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.

What misrepresentations ? And fraudulent in what way ? There are clearly a number of contributors here who have experience as support workers and/or benefit advisers, of which I was one several years ago. Those posters are speaking from experience and just because their experience doesn’t support your own opinions absolutely doesn’t mean they are misrepresenting anything. Just trying to advise you of the facts rather than the generalisations you’re clearly so fond of.

Misrepresentations like this one you clown.

That’s not nice is it. You seem to have lost the plot

Having different opinions and thoughts on this thread is extremely informative and sensationalist comments or misinterpretations (like Wes last night as well ) aren’t really helping.

No. They always resort to insults when the realisation they’re wrong dawns on them

Agree in principle but also when a posters words are twisted it really doesn’t help
Not trying to be the MN 👮‍♂️ here btw.

@ThisOldThang

You posted regarding symptoms of depression and anxiety immediately after posting about how GPs are likely to hand sick notes to people lying about suicidality "to be on the safe side". Which clearly implies you believe a vast number of benefit claimants lie about their mental health to access said benefits, despite being told that to get benefits for such conditions requires more supporting evidence than a sick note. Given your consistent narrative that there are many people swinging the lead and being royalty rewarded for it (bwhahaha) are you surprised that people are responding unfavourably?

Yeh! Royally rewarded! As if.

I think a lot will depend on any plans Labour have to reform PIP, which is not an out of work benefit, but is designed to help with the cost of disability. Many thousands of severely disabled people rely on this benefit to make ends meet and the Tories have repeatedly reformed it to make eligibility criteria even narrower. I think Labour will still want to reform it but the Tories are bent on dismantling it - hopefully there will be a bit more recognition from Labour as to the importance of PIP to those who depend on it, and a bit more compassion for peoples whose lives are already very difficult.

I think a lot of disabled people want to work and would welcome the opportunity and even conditionality to get back to work, providing it’s via a fairer and more supportive system than we have now, and with some compassion and understanding built in.

It's bizarre that the people lying and misrepresenting what others have said consider themselves to be occupying the moral high ground and winning the debate.

I doubt you're winning the hearts and minds of those lurking in the background.

Ah so the difference between misrepresentation and sarcasm is lost on you too !!😂

Given my superior skills in debate, I am qualified to diagnose you with "last word syndrome". As a fellow sufferer, I empathise. (Look it up).(*Empathy that is))

Well if those ‘lurking in the background’ have a voice they’re perfectly welcome to use it. It would be really helpful though, if you could give us all some examples of where people are ‘lying and misrepresenting’ or taking the moral high ground. What I’m picking up on is that several posters with actual professional experience of the issues discussed here have recognised your bias for what it is and called you out on it. The difference between those posters and yourself, is that they have not resorted to pettiness and name calling.

I think a lot will depend on any plans Labour have to reform PIP, which is not an out of work benefit, but is designed to help with the cost of disability. Many thousands of severely disabled people rely on this benefit to make ends meet

And nobody in this thread has suggested that seriously disabled people should lose state support.

and the Tories have repeatedly reformed it to make eligibility criteria even narrower.

When people are claiming for writers' cramp and Munchausen's syndrome, the criteria clearly aren't narrow enough.

I think Labour will still want to reform it but the Tories are bent on dismantling it - hopefully there will be a bit more recognition from Labour as to the importance of PIP to those who depend on it, and a bit more compassion for peoples whose lives are already very difficult.

Somebody claimed that 1 in 4 people are disabled. If they all start claiming PIP it would cost £81.6 billion based upon £400 per month.

I think a lot of disabled people want to work and would welcome the opportunity and even conditionality to get back to work, providing it’s via a fairer and more supportive system than we have now, and with some compassion and understanding built in.

My disabled brother would love to work, but his brain injury makes it impossible unless it is a government funded 'make work' scheme where employment is the goal, rather than economically productive output.

Nobody is doubting that there are disabled people that require and rely upon PIP payments. The doubters are simply questioning whether there are a load of piss takers that need to be identified via assessments and kicked off PIP. Personally, I think there are a lot.

I wonder why would you think that any person who go so low: "lie to his GP about suicidal thoughts" is actually a healthy person and not a person with severe mental health issues?

Did you ever meet a person in real life who was threatening suicide? Did you ever struggle with any kind of mental health issues? Did you see it first hand?

