period where I attended the bulk of the ones I sat in on, and a corresponding increase in the number of people I worked with being awarded benefit without having to undergo appeal and tribunal.

I think what we're seeing is a particularly vicious, venal government railing against the fact their immediate predecessors (Cameron & Co) were actually concerned about the optics of the whole ATOS farce, whereas the current incumbents do not care, hence the nastiness, spite, and cruelty.

I don't see the problem with helping those who can work getting employment. The welfare bill is enormous in the UK. Surely all those that can work should work rather than depend on others for welfare

Tell me what wfh job a deaf person brought up in mainstream school, worked in the land of the hearing, can no longer use a phone, and has mental health issues do from home? BTW I used to be a top earner

My job and lots of office jobs could accomodate someone who can only communicate in writing. There's also lots of software available now to hear whats said in a meet and transcribe it immediately on screen, there's also voice software if you wanted it.

Are any of your mental health issues worsened by not being able to work?

Lots of disabled people who could potentially work want to. Sadly, many employers are not keen on employing disabled people.