‘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

Thank you, I really do appreciate this comment!

The benefits are for the costs of dealing with the disability. Like the 7 quid for a taxi when I'm freaking out about getting to work on time. The emergency ready meal because idk what's in my fridge, the pa at £20 an hour to help me do paperwork and organize my home. Ironically if I wasn't working I wouldn't need a lot of those and pay more in tax than I get in pip

My ds has severe autism with no learning disability diagnosis. He is onthe learning disability register now at the GP butyou could have a mild ld and be on that and it does not need to be diagnosed.

He is incredibly vulnerable in every way, requires constant supervision when awake, 2:1 when in the community, will never have a job and will never be able to live independently. By your definition he wouldn't qualify yet is assessed as hrm/hrc for dla from three years old with no tribunal required (clear cut), has carers provided by the la one 2:1 basis and isn't capable of doing the basic self care tasks. He'll likely get eery point on a pip assessment. My friend has a child with ds the same age who is miles more capable and will be able to have some independence but they would be entitled?

Ok I’m genuinely asking with no agenda, but what does severe autism without learning difficulties present like? As in - if you said brush your teeth, what would stop him doing it? My best friend has what used to be Asperger’s (she’s a computer programmer), and my oldest child has a friend with moderate autism with a learning difficulty. I also know several families with non verbal autistic kids. I’ve never met anyone with your son’s profile.

Just to add in regards to adults who are disabled and require social care from the la, it is expected that the appointee / deputy will claim pip and uc for them which is then partially clawed back by the la as payment towards their care. There is set amounts that a persons should be left with following a social care assessment which doesn't change (it reduces if they go into residential care) regardless of how much benefit they get. So the people that are really being discussed are those that are disabled but not enough to require care provided by the LA.

You responded using incorrect information though.

@@Perzival If your overall income is low enough, you don't have to contribute to LA care costs. This is my situation, actually! I used to have to pay a substantial sum towards my council provided care (when I was still receiving ESA), but now that I'm no longer eligible due to getting married, my overall income is so low that I receive council funded care without having to pay for it myself. This is an unusual situation simply because most people are not on such a low income.

(It's partly because I receive such a large number of hours of care from the LA that I'm confident I would not lose PIP, btw.)

You seem to think that if someone is disabled then they cannot also be ableist. When that is not true - as proven by Wildflowers’ comments.

I’m beginning to think you and they are the same person.

@Wildflowers99 @verysmellyjelly So someone who has had severe OCD which limits their life significantly and needs therapy and time to build up their confidence won't get benefit s but someone who has had schizophrenia or bipolar and is stable on their medications should be entitled? The person with OCD is arguably more disabled than they are because of how it affects them. Often there is a trauma background alongside OCD, it's not a chemical imbalance for most people..

Yes psychosis is severe when someone with it is actually having a crisis, but it isn't necessarily more severe than an anxiety disorder on a daily basis. It can be, and sometimes the medication side effects can be severe, but not always.

Someone with Down Syndrome might have cardiovascular issues or muscle tone issues which considerably affects their ability to work, others with DS might be able bodied but suffer with an intellectual impairment which could impact on the kind of work they could do, but they might be able to do something?

Also MS is very variable in how it presents itself. Some are incapacitated by it, others less so.

I think we should keep the criteria to symptoms and affects not diagnoses. Unless we are talking terminal cancer.

Same. I agree.

I get those too so maybe I should stop worrying so much! 😊

@HÆLTHEPAIN Did you miss the times when I've said I disagree with Wildflowers? You're verging on troll hunting, here.

We are not the same person. We should prove it by posting at the same time though 😂

@DaveyTheCavy High numbers of hours of LA care is very highly valued evidence by DWP assessors. Nothing is a guaranteed magic bullet if one gets a truly shit assessor, it's true, but it would be essentially impossible not to have the claim be successful with evidence of that tier, even if it had to go to MR or tribunal.

Posting under two different usernames doesn’t make you a troll. So no, not troll hunting.

I have OCD, I had a terrible flare in 2019 which took me weeks to recover. I didn’t even know benefits were an option, so I had my return to work date and had to work towards that. If somebody had offered me benefits tO quit my job I would’ve bitten their hand off, but I’m glad it didn’t now as it would’ve been the end for me and routine/normality helped my recovery (once the back was broken with strong meds and some NHS CBT). I think the issue is many people treat it as a final diagnosis and don’t really aim to recover, just to maintain.

Genuine question. Does the LA only take your personal income into account rather than household income? I assumed the latter.

@DaveyTheCavy Yup, ultimately I would always, always conserve a pathway for the most severely affected with any psychiatric condition, who had exhausted all treatment options etc to be approved for disability benefits. Maybe another place of divergence from Wildflowers, haha. But I'm referring to eg friends of mine who have been hospitalised for very extended periods (multiple years) and had interventions at the ECT tier of seriousness. I think it would be wrong to label eg depression or OCD as a fundamental disqualifier since, also, people can be misdiagnosed. For me it's really about having much more expert gatekeeping involved in the approval, and approving the most severe cases, while channeling the funding saved towards supportive intervention instead.

See?

Just because you've never met anyone like that doesn't mean they don't exist. Learning disability isn't diagnosed as he was diagnosed before the spectrum included all the other versions of nd that are now incorporated. He has Kanners autism/ classical autism, pre cool/ tiktok autism.

Minimally communicative for a purpose, places objects (not food) in their mouth, requires support with skills of daily living (cooking, cleaning, washing, dressing, keeping safe, etc), can't cross a road, flaps, vocalises, stims etc He can also read multiple languages (say the words) although not understand them (hyperlexia) it isnt useful for communication and he can't say words to convey a meaning, echolalia, rocking etc. He cannot have his iq assessed as there wouldn't be a meaningful result. His WISC scores varied from below 0.1 percentile to the 5 percentile (the difference in score is too vast to give a result but the result would be low). Therefore Learning disability cannot be formally diagnosed.

Just to add Learning disability and learning difficulties are two separate things. Learning disability is about intelligence whereas learning difficulty is about things like dyslexia.

@PandoraSox At the moment our household income is also extremely low. I think that they will take the household income into consideration, it's just that ours doesn't meet the threshold yet. I'm not 100% sure as my spouse handles the paperwork (again, I'm autistic and not able to do this side of things). I would be surprised if they didn't consider household income. I don't have any issue with that, if anything I hope our income will rise in future to the point that it "matters" again! It's currently lower than when I received ESA and PIP.

@HÆLTHEPAIN The app doesn't let you post under two usernames in one thread. I couldn't even if I wanted to.

Why is it so hard to accept that multiple people disagree with you?

Thanks. That is helpful to know. GP has suggested carers but neither of us are quite ready for that right now. It seems daunting.

@PandoraSox It is very stressful to go through but can make a big difference. As much as we've disagreed on this thread, I am more than happy to talk about it further with you from a "real life" (not info booklet) perspective. It has hugely helped me. If they restore PMs soon as promised, do feel free to message me, I truly am happy to chat about it. I don't think disagreement on one aspect of life means it's impossible to talk about something else. I truly appreciate the difference carers have made for me and I want others to be able to access it when the moment feels right.