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.

I'm sorry that poster's comment uspet you so much, and I do understand why.

However, the poster was responding to a PP who was saying that people earning below a certain amount are not contributing. So in context, if we are talking about things in these purely financial terms, and saying that lower income people are not contributing, then people on benefits are not contributing either! Personally I don't believe people "are what they earn", and agree with your points, but the poster you're responding to was talking in that purely financial sense in response to the PP disregrarding workers on lower tax bands.

I found the PP's comments upsetting, as someone who usually works (although job hunting atm) but in low paid roles. I've tried so hard to get back to work after a long time unwell. I have a disability that restricts my earning potential (but doesn't qualify for PIP, and there are no other benefits I could use to top up my reduced income). I don't think not being a net contributor makes me worthless or that I shouldn't be allowed an opinion. I also take issue with the idea that I should just get a better job/work more/it's easy to earn more, because it really isn't that simple, and it's the same for so many.

This is a serious point, and ties in with what another poster said about "levelling the playing field with who?" If people are having to tighten their belts, perhaps they realise they can't afford a holiday or even are having to budget every single penny, you can see how it could seem unfair that a disabled person they know could afford a holiday. In the context of worsening standard of living for everyone, it doesn't help to just say, as the PP did, that they should all just get a better job.

Plus, many disabled people (who are able to) are working, and many of those have reduced earning potential due to their disability but no financial support with that. If the government want more disabled people working, and are successful in achieving that, then this group will be even larger. Focusing only on "the most disabled" makes the situation worse, where you qualify for sufficient support, or none at all and live in poverty due to disabilty affecting earning potential. Tying UC conditions and top-ups to PIP makes this even worse, especially as "most disabled" appears to be a code for "physically disabled" - someone who uses a wheelchair may need PIP for mobility (quite rightly) but be perfectly able to work in an office job, whilst someone with MH issues may not qualify for PIP under the new rules (and therefore not the disability element of UC) but still not be able to work, consigning them to absolute poverty and making their mental health worse.

I don't agree with what the government are doing, and lived through it before as I was at my most unwell (on ESA and DLA as it was then) when the Tories made big changes last time. But I can see why people might have concerns about the current system, and that it doesn't help to have this black-and-white view of who's deserving of support and who isn't, rather than a more graded approach. Changing the system is fine, but the way they are going about it will make things worse in a variety of ways.

And you know so much about her, what she gets, what her child gets but are unable to tell anyone how.

if you are that close to her, ask.

DD1 was diagnosed with SEN at age two by the NHS. DD2 was diagnosed by the NHS at 22 with ADHD and anxiety, including OCD