To be frightened about the Government’s plans for benefits reform?

[PilgorTheGoat]

I am one of the millions of people currently on long term sickness benefits. I receive the LCWRA element of UC and PIP due to poor mental health and autism. I have severe anxiety and depression and I am awaiting an appointment to see if I also have PTSD due to sexual abuse in my childhood.

I have tried every element of support offered to me. I’m maxed out on 2 different types of antidepressants. I have had back-to-back (excluding the 6 month wait in between) 12 week sessions of counselling offered via the NHS. I am on a waiting list for intensive CBT due to my possible PTSD. I am currently having twice weekly private, video counselling appointments.

I can’t leave my house alone due to panic attacks. I struggle to meet my own care needs and my husband has to do a lot of the work for us both (although he works full time). I have a very understanding friend whom I force myself to go for a short walk with twice a week in order to stop myself becoming completely imprisoned at home but I find this very distressing and we have to take the same route each time.

I am so, so scared about the government’s plans to end sickness benefits for people like me. We don’t have a load of spare cash, we’re just about getting by. There is no support available. I’ve taken everything offered and my husband has been very proactive in seeking out other services for me to be involved with. I’d love to be better, I’d love not to live in fear but there is no help.

And to add to this, (and this will go unanswered as it always does), if we could simply just ‘tax the corporations’ as suggested above, why don’t Labour do that? They’re not perfect but I believe they’re generally principled and on the side of the working classes. Why don’t/didn’t they just tax the corporations and give us everything we want? Instead they’ve said we are skint and have scrapped their most expensive policies

if we could simply just ‘tax the corporations’ as suggested above, why don’t Labour do that?

Maybe the fact that they’re not in power might have something to do with it. It’s highly unlikely that a Labour government will take such a lax attitude to tax evasion - personal or corporate.

So why have they scrapped their policies and admitted we are skint rather than rub their hands together knowing they’ll easily have the cash to pull off their vision?

I agree with this to be honest. I refuse to outlay my issues to faceless people, who, no matter what you tell them, and lay your soul bare at the same time, will just discount all that you have shared, just to bang on the same drum, about what you supposedly could be doing. Like people have not given any thought as to their situation. It is obvious to me, those that are being genuine in their suggestions, and those who are posting disingenuously. We should not have to expose our whole trauma to strangers, just because they demand explanations, they will never understand.

@LadyKenya Exactly! None of their business and they don’t care anyway; it’s all disingenuous. Keep your health details to yourself. It’s not for randoms to pick over so they can look down their noses x

Nobody’s suggesting everything should be nationalised. The NHS is a universal service, the clue’s in the name. It should be provided directly to patients not via third parties creaming a profit off. It’s obvious that there’s less money spent on patient care when profit’s involved. We spend less on healthcare than any European country - and lots globally.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/236541/per-capita-health-expenditure-by-country/

. Shouldn’t you be at work?

I was born with a few conditions for which there's no cure or treatment. What's the point of reassessing people like me?

To be fair to the DWP they carried out a paper assessment on me as I said any kind of interview would be too distressing. I can understand why they want to assess someone with MH conditions regularly as one would hope their conditions may change. The issue is that there isn’t much help available to make that change and the help offered is inadequate. Talking therapy, from my research, needs to be long term. It can take me most of the 12 weeks offered via the NHS to feel comfortable with my therapist and then the counselling is over and I have to begin the waiting list again. The NHS therapists I’ve worked with have been equally frustrated by the system but it is what it is. Unfortunately this doesn’t help me to access the therapy I need to work through long standing trauma. I wish I were stronger and I could just pick myself up and get on with life. I hate myself for not being able to and feel very jealous of those who can but I think an acceptance is needed around the idea that we are not all the same. It’s something I’m working on myself right now.

The NHS budget has actually increased by £54 billion (£1,038 million per week) and it still isn't enough. Spoiler - it will never be enough, because the NHS is a bottomless pit.

Totally agree, a bottomless pit

Personally, I'd like to see the long term unemployed pushed back into work via benefits cuts and also cuts to Universal Credit combined with an increased minimum wage, to end the wage subsidies for big business.

Shareholders shouldn't be creaming off obscene profits while the Government subsidises their workers wages.

Given I don't know what your conditions are, I obviously can't provide an accurate answer.

