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??

My FB feed threw up an ad for my local police force, and how inclusive they are... so if you are disabled, then they might have role for you.
I had a look... nothing is suitable for someone with no experience in anything, no qualifications, no references, maybe have a police record due to MH etc.

Sorry if my point wasn’t clear but I believe you stated that people don’t complain regarding entitlement of state of state pension. I was simply pointing out that people tend to not complain about people receiving a benefit when they perceive that those people have actually contributed and paid into it for as I was corrected 35 years of payments in fact.

As I stated my social group and my observation of the people around me and the 10,000 plus people I’ve dealt with through work is not that 1 in 5 (or 4 according to you) is disabled. Amazing really? A quarter of the population is disabled. I wonder why it’s so very high in the uk in comparison with other countries. It’s a strange phenomenon that where in countries where statistics exist the percentage of disabled people directly correlates with the amount of benefits paid to them. Google it.

Far too many people - including in the government - believe that there's a clearly-defined binary of groups: (1) the people who are so severely disabled that they can't do a single thing for themselves; and (2) everybody else who is completely fit and well save for the odd annoying cold or tickly cough every now and again

God yes, this.

Still clear just from this thread alone that for some people, absence of a visible wheelchair or an iron lung = no possibility of disability.

You have said everything I wanted to say, thank you.

That's 5%. I can easily see how we could have 5% of the population in need of and in receipt of PIP.

What % of the population do you think have severe disability @Disillusioned11?

I know there aren't nearly as many lords and ladies as there are disabled people, but if every penny of taxpayers' money really counts (except when they clearly show that it doesn't), the government could do a lot worse than seek to sanction all of the lazy ones who turn up to sign in and get their generous daily fee, with the taxi still waiting outside with the engine running; or those who do stay there for a while, but just sit reading their paper or having a nap.

First paragraph - Right, so if I'm understanding you correctly, your beef with PIP claimants and so on, is that these benefits are not contributions based. So how do you expect someone disabled to "contribute" to benefits which are 1. awarded on qualifying criterion, not contributions in the first place, and 2. when they are incapable of contributing because they are incapable of independently earning?

Are you seriously suggesting that disability benefits should also be strictly contributions based?

2nd paragraph - Well its no real surprise that in countries where they ascertain the number of disabled people by tallying the number of disability claimants those two numbers happen to marry up, is it?

Presumably you also believe there are absolutely no disabled people in these countries who do not claim benefit. Like, not a single one. After all, by your "logic", if they're not claiming disability benefit, they're can't possibly be disabled.

It's not "1 in 4 according to me", it's 24% of the UK population according to the DWP's own figures. But of course, because you don't see 1 in 4 people in a wheelchair you obviously know better...

The reasons for our disabled population being so high are numerous, and it's an onerous discussion I really don't have the inclination to get into on here, but suffice to say we are a hugely unhealthy country by comparison to most of our near neighbours, typical UK lifestyles are less conducive to long life and good health, and our general societal attitudes to things like economy, mental health provision, tax and spend, and the fact wealth is centred and hoarded in small parts of the country is also a significant factor in why the UK churns out people with a huge preponderance of poor mental and physical health. You can't even totally discount the impact of climate. Look at the Scandi countries and their issues with depressive illnesses. It's no different in the north of the UK, although I would not expect someone who has spent their entire life in the South or South East of England, for arguments sake, to have any inkling of that because in terms of average temps and sunlight it truly is a different world altogether. Then there's the UK's obsession with alcohol, chronic drug usage that spiralled out of control under Thatcherism and is still killing people in their 60's and 70's who have never recovered from that period.

The UK is not the same as any other country you might care to mention, so like for like comparisons are impossible, and serve no worthwhile purpose.

It took me 2 attempts to get a WCA, the first time I was deemed "fit to work" despite the fact I fell into the wall on the way into the interveiw room from loss of balance while using a walking stick that the interviewer saw happen.
I need to be supervised by my partner when I'm in the shower, when I was able to cook and when I leave the flat. My partner does 99% of my care on his own with very little breathing room for him to take care of his own disabilites (Autism and ADHD).

What employer would want to hire me if I need so much supervision when at home?
And these mythical entry level work from home jobs? I have no qualifications, my highest grade I got was a D at GCSE level, had to drop out of college so no A-levels.
I'd need any job to be flexible enough for when pain levels get so high I can't lift my head, never mind get out of bed.

