To wonder if all those gleeful about PIP cuts are going to welcome people with serious mental health conditions as colleagues and employees?

[Somethingthecatdraggedin7]

Given the amount of ableisism I see on MN I think the likelihood of people welcoming people with serious mental health conditions into their workplace is pretty low.
And yes, these people will very likely now be forced to try to work even though their condition makes it impossible. We are not just talking about some lazy twenty year old who expects to sit at home gaming due to his “anxiety” as many people seem to believe is the case. It will be people with significant impairments to social functioning.
Even if they get support to apply for jobs, and even if they then get the position (doubtful) how accommodating will colleagues or customers be if the person seems a bit odd, or gets adjustments workmates deem unfair?
This is going to be a total shit show.

Xeno, we’ve discussed this topic for quite a few days now and every single post you have written regarding getting a job is self defeating, negative and extremely cynical. As somebody who has actually been working for the decade plus since you stopped, I can reassure you plenty of work places offer reasonable adjustments, and that the workplace is quite a different arena to pre Covid times with plenty of jobs offering hybrid or WFH even if the ad states office.

I feel like every single suggestion to you is met with instant dismissal. If you don’t mind me asking, when was the last time you tried working? Because if it was many years ago, it makes sense to listen to people in the current work market rather than hang on to your belief that you may as well not try as nobody will employ you.

What about cleaning? No meetings, very little face to face interaction, not too much mental engagement. My neighbour cleans and loves it as she listens to her favourite podcasts as she goes, it’s a straightforward job and the pay is quite good. Very little if any experience required. No doubt there will be a reason why this is a ridiculous suggestion..

I already work with people with several physical and mental health issues and they are doing alright with some accommodations and some understanding.

This is also about not writing off people with conditions as incapable victims. They aren't.

I do think things will evolve in this direction. There will be more and more people with illness/disabilities as time goes on, and more pressure on the economy. I think give it another decade (and who knows what world events could cause even more stressors) and those unable to work or needing a lot of special accommodation to do so will find themselves offered a nice little pill or perhaps being guilt-tripped into doing it 'for the good of everyone'. I believe it will come one day in the not too distant future. God help us all.

It is but then so is morphing into a country where a small pool of taxpayers are taxed £££ to pay for a large pool of dependants who receive more money than they do for things like ADHD, all the while those taxpayers are berated for questioning the system. It does feel like as a country we are turning into a sort of life support system for people with ‘needs’, and those who work and just need the basic package of a GP appointment a year and mainstream school places for their kids are left on the breadline and told to feel lucky.

I support assisted dying but only for people physically and terminally ill, not for MH as I think it is too much of a slippery slope. Without being too specific, a life on benefits leads to poor MH in many cases anyway, particularly for men. At work I see men every day who have been on benefits for years, and in 99% of cases they signed on due to unemployment, start spend their benefit money on weed and cheap alcohol, lie in all day as no routine, and then as a consequence develop some kind of physical or mental health problem. They then end up claiming PIP or LCWRA, their chances of returning to work are obliterated as frankly they don’t know what day of the week it is most of the time, and hey presto we have somebody on benefits for life. This is a rarely discussed scenario as all we talk about on here is people who work then become ill and need benefits - but the scenario I discussed is much more common. Had these men been forced to work, they would’ve been for the most part saved from addiction and MH problems and terminal unemployment.

What incentives do you suggest? Generally the only incentives that interest employers - especially small ones - are financial ones.

Which kind of defeats the purpose of saving money. All it would be doing is shuffling budgets about.

There are a lot who can't for a whole variety of reasons.

And probably more who are incapable of doing a lot of the jobs available ie the ones that, strangely enough, able people won't do.

I'm sure there are other threads where people with a disability can tell you of being managed out or unable to get jobs because, guess what, employers want nice easy employees that they don't want to spend time and energy managing.

What's conveniently brushed under the carpet by the government is that many so-called economically inactive people are actually those who, 20 years ago, would have been retired. When they lament the number of people not in employment, they don't consider it's been swollen by this cohort

Of course there are people who can and do work until their late 60s and beyond, but once you hit middle-age, physical fitness becomes something of a lottery - if you have unlucky genes you start succumbing to all sorts of ailments; if you are female, the menopause alone can give you a battering - if you don't have a pension, you have no choice but to claim ill-health benefits.