1. Some conditions may now be treatable.
2. Changes in work patterns (e.g. home working) might mean that some jobs are now possible.

I don't consider it to be at all unreasonable to continually assess who should be receiving benefits.

There are simply too many people off with mental health issues for this to be remotely achievable.

I also think mental health is incredibly expensive to treat because there’s no 1 solution, usually it involves trying this and trying that over a very long period of time, and often it doesn’t work anyway - the person relapses, doesn’t practice self care or has another episode then the cycle starts again.

Agree

You’ve just made an excellent case for why some people are unable to work.

Yes but globally most people pay for health insurance or make bigger direct financial contributions to their own healthcare so it’s incomparable. You seem to want the impossible, a fully taxpayer funded system which operates at the level of an insurance funded health system. Our spending is on par with Finland, a country I assume is superior socially to the U.K.?

I think a lot of people have no intention of working whether the help is there or not.

That would not be the OP from what I can deduce.

@KittyCollar · Today 08:47

@UniversalsnailYou don’t have to justify yourself to a goady nobody who, let’s face it, probably has no real interest in the social security system other than to use it to beat down those less fortunate. Your health problems are none of her business. That’s between you and your health care professionals. She doesn’t have the intelligence to distinguish between genuine need for help and benefit fraud. She’s enjoying you explaining your situation and your discomfort and no doubt she gets her ridiculous soundbites from The Daily Mail or The Sun.

@KittyCollar · Today 08:53

The reason the NHS is up the shit is because this Tory government hasn’t invested fuck all in it. Why would they? Their ultimate goal is to privatise. Where is the £350m a week that was promised after we left the European Union? If corporations paid the correct tax we wouldn’t be in this mess. Do you think little Rishi’s wife pays tax on her billions? Course not because although she lives here her company is listed as non domiciliary for tax avoidance purposes. All wrong but let’s all pick on the most vulnerable in society

Bless you @KittyCollar because you have saved me a lot of typing. You have said EXACTLY what I wanted to say. I was reading this thread last night but was too angry to post. @Universalsnail AND @XenoBitch (and anyone else being accused of being a lying benefits scrounger with fuck-all wrong with you,) please please PLEASE I beg you, don't listen to these people attacking you. You deserve these benefits, and you NEED these benefits. Do what's right for you, and do NOT listen to these posters berating you. (In fact, I would stop engaging with them actually.)

As for the comments like 'You sound smart and you write well, why don't you start your own burger van' and 'you can post on Mumsnet, therefore you can WORK in an actual paid job!' What in the actual ever-loving fuck?! I literally cannot believe some of the comments that have been posted on here. I can't figure out if these posters are just plain goady, or if they are so clueless and obtuse, that they genuinely think this!

The Ableism on this thread (from a few posters,) is utterly disgraceful!

!

Thanks @SabreIsMyFave Yep, bashing the vulnerable because they’ve fallen for the Tory “nothing to see here” whilst they rob all the money. They want us all divided and looking the other way x

This is a wealthy Country. There is money available to fix things, such as the NHS. The Government has no desire to, and have allowed the situation to get as bad as it is now. They have a plan, so they keep telling us. Their plan is obviously not to help the most vulnerable in Society. As it has been pointed out already, taking from sick, and disabled people, is not going to make the members of the population who work, financially better off.

@KittyCollar

"The reason the NHS is up the shit is because this Tory government hasn’t invested fuck all in it. Why would they? Their ultimate goal is to privatise. Where is the £350m a week that was promised after we left the European Union?"
_

When you say 'I haven’t “ranted” tho have I? I’ve explained facts to the ignorant.' what you actually mean is 'I tried to lie to the ignorant and got called out by somebody using actual facts.'

For example, "hasn't invested fuck all in it" = NHS budget increased by 47% in 8 years.

"I haven't ranted" = "Where is the £350m a week that was promised after we left the European Union?"

_

Even if all those that were entitled to benefits were suddenly told they no longer were it wouldn’t then make you any wealthier.

The government spends £130 billion on benefits excluding pensions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-63129705

"The UK spends 12.9% of gross domestic product (GDP) - the total value of goods and services produced in the country - on social benefits, according to the latest data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)."

So, taxpayers would clearly be much better off if the government stopped paying all benefits - not that I've ever advocated for that to happen.

We are no longer a wealthy country and we need to get used to that.

Well, I disagree@GoodnightAdeline