You seem insistent on claiming things I have not said. For the final time, I haven’t made any comment one way or the other regarding PIP claimants other than to say when 1:20 people claim it or approximately 1:5 disabled people receive it (& it’s meant for the most severe disabilities where people can not work at all) it’s not really statistically correct claim its a ‘hard to get’ benefit. You made a comparison with state pension which I pointed out is a completely different benefit as it is contribution based and so of course some people will feel differently.

As for the uk in comparison to other countries, I think it is interesting to look at similarities and difference but you also don’t get to pick the statistics you like only. Because there may well be figures that support % disability vs sunlight or even Maggie Thatcher if you like …. Please feel free to share but the statistic I find interesting is the close correlation between % of people with disability and benefits paid. (Norway seems to buck this trend somewhat- I wonder why?)

My son is about to be assessed for PIP, we were informed of this by text at 10pm a couple of days ago. He is an outwardly fit and healthy 26 year old. He had never worked. He is bright and outgoing, has GCSE’s and A Levels. I suspect that he will appear fit for work. He has schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder with bipolar and non organic psychosis and has been held on section since December 2022.

@Disillusioned11

Two things -

1. You can not make claims about something being easy or difficult to get without qualifying exactly how you measure "easy" and "difficult". Pure numbers of claimants alone tell us absolutely nothing, because even if we agree on the 1 in 20 figure, 1 in 20 tells us zilch about how easy or otherwise those 1 in 20 found the process, it tells us nothing about the other 19 who are not claiming PIP, and it tells us nothing about how many of the 19 perhaps should be claiming PIP but have not, or indeed, should be awarded PIP. Again, the only figure of relevance here is the number of claims v's the number of successful awards, and since we don't have that, it's impossible to draw any conclusion at all about how easy or otherwise it is to be awarded PIP. For all you know, 19 in 20 people might have applied for PIP and 18 of those rejected, which objectively would seem to make it enormously "difficult" to be awarded PIP.
2. As above, a correlation between disabled numbers and total spend doesn't tell us anything unless we also know how these figures, especially the %, are arrived at. On the face of it, the only thing you can conclude is that Spain, for example, reports a far lower rate of disability in its population than Switzerland does. What you can not say with any certainty is that there is a lower incidence in one country than another, because you do not know exactly how each country is arriving at its own figure, so there is every chance you care comparing two figures that have been arrived at using completely differing methodology. Put more simply, you can not guarantee that Spain calculates it's number of disabled using the exact same criterion as Switzerland, so you can not compare the two figures and draw any meaningful conclusions.

This is why you can not look at Germany, for example, and use the German figure to determine what % of the UK population "should" be disabled. Even if you used the exact same methodology and criterion to ascertain the disabled populations of both the UK and Germany, you can still expect a discrepancy because you are not comparing two identical nations. Life in Germany will differ from life in the UK in a multitude of ways, and for a multitude of reasons, so you can not make hard and fast assertions about one based on what you know about the other.

Your table might be "interesting", but it's of little relevance to the UK until you ensure that every figure is calculated in the exact same way. Even then, as I've already pointed out, you can't draw any firm conclusions about anything, because you should still expect a natural variance from one country to the next, especially so if you are comparing say, a Northern European country with an industrial past, to a Mediterranean one with an agrarian economy.

A) contributions are paid by the state in many situations, such as caring for children/others or being in receipt of benefits
B) Pension Credit is paid to those who have insufficient contributions anyway
C) 35 years now

For the final time, I haven’t made any comment one way or the other regarding PIP claimants other than to say when 1:20 people claim it or approximately 1:5 disabled people receive it (& it’s meant for the most severe disabilities where people can not work at all) it’s not really statistically correct claim its a ‘hard to get’ benefit

You don't understand PIP do you @Disillusioned11 ?

It is not meant for the "most severe disabilities where people can not work at all". It is designed to meet the extra
costs of day to day living that disabled people incur. It is not linked to ability to work. Hence many people on PIP work.

As for PIP being "easy to get". It is not. Have a look at the stats,and how many cases end up going to appeal.

Many people with "mild" disabilities will qualify for the lower rates of PIP (though will no doubt had to have fought for it), which will perhaps account for the figure of 1 in 5 (if that is correct).

