To be sick of all the newspaper articles saying lies about DLA and PIP

[elliejjtiny]

To get any DLA or PIP you have to be significantly disabled. To get the higher rate of either part you have to be severely disabled.

A motability car is not free, it's rented. To get one you need to either be unable to walk 50 metres or have a severe learning disability, which is very difficult to get.

It's always happened but since the stuff in the news about changes to PIP it's got worse.

Articles in the newspapers claiming you can get a free car for bed wetting, which just doesn't happen. There will be children like my ds who get DLA because they have a number of problems including bedwetting but nobody gets high rate mobility for bed wetting on its own.

There are other articles about people claiming PIP and DLA for various minor sounding conditions and I am so fed up with it. I know from experience that the newspapers will have talked to people claiming PIP/DLA and twist everything they say to make them sound like a scrounger.

All these articles are giving off the message that anyone with any minor disability can claim loads of benefits.

This is utter rubbish so there’s no need for you to be angry. Calm down and get your facts straight before getting riled up about nothing.

When you are seriously disabled a car is a necessity as it's too difficult, if not downright impossible, to use public transport. For context though, many disabled people who are eligible for the Motability scheme do buy or lease their own vehicles because it is often cheaper for them to do so. In addition, the choice of Motability vehicles is often limited and it may be difficult to find a model that suits individual needs.

PIP is meant to help with essential costs, but in reality, for many, it doesn't even touch the sides. For example, someone who is wheelchairbound often needs two wheelchairs, one manual, one electric. An electric wheelchair costs anything from £11,000 upwards and costs the same, if not more, to service as a car. Any mobility equipment supplied via the NHS is of very basic quality and is often unsuitable too - many people have to turn to crowd-funding to get the equipment they need.

Local councils are, in theory, responsible for home adaptations - stairlifts, hoists, installation of toilets and shower facilities - but in practice, most of them are now so cash-starved that it's almost impossible to get any money out of them. And any application for a grant means filling in yet another 38-page form, accompanied with contributions from GPs and other healthcare professionals, plus loads of financial details too. This will need to be done at least three or four times, because applications have a way of 'getting lost' in the system. And if perchance it should eventually be successful any work carried out will be the bare minimum and of the most basic standard possible.

Whenever people mouth off nastily about benefits and disability benefits in particular, while relying on anecdotal 'evidence' often supplied by a bloke down the pub, whose cousin's sister's husband has been milking the system for years, I fervently hope that they, or someone they love, will be afflicted with either a life-limiting disease or a tragic accident that changes their lives irrevocably and forever. Perhaps then they'd understand how inadequate and difficult it is to try and navigate the labyrinthine and often cruel benefits system - often to the point that many people simply give up and make do without the financial help they are entitled to.
No 'nice thing' could ever make up for being sick and/or disabled and most would give up everything they had in a heartbeat to be well and able again.

The type of claimant you describe is very much in a minority and nobody is attacking them.

Maybe you would get an ADHD disgnosis
It doesnt mean you would be entititled to PIP thouhgh
I have said this before both my kids have disabillitities
My oldest son had acute necrotising pancreititis two years ago which completeley destroyed his pancreas which means he now has insulin dependent Diabetes
This doesnt mean hes entitled to PIP though
My youngrst son us severly autistic ,non verbal etc and gets the highest rates of DLA which i dont see changing when it transfers to PIP
Its all about how the disgnosis impacts a person.

I read your posts and I really respect your experience as a MH nurse and also mother of 2 disabled children. But with respect literally nobody is saying your son should lose benefits - he is very very clearly disabled. His case is the type of case I mean that should be very well supported but this won’t happen if more tenuous or borderline claimants keep piling into the system. I don’t think people just decide one day to claim benefits for anxiety, I think people massage their existing symptoms a bit to get them over the line and there are MANY cases like this.

Im on various facebook grops for DLA and yes many people put in claims for very tenuos reasons and its frustrating
It doesnt mean they are successful though.

Source?

Oh I see. So @Wildflowers99 while also having a chip on her shoulder about funding for disabled adults despite contributing nothing to this cost herself, and not understanding even basic economics, also now feels qualified to make comments about neurological conditions.

Where did you go to medical school, Dr Wildflowers?

There is very robust research by neurologists detailing precisely why autistic children - particularly those without learning disabilities who are capable of masking to an extent - have mental health collapses precisely at this point in puberty, because autism is a developmental condition, so it’s no surprise that there are common patterns in how it impacts children during a key phase of development i.e. adolescence, due to the interaction with hormone changes etc in the body.

Presumably you have reviewed this peer reviewed medical research (statistically validated medical studies published in the relevant medical journals) produced by neurologists who have spent their lifetimes studying these conditions and their effect on the brain, before expressing the opinion that you disagree with its findings?

It sounds like you’ve made a huge leap forward in medical science if you are in possession of medical data that refutes all existing medical research on the topic. Are you going to give us a synopsis of your research and findings here, or just tantalising us all while we await publication of your ground-breaking findings that disprove all research to date, in one of the relevant medical journals?

Or could it just be, perhaps, if we apply Occam’s Razor, that you are in fact just posting hateful comments regurgitating nonsense about a specific disability of which you have scant knowledge at all, that you read about in the Daily Mail or similar?

This is all publicly available data…. Have you heard of “google”?