@Longtimeloitereralthough it’s about saving money, so shuffling budgets would not fit that.
its also about helping people do something!!
most people can do something!!
doing nothing, every day , for ever should not be an option!

I think the point is people need to be supported to manage themselves. For about 15 years, we have created a lot of people who can only feed and live with input from others, be it family or taxpayers. The problem is living like that is usually a bitterly hard existence and leads to early death. We need to establish what adults are reasonably expected to do for themselves without support. Getting someone to be well enough to be independent is very difficult, and like it or not seriously, negativitly affects the most needy in society. It's going to be painful but is there any other way. System only works if you pay in what's happening in the UK is very very odd and it's not happening in other western countries .

We have a disabled lady at work, worked there years, does the job well and has a few minor reasonable adjustments. One of which is she is allowed to park in car park (she has a physically disability and has a blue badge but she can walk, although not as steady as average person). The amount of people that have moaned that it isn’t fair you would not believe. It’s not like it even effects them as they would not be allowed to park in car park anyway, it’s not big enough for all staff, but I think some people would rather see her struggle trying to find suitable street parking or have to walk a distance if it meant they thought it made it more “fair”. People say she is pulling the disabled card. Her disability is from birth and when I’ve said to people well would you really want to have that disability just so you can park in the car park and they say it is easier for her than if they were to become disabled as she’s used to it and doesn’t know any different. It’s unbelievable how some people (not a minority) are.

I know someone (known for years from school days) who plays the system and ‘justifies’ it in the basis that she is now 61 and in previous times she would now be getting a pension. She thinks I am a mug for working -especially in teaching. She lives in a south coast town where lot of people play the system so it is ‘normalised’
She is intelligent and articulate and so can play the system very effectively-needless to say she is no longer a friend.

100% this. Excellent post.

It is not just about saving money but also getting people to have a stake in society and a sensor responsibility rather than an attitude of helplessness.
lWhy don’t we ever look at how things are done in other countries?
A family in France has a history of suicide attempts (hereditary/genetic) that did not kick in till he was in his 40s and working as a chef which is all he had ever trained for -no skills in other areas, least of all IT. No chance he could work again as a chef.
Yes he was treated and is medicated, but instead of writing him off and simply placating him with hand/outs which would have happened here -with a total lack of imagination as to a change of job type. Worse for his mental health and sense of self worth, he was found a job as a security guard.
Assessed unable work full time, he works 2weeks out of every 4 with the employer paying him 50.% and the state topping up.
Much more imaginative and effective for him and his family than telling him to sit at home and do nothing.

Not excellent at all. It’s full of unsubstantiated thought terminating cliches, while refusing to acknowledge the actual figures which are key in all this.

There could be government recognition/certification which can help a companies brand, small tax breaks etc.
I'm afraid I don't have a 'it can't work, it is impossible' mindset. We can innovate around any problem

Accepting status quo is not an option

Your opinion means absolutely nothing to me. I always see you spouting off on posts about disabled people and i honestly couldn't give less of a fuck about what you think.

This is what worries me the most; how colleagues will react to the increase in reasonable adjustments for their new colleagues.

It's easy to say "ignore them" etc but it's easier said than done.

A lot of workplaces aren't healthy places. There's a lot people being spread really thin and I don't think that will help foster a positive attitude to increasing reasonable adjustments or colleagues that need more time off sick.

At least some of the people that can't face looking for work might feel able to if we had better work environments. I've worked in places that I wouldn't recommend to a person with fragile mental health.

They absolutely do not for ND. It’s a myth as it is in the NHS where nobody even looks at your notes let alone a hospital passport.

@WhatNoRaisinsso you are suggesting that we can all be paid to stay at home if we don’t like our work place??
that we get to not go to work if a colleague is a arsehole ?
how you funding this??

If you don’t want members of staff ending up in hospital and worse then reasonable adjustment laws and disability rights are going to have to be beefed up.

I don't think anyone is suggesting the answer is that people stay at home; more that disability rights in the workplace need to be made ironclad and employers need to be ready to come down hard on bullying and discrimination.

Well people aren't rushing to go to these workplaces and I can't say I blame them.

This is a personal and vicious attack. Some people weponise their disability insults abuse wont stop people speaking up.

I’ve seen it too though. Some posters search for
disability threads purely to post ill informed, abelist and often ignorant comments. Let’s not pretend that doesn’t happen because it does.