To be confused by benefits cuts to the disabled and ill?

[AllyHayHay]

As luck would have it, I have not been in this position, but I do know of one disabled lady who has struggled. She was incredibly fortunate to already own her own home prior to her accident.

I am not what you'd call politically astute, but I have been reading about the proposed spring benefits cuts and wonder why people always discuss this ONLY affecting the sick and disabled.
I am also aware that there are many, many rough areas with families who have never worked, people who are struggling with addiction, prison sentences (their kids, spouse, etc) and these people never seem to be included in the Guardian articles and opinion pieces online.

Why would a system wish to make the life of a disabled person worse, yet ignore the growing issues of illiteracy, generational poverty and other issues which are going on in most urban areas just out of sight of the comfortably off?
Why not address the reasons that great swathes of people are living on benefits across the UK who are NOT disabled? I imagine this would drag up questions of why those issues persist - and no one in government wants to address that.

Since benefits claimants who are not in work of on the pension are a minority, are these cuts more of a populist tendency?

I thought PIP doesn't depend on the diagnosis. Isn't it based on what you can/can't do rather than what you've been diagnosed with?

PIP awards are not based on diagnosis though... it is based on how someone's life is affected by their disabilities. They will have been struggling and disabled before they got any sort of diagnosis.

You still need a diagnosis to kick it off. I think there were about 4 diagnosis’ they were considering removing. One was arthritis, but like I said it is just a consideration/speculation.

I know. Someone in a support group I attend has just been re-assessed and found fit for work. He falls asleep during groups because of the medications he is on (anti-psychotics). He has not worked for over 20 years. What is he going to put on his CV? Stuff about the bit of colouring in he does at groups?

You supposedly don't need a diagnosis as it's based on needs. But from experience it does matter. They hadn't heard of one of mine and told it wasn't that bad. I wouldn't have been diagnosed if it wasn't that bad

It's called Blurred Lines!

I don't know what that means.

In relation to benefits and metal health I'd like to add my story.

I have suffered from depression and anxiety since I was 11. I started self harming at 12 and my first technical suicide attempt was also 12 (I was badly bullied in school and also struggled with undiagnosed ADHD). My next suicide attempt was 15. I did what you were supposed to do and went to uni (as Blair wanted everyone to do in early 2000s). I graduated and accepted a full time job in order to set myself for the future and using my degree.

Unfortunately the full time job in a call center led to my mental health massively worsening and I ended up at the point I was self harming in the toilets at work and planning my suicide
Which I then acted on. I overdosed and was very lucky to live (only 17% of people survive the resuscitation I experienced, which unfortunately has left me with PTSD and avoiding hospital/anything medical due to the fact it causes me to have flashbacks and relive the experience of essentially dying).I then, lost my job (some bullshit about them sending me a letter and me not responding ergo I resigned? Was too ill to take it further).

I still remember walking into the job center in a daze after being told I no longer had a job (bear in mind this was only a week or so after the suicide attempt that nearly killed me). I ended up applying for ESA. Everytime I was assessed for ESA I was placed into the support group due to work being deemed a risk to my life.

Now here is the important part.
For the 3 1/2 years I was on ESA, not only did I have medication (in hindsight the wrong medication as I was misdiagnosed as bipolar and medicated for that for 10 years when it was actually ADHD) I had monthly appointments with a psychiatrist, I had WEEKLY appointments with my community psychiatric nurse (who I still am so grateful for) and actually was thankfully not harassed by DWP and given time to recover.

THAT support is what actually led to me going back to work. I did actualllyw work full time for the first 2 years as I was terrified they'd fire me if I said I couldn't cope (wasn't exactly on the ball with equality laws) but eventually it did lead to a breakdown and me being off sick, at which point my GP point blank told me there was no way I could work full time.

I ended up wrong assessed by occupational health. They suggested fixed days (as this gave me a set routine which not only helped with my MH and ADHD but also for booking medical appointments), they said I wouldn't work mornings (as I was on the highest dose of anti psychotics and struggling to function at 6am) and also limited my shifts to 6 hours a day (as anything over this massively affect stress levels and my MH).

I've been back working for 12 years now. I did claim Tax Credits under the disability element which massively helped at times where my MH was worse and I was restricted to only working 16 hours a week) and I do get standard care PIP as a massively struggle with personal care, budgeting etc. When the transition to UC happend I made the decision not to claim UC. I knew they would force me to look for full time work even though I can't do full time. I knew I'd be harassed into coming in for meeting when I was supposed to be at work. Quite frankly being on UC would most likely have led to me baking back to being unable to work at all.

(As an aside my massive issue with UC is the fact they don't support part time work which actually would enable a LOT of disabled people to work-and surely working a bit is better than not working at all)

Sorry I've rambelled (joys of ADHD...) but my point actually was if that if hadn't had the support I had 15 years ago, if I was subject to what people with mental illness experience now, I very much doubt I would hav been well enough to return to work.

The government need to do more than just offer bog standard CBT. I used my pip to pay privately for weekly therapy, as advised by my GP and psychiatrist. And also for travel to work when I'm unable to use public transport.

If more people had ACTUAL support more people could work. Also I am lucky to have uch an understanding employer. Many are not.

@KitTea3 a fab post! I am not too dissimilar to you. Lifetime of MH issues that is due to ND (am waiting to be assessed). I have worked, and no one has been understanding. I worked in the NHS and they were awful, but I was in a Band 1 role where there is no wriggle room for reasonable adjustments.
I am on UC now. I would like to work, but my old MH team almost seemed to put me off as they knew what demands can do to me.