"I know lots of of people who get PIP that don't deserve it" But how do we know if they don't deserve it? We don't live with them, or see their daily struggles.
Unfortunately, it seems a lot of folk think that unless you are wheelchair bound or incapable of looking after yourself, only then should you get PIP!
This country needs educating about
disabilities, and the fact that PIP is NOT a handout for the majority of people, it has to be proven with extensive evidence that your disabilities affect your daily living. I am a parent carer and for years have filled in these forms both DLA and PIP, they are complex and you have to repeat yourself constantly, I have to highlight every single daily living activity and the mobility issues my daughter struggles with, as a parent it is incredibly upsetting to explain over and over that your child is disabled and that it will never change.
I want the general public to understand that there are genuine people who need this money, yes the system does need to change and yes there is likely a small minority who abuse the system somehow (no idea how in my own experience!) but the media is also incredibly uniformed about most disability issues.
You simply cannot believe everything you read!

How does she do it?

If you are close enough to know, 1. neither of them have any disabilities and 2. they both get the maximum amount of PIP please do just ask her who is fabricating evidence for them and come back and let us know - contact details for said fabricator very welcome…

All these people who know all about all these scammers when the DWP themselves have repeatedly investigated and found current levels of fraud are at 0.2%, these the people who obstruct as many claims as they can and lie about claimants on a regular basis, if fraud was a massive problem they’d be on it 100%

All these ignorant people thinking they know best. Bunch of arseholes!

Can you clarify what you mean by 'essential' in your last sentence please, because I'm really hoping I've misunderstood what you meant by it.

Essential in what sense?

It's ridiculous even my closest family and friends don't know the reality of my day to day so the fact people think they know about a friend of a friends cousins neighbour is ridiculous and beyond ignorant. I don't know about anybody else with a disability but when I'm around others it's showtime and happy face on what they don't see is what it took leading up to that or the recovery days after

Same here.
Am sick of comments on here about seeing someone on benefits in the pub. Must mean they can hold down a job. Or seeing someone without their wheelchair. Some of the wheelchair users I know have fluctuating conditions. Some days they can manage without them.
It always surprises me how much some people on here seem to know about the health conditions of people they barely know. The people making the decision about whether someone is entitled to benefits or not is the DWP. If it has been decided they ae eligible then it is not up to nosey twats thinking they know better.

Yes, all neurologists agree that “discipline” can change brain structure.

Do you also advocate the same approach to other neurological conditions such as dementia and epilepsy? Or is this approach reserved entirely for children with autism?

I am so keen to see your medical research about this, it really does sound quite groundbreaking, although it does seem odd that it would be applicable to this one particular neurological condition and not others. Or will your research findings also offer a cure for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, epilepsy etc? We could get rid of care costs and SEND costs from Local Authorities in one go! Imagine all of those people with dementia in care homes who could be cured with just a little bit of “discipline” and then be returned to the community to live independently. This is so exciting: you appear to have single-handedly solved two of the major funding issues for Local Authorities so I really am so excited to see the details of your research, please do at least provide a link to your research project outline and methods even if your final paper for the medical journals isn’t quite ready for publication yet.

If this won’t help those with other neurological conditions, and only applies to those with autism, I presume you have robust and evidenced medical explanation and supporting data explaining why your proposed treatment methods (of “disciplining” neurological conditions away) work for some neurological issues and not others? Fascinating stuff. Are you going to share it with us here, or let us know when it will be published?

That's not the case though is it? A little while ago there was a thread on here from a woman who had two disabled children and had revealed to a relative that she received £4,500m per month in UC and various other benefits. This included £2000 per month in housing benefit and the relative threw a fit at the amount, as did many of those posting on the thread. There were so many vile and unkind comments, with many suggesting that the woman and her children should be forcibly moved to an area where housing was much cheaper. One charmer actually suggested that 'something else' needed to be done with 'these children' as the country can't afford to 'subsidise' them. There was so much jealous spite directed at the woman who was a single mother - her husband had naffed off - and trying to do the best she could in very difficult circumstances. There was no empathy and no understanding, with posters simply unable or unwilling to imagine how they would cope in a similar situation. I decided there and then that I could no longer support the assisted dying bill - I can imagine that if there was a legal way to eliminate a whole section of our society - the old, the frail, the sick, the weak, the disabled - they would come under enormous pressure to end their lives prematurely by those who never tire of reminding us that they have 'paid their taxes'.

I do 🤷🏼‍♀️. I can understand you don’t believe it, and I’m not saying it’s the norm, but it is true.

She’s done it by lying.
She’s has claimed that she’s not able to walk unassisted for more than 200 meters and all sorts of other nonsense. I’ve personally walked several miles with her and seen her carry her toddler in his pushchair up and down staircases on the tube network.

You don’t believe in autism ?

And what did she use to back up them claims. Mri scans, consultant letters, history of surgeries, letters from physiotherapist, receipts of aids used, medication list. Saying I can't walk wouldn't be enough so where did she obtain all the evidence of her condition

Absolutely, this is one of my main objections to assisted dying. It should be a grotesquely far-fetched, unimaginable possibility. Sadly, though, I don’t think it is at all.

She’s extremely manipulative and knows how to work the system. she actually has a court decision asserting that she can walk no more than 200 meters unassisted, which is completely false.
To be fair, she is an extraordinary individual so I probably shouldn’t be offering her up as an example, but when other people say they know people who are abusing the system I know it’s possible because I’ve seen it myself.

Again, how has she evidenced this? You don’t just write ‘I cannot walk X amount’ and claim PIP.

also you say she has claimed she cannot walk more than 200 meters but that she gets enhanced PIP, so how does she do that?

@Golaz perhaps she actually gets the award for another reason? People don’t always divulge the extent of their difficulties to everyone.