‘Game the system’ disability benefits

[Tomatochocolate]

WTF
just read a bbc article about welfare reforms

Apparently ministers think that it’s an incentive to claim disability benefits as the incentive is no work commitments on UC. That claimants ‘game the system’

It’s a long process and really hard to get awarded dla or pip. It’s not just ticking a box that says ‘I’m too sick to work’.

AIBU to think this is just horrific

That poster said nothing of the sort. I take what she said, to mean, that the more people like her are demonised, the more it takes a toll on their mental health, and the poorer in health they become, as a result. Don't twist her words.

Yes these agencies always encourage people to write the form as if ' it's your worst day'. That is completely misleading as a worst day could be once a month. This poor advice is banded around on here all the time.

I assist with completing forms myself and it is hard when someone says something and then completely contradicts it. I do a lot of Attendance Allowance forms and people will tell me they struggle with the stairs but then if you ask them for some paperwork or NI number they are up the stairs and down again within a couple of minutes but we obviously have to put on the form what they are saying. One old guy I went to was on highest rate of DLA mobility and had been for 20 years, had a motorbility car etc. He was another up and down the stairs faster than I could have done them. I have been really shocked by a lot of things I've seen tbh and like you feel that it's not something I want to be involved in any longer .

Really? You've not met many Labour MPs. Why would private healthcare, city financiers, £4m from a single Cayman Islands hedgefund, be interested in donating to a party which claims to represent the interests of working people?

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Labour given £4m from tax haven-based hedge fund with shares in oil and arms
Quadrature’s donation is noteworthy not just for being Labour’s largest-ever, but for its timing ahead of election
Ethan Shone
18 September 2024, 2.02pm
Hedge fund Quadrature Capital has given £4m to Keir Starmer's Labour – the largest donation in the party's history
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Jack Taylor - WPA Pool / Getty Images
The Labour Party’s largest-ever donation came from a Cayman Islands-registered hedge fund with shares worth hundreds of millions of pounds in fossil fuels, private health firms, arms manufacturers and asset managers.

While the £4m donation by Quadrature Capital is the sixth-largest in British political history, it is noteworthy not just for its size, but also its timing.

Paul Holden, an investigative journalist and author of The Fraud, a forthcoming book on Starmer’s leadership, told openDemocracy that the donation’s timing fits the Starmer project’s pattern of delaying the disclosure of potentially sensitive or controversial political donations.
Holden said: “Sir Keir Starmer and the organisations close to him have an unfortunate history of reporting donations in controversial ways.
“During his bid to become leader of the Labour Party, Starmer refused to contemporaneously publish details of who had donated to his leadership campaign. His rivals, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy, agreed to share details of their donors in real-time, which they published. Starmer, however, decided only to declare his donations via his MP's register of interests, which created a significant lag between when Starmer accepted his donations and when they were made public.
“Labour members, as a result, had no idea at the time of voting that Starmer had been funded with large donations from the likes of wealthy millionaires like Martin Taylor and Sir Trevor Chinn and Baron Waheed Ali; the latter now at the centre of the furore about Starmer's acceptance of gratuities.”

Labour are a safety valve for when people want change, the minute there's any prospect of real change the establishment comes together to stamp it out.

So, which Labour MP pocketed the cash?

No need to apologise. I know had I been born back then I would have been put in a secure facility after my first breakdown age 16 (maybe even earlier, my behaviour was erratic long before then) and never let out. There wasn't any help until relatively recently for people like me.

Back when? There was a long old gap between institutions closing and the benefits claims uptick. A good 30 years.

Completely agree with you. I have been medically retired. I could not apply for PIP for 2 years as I was still struggling with the diagnosis and accepting my life and how it will be. The first time I applied it took me 1 year to complete the form, the assessor did not even add the info I gave her to my report. I then told them that my circumstances had changed and had a telephone assessment which lasted 3 hrs. At that point I told the assessor everything & unfortunately my OH heard all about my thoughts of suicide. I was awarded full PIP. Took me 5 years to get to this point. I found it so hard writing about how my condition was affecting me and about how much help I now needed. At that point I had been in full time work for over 20+ years. I would much rather be in work & be there for my family. Instead I am the opposite of that. Applying for PIP is a very intrusive process. I just don’t know how people can apply knowing that they are exaggerating their claim and they get the full award to.

https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2024/09/05/labour-private-healthcare-donations-nhs/

Yeah it's hard and long process but there are people out there determined to no to work and the get every penny they can from the system.
Sad but true. There are FB pages as well, full of people sharing tips and tricks!
Recently there have been spike in random checks conducted by DWP and rightly so, people hide money everywhere, don't declare everything, pretending to be separated by live together as a family. It's hard to believe for people who are genuinely ill but that the sad reality of the welfare system...

I struggle with the stairs (neurological issues including a movement disorder and resulting stiffness and spasms/ and a loss of balance). If there was a fire I expect I could go up a flight of stairs to save my life but I would be risking falling or being stiff and in pain for days afterwards. Yet I expect I would move quite fast. If someone is saying they can't climb stairs at all, then zipping up and down them, of course I would be suspicious! But the word struggling can mean all sorts of things. I have to pace myself very carefully. Can I cook a simple meal? Yes but I couldn't everyday. I don't cook proper meals every day, everything is stored in freezer and reheated in microwave or eaten cold for rest of the week. I might put a chicken or joint of meat in oven and love off it for a few days cold, and just cook some frozen peas or carrots or pasta with it on the in hob for a few minutes. Job done. I don't starve. I look fine but I might need a few days in bed to recover from a busy day.