I'm sure there's plenty of other interesting things to do in life and ways to earn money instead of lying about your own health issues and suicidal thoughts to the GP in order to receive benefits.

By the way, Universal Credit rates are:

How much you’ll get
Monthly standard allowance:
If you’re single and under 25
£311.68
If you’re single and 25 or over
£393.45
If you live with your partner and you’re both under 25
£489.23 (for you both)
If you live with your partner and either of you are 25 or over
£617.60 (for you both)

I will question any person mental health capabilities if he will confess to me that he lied about suicidal thoughts to his GP in order to receive those kind of money. Even if you'll add the PIP rates on top of it. While knowing very well that he may be prosecuted for this kind of lies and end up in jail.

I posted earlier about a man that I know of who hasn't worked since the 1990's due to his gammy leg. He fell off a scooter on holiday in Greece and has been on the sick ever since.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with him.

This refusal to accept that people take the piss for free money is bizarre. Have you never heard anybody use the phrase 'working's for mugs'?

If not, you clearly live in a very nice area and went to a school that was completely different to my (so called) Comprehensive.

And nobody in this thread has suggested that seriously disabled people should lose state support.

I didn’t say, or even suggest that they had. I was simply pondering what Labour would do given that so many people rely on PiP and it has been a benefit so long in the sights of the Tories.

When people are claiming for writers' cramp and Munchausen's syndrome, the criteria clearly aren't narrow enough.

The severity of both of these conditions (which by the way it could be said that you are deliberately ‘misrepresenting’) has been explained in detail upthread and are not what you clearly think they are. It’s also been explained that any level of disability has to be severe enough to affect daily life and mobility to qualify for any award - a fact which you are intent on ignoring because it doesn’t suit the narrative you’re so deeply entrenched in.

Somebody claimed that 1 in 4 people are disabled. If they all start claiming PIP it would cost £81.6 billion based upon £400 per month.

That figure is debatable and even at the rate of 1 in 4, not all would qualify for PIP. You really shouldn’t present figure projections based on conjecture.

Your brother would have benefited from sheltered workshops like Remploy and the SRJ workshops where severely disabled people could be employed and have some dignity, and as you say, not be dependent on economically productive output. Unfortunately the Tories put them out of business as they said they were no longer appropriate in a modern society. So the employees were kicked out into the benefits system and to my knowledge not one of them received the extra help they were promised as a result of their redundancy.

And on your last point. Disabled people are already assessed and reassessed ad infinitum, by strict eligibility criteria - which you might want to google, but perhaps not, as that would entail looking at hard facts instead of vague statistics manipulated to suit the narrative. And the rate of fraud in PIP is very low, so where are all these ‘piss takers’ that you think are having such a whale of a time at the tax payers expense ?

There are lots of lurkers who don’t want to comment on MN and possibly even the papers
They are all members of the electorate
So it’s important to have different opinions as a democracy but also to debate and question policy.
Without those this thread would be an echo chamber and no one would learn anything or indeed see other people points of view.
Some of us have no experience of PIP or other benefits for the disabled and we’d really like to get a handle on the system and how it could affect those receiving it and the entire country.

All opinions are informative and encourage debate

Completely agree. Well said.

Wow. I had no idea the payments were so low. Who the fuck would covet that lifestyle.

UC is far more generous to parents in terms of child care costs and other associated premiums than it is to disabled people.

But as I understand it that’s a separate claim so people can, depending on salary etc, get that as well.

I'm surprised you haven't reported him if it's so clear cut.

What you fail to realise is that weeding out the few in number "piss takers" by reducing eligibility across the board will inevitably cause hardship to "genuine" claimants.

It is not a walk in the park getting benefits. You are under constant scrutiny. Now it is being done by automated systems with varying degrees of success and AI is being drafted in. The CA debacle is a prime example of system failure.

Given your brothers situation how do you feel about the revelation that a scheme such as you mention was recently axed, just as getting people into work who have challenges are being focused on?

And if employment is not designed to produce economic benefit to employee and employer, is it just that you subscribe to work being the panacea of all ills from a moral stand point? Because I think shareholders would disagree....

That’s correct. Not well up on UC except for disability entitlement but childcare costs are a separate claim. There was a post on MN recently from someone who had a combined monthly income of over £4000 and could still claim for childcare. In contrast, sickness based UC and ESA are affected by any other income for means tested benefit and start to decrease after £85 a week of other income for contribution based ESA.