I do not in anyway intend this post to be saying that disabled people who cannot work should be made to. I do however want to highlight two benefits which are helpful - Disabled Student Allowance and Access to Work. Both schemes seem to be really positive in how they are applied. The assessments are supportive. The number of possible adaptions are extensive and there is training in place to help you use the technology and equipment provided.

For a person starting a job the costs from an access to work assessment are fully met, for existing employees it is shared with the employer.

It can include physical equipment (chairs, computer etc.), software such as for dictation or apps to help with managing anxiety such as brain in hand.

If you are disabled and working or studying or planning to do either then I strongly recommend putting an application in.

Oh and you do not need to be on any other disability benefits in order to qualify.

Since 2013 there have been 6.4 million claims for PIP. 2.9 million of those were turned down. So almost half. That rather disproves @Disillusioned11 claim that it is "easy to get"?

Also, those stats show that since 2017 39% of new PIP claims were succesful ( Again, that doesn't exactly indicate an "easy"to get benefit?

For those people being transferred from DLA to PIP, the award rate is 69%. I guess the other 31% were miraculously cured of their disability. Either that or PIP is more difficult to get than DLA.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-independence-payment-statistics-to-october-2022/personal-independence-payment-official-statistics-to-october-2022

When we lived in the UK my husband was refused PIP, he has arthrogryposis and has extremely limited use of his hands and arms. His assessor put some wild lies in his report, if he had lied and successfully claimed PIP he would be done for benefit fraud, so why doesn’t the same apply for assessors? If I lied on official documents in any job I have had I would have been sacked, in my main career I would have been rightly reported to the regulatory body.

Where we live now his application was accepted, all he needed was a note from his doctor naming his condition, so no huge booklet with hundreds of questions. He also received a visit at home to see if he needed any adaptions and one at work to do the same.

Just to add 99% of SREL claimants are awarded PIP. So even 1% of people who are at the end of life and expected to die within a short time are turned down for PIP.

Whoever mentioned about the attitudes from other people with disabilities, looking down on other people, yes, sadly, this is very very common, and very true, and sometimes it’s also like a hierarchy. I am severely visually impaired, and have been since birth, I know other people who lose service in later on in life end Have a bias towards people who were born blind, it’s even worse if the person has another disability on top of blindness. Just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean everybody else will be able to do that same thing. Yes, I can do some things, in some cases better than even people who don’t have a disability, yet I struggle with other things. There was a possibility that I could have worked from home, I live in Greece, but I would have had to move to another city, and passed things like a typing test. I use dictation when I’m sending emails, writing, messages, etc. I could just about past the typing test in English, but not in the language that I wanted to apply for. No matter how much I tried, I was really struggling. In my case, I also have to worry about the technology, being user-friendly with voiceover, since I can’t read quickly enough with large print to be able to handle things if I’m doing something like customer service. It’s a difficult one. I try my best, with everything, but there are definitely challenges.

Disabled students allowance is only for people in higher education. You can't get it for GCSE, A Levels and courses that are the same level.

Yes, perhaps I should have been clearer. Not having appropriate support earlier is such a barrier to higher education. So many students are amazed at what they can achieve with the appropriate support. You do not need any qualifications to study with The Open University but it can affect benefits. It is worth investigating though depending on circumstances.

Why is it so bad to be told to find work that they can do from home? I’ve got epilepsy and work full time. Part of my reasonable adjustment is that I work full time from home due to tiredness caused by medication and the need to have privacy if I were to have a seizure. Also, probably 75% of the time, I can continue working after a seizure with a short break. If it’s slightly worse, I might have a lie down and then finish early. Being at home allows that.

I’m on epilepsy forums where people refuse point blank to even look for work. I get it if you’re having 20 tonic clonic seizures a day. When I have those, I’m like a zombie. But if you can find something suitable then just do it 🤷‍♀️ It’s possible.

Yes my brother is the same, works a lot from home as epilepsy medication makes him tir easily and he can't drive. He gets a free bus/ train pass for when he does need to go into the office. He has always worked from aged 16 although his seizures are fairly well controlled.

YABU to assume we all only care about the same things as you.

It won't affect me directly, currently at least (but who knows what our future might bring?). It still really bothers me though, that the most vulnerable (and potentially financially struggling) are targets yet again.