I do put my worst day on forms so the assessors know how bad things can get for me but I can't bring myself to lie so when I'm asked at an assessment how often I have these days I try to be as honest as I can. I couldn't have a lie in my conscience, it would bother me if I did, so I just try to emphasise my struggles as best I can, whilst staying within the boundaries of truth.

It's not that I'm a particularly good person but I get anxious about things and would be a terrible criminal for that reason. I'm also hopeless at fibbing, I blush easily.

As someone who comes from one of those families on council estates that you hear about in the daily mail I can tell you that people are scamming and playing the system. Fybromyalgia seems to be a family favourite. Funny how the symptoms seem to disappear for parties, holidays, days out, shopping trips etc. And it doesn't seem to stop them having children either.

Unfortunately there are people who game the system and people who are genuinely in need seem to have to fight their way to get any kind of pay.

My dad gets £1500 a month in benefits. He claims enhanced pip daily living, enhanced pip mobility which is £737 a month plus £210 universal credit and another £552 for limited caperbility for work related activity.
He would rather have his mental health better and be working.

My DH knows a "friend" who is a single mum (and no, I'm not just saying this because she is a single mum), who has been on benefits since her only daughter was born 16 years ago. No health problems (possibly a bad back but not enough to be unemployed).

I have had a lot of health problems and I had a head injury and post concussion syndrome before being injured permanently by an off label antipsychotic prescribed for severe insomnia and anxiety, and have had a movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia now for nearly a decade. I can't claim PIP as I wasn't disabled enough apparently... but the friend of my DH can get benefits etc for a single person, and no doubt claims PIP for her back too. She has no intention whatsoever of working, yet I've pushed through horrendous illness and a mental breakdown, and having a movement disorder to keep going and still work..

I'm sounding like a benefits "basher" but it really does incense me why people like my DH's friend, who are more than capable physically and mentally to work, don't, yet claim all the benefits they can.

Bless you, I understand neurological issues and movement disorders. Sending hugs ❤️

I'm a welfare rights adviser. If I was to correct every bit of nonsense I read online about benefits, I'd never be away from the laptop. My clients all have mental health problems, and often physical co-morbidities.

I am concerned about the possible removal of the "risk" condition that means some people can be deemed to be at risk, or that they would be at risk if they had to carry out work-related activity. Because, in most cases, none of the descriptors fit their difficulties, they get exemption under "significant risk" rule. This is used for cases like those on mental health meds which affect their ability to be aware of/alert to danger, people with addictions who would either be off their tits or in unmanaged withdrawal, both of which are dangerous, those who have MH issues which cause delusions, paranoia etc, and many more.

To me, changing the rules on fitness for work when we have an NHS which is on its knees and MH services are failing to to even get close to meeting the level of need is putting the cart before the horse.

Im sorry to hear about that, but I’m 1000% with you on this. I truly belive people who are disabled need help, but the way some people managed to play system is unbelievable, when you hear of cases where pip was denied to people who really need it. Especially up north where housing is so much cheaper and many people get their rent subsidies by the housing element. But I do belive in karma and that some, sadly not all, will be caught one way or another.

I think this thread has confused me but from what I'm reading on like the BBC (and other reputable news sources) it looks like they are looking more at WCA/ESA (as that's an out of work benefit) rather than PIP/DLA/AA at the moment .. is that wrong?

I'm just really confused about it all now.

For someone like me there was no recognised treatments as an outpatient until the 1980s at least and I don't think many hospitals were therapies like that until about the 2000s. I'm talking about severe mental illness which rendered me unable to function. When the welfare system was set up in the 40s people like me entered secure hospitals as children or teens. Then in the 1990s when care in the community happened it was a revolving door of ending up in A and E, being hospitalised in a secure unit, inadequate therapy or day hospitals. Also relying on medication which causes physical side effects. I developed serious movement disorder issues as a result of one medication I took and put on weight due to another one.

I don't know why there is an uptick in mental health or ND diagnoses more recently . I wondered if the population increase is part of it. I'm not anti legal immigration at all, but our population is larger than it was which may be a factor.

I think you're right. As the roll out from DLA to PIP hasn't even been completed yet, it would be really complex to change in work disability benefits at this stage.

But we'll know for sure when the green paper comes out.

Thank you . Mine was caused by an old style antipsychotic, was misdiagnosed, turns out my issues are a severe form of EUPD/BPD with CPTSD not even a psychosis at all though I do get paranoia which borders on psychosis at times.

Goodness, a fellow antipsychotic victim- mine was caused by one too! Can I PM you about it please?

I posted earlier in the thread, that I don't think that they will be doing anything about PIP, imo.

Same. Perhaps they mean LCW/LCWRA element of UC, which DOES switch off the work commitments.

Yes you may PM me. I must warn you that I have an appointment and will not be free to respond to messages until this evening but I will get back to you as soon as I can.