Neither can a lot of older people that’s what probably holds them back, it’s generational.

I have muscular dystrophy and I’m a full time wheelchair user. I can’t go to the loo without my husband physically lifting me because I can’t stand from a seated position. I have regular medical appointments and struggle with pain and fatigue which can put me out of action for days especially if I over do it. I have a degree but who is going to employ me when I need a full time carer with me? Why wouldn’t they just hire an able bodied person?

I'm assuming that this includes groups who are currently not required to look for work, unlike other unemployed people who receive UC. The claimants not in receipt of any sickness/disability benefits are required to make themselves 'job ready' and apply for a number of jobs each week and keep a work diary.

The rhetoric seems to be that there are many young people in receipt of these sickness/disability benefits who have moved straight from education onto benefits with no experience of work at all and that, with the right support, they could carry out some form of paid employment. I'm not sure how true this is and how coercive this will be.

And they were happy to use the sick and disabled as tools to emotionally blackmail others into following Covid restrictions and lockdowns Both Tories and Labour did this. They were fucking sick and disabled enough then!!!!!!!!

But behind closed doors (and thankfully exposed) were plans to withhold treatment from the disabled and sick if demand was too high for ventilators . That’s says a lot. It’s appalling we are taking a huge backwards step with this. There could have been cuts made in other areas or ways to get money (pretty sure there’s a lot of tax owed from certain businesses 🤔) but they are going for the weakest in society

Depends what you mean by making work pay
A poster on another thread mentioned her friend who is being told she can work in Morrisons. This is a single mum with four kids. By the time UC pays childcare AND the wages top up etc it costs more than if she stayed at home
Making work pay doesnt seem to mean that the money actually comes from employers

People with depression, anxiety etc would have got a job rather than go into an asylum

Not really, in the bad old days it was asylum, suicide, murder/prison or locked up by family at home and kept sedated. They wouldn’t have gotten a job….if a person can’t work, they can’t work. There is no such thing as a work cure for depression/anxiety or the “etc” which I presume includes everything else like schizophrenia, psychotic depression, and personality disorders..l

It would be very mean to remove arthritis, as it’s such a painful, disabling condition suffered by many.

No long term disability benefits should be at least at the level of minimum wage.
Otherwise you are punishing disabled people with extreme poverty.

I'm really worried about this - my mum is 50, she was diagnosed with autism at 47 after my dad died. I suspect she also has a learning disability she's under adult social services and has carers. No idea how this cuts will affect her.

As far as I am aware RR is planning on targeting the disabled so PIP and disability benefits not UC in general.

The trouble is dla/pip is often used to assess other support. I have an autistic child who is severe enough to have ehcp and be in special school but me and his dad both work full time as he’s at school and we’ve managed to arrange ours jobs round him. We don’t particularly need the money but when trying to access other things often one of the questions is if they are in receipt of dla and if not it’s difficult/impossible to access thst other support. For example he has a blue badge which is a life safer for us but I don’t think we’d get if we didn’t receive dla

Exactly this. I have Myasthenia. A neuromuscular junction disorder that causes increased weakness the more I exercise (or use my muscles generally).
For twenty years doctors dismissed and minimised my symptoms. Men tend to get diagnosed with Myasthenia far faster than women. Many women are giving "fobbed off" diagnoses like fibromyalgia or FND.

COVID dramatically worsened my symptoms, and I am still recovering four years later. We do need to have a proper conversation about the impact of covid on disability

Having said that, even though I am often wheelchair bound, often can't brush my own hair and quite regularly am so weak I cannot easily speak or swallow I still work full time.

I feel very privileged to have an employer who is supportive. But I also feel very cross at the thought I may be supporting people who are exaggerating or faking their illness for benefits.

It's not just able bodied people paying taxes. And I don't claim any benefits because my condition fluctuates so much that on good days I can ice skate, or swim, or walk the dog, and I just can't face the hassle of claiming because there is such poor understanding of fluctuating conditions that I feel like so many people would assume I am faking. But my family see me at my worst, when I have overdone it and cannot lift my head, speak clearly or swallow safely.

So there is a lot to unpack. But I think we need to understand the impact of COVID before assuming that this upswing in claims since 2020 is due to fake claimants/the workshy.

Stopping something tens of millions of pensioners relied on because a few millionaires claimed it is ridiculous. They should have mean tested it say anyone living off less than £17k a year should still get it. Older people feel the cold more. It's true the pensioners and the disabled are an easy target because as PP suggested they are unlikely to be climbing up on gantry's and sitting down on the motorway refusing to move.

Easy targets and frighteningly easy to manipulate the rest of the population to turn on them and blame them for the state the country is in.

Meanwhile over a billion has been spent on the Thames crossing so far and construction hadn't even started yet. It's going to cost what? 9 billion? 10?

Huge businesses only pay a fraction of what they should pay because of carefully nurtured loopholes.

Who can forget the happiness survey? Two million quid that cost and for what? To find out how happy we are.

I for one would have been happier if 2 million quid hadn't been spaffed up a wall on a stupid survey.

If the government wants to save billions they should first look at themselves and the civil service and all the wasted money there.

Then look at current tax loopholes and close them.

Then take a good fucking look at the wastage in the NHS.

There are billions that can be saved at the top but it's better for them to try to pull it from the bottom because waste at the top is what keeps them and their pals happy.

As far as I am aware all this is just speculation, until she actually states exactly what they will be doing, later this Month, I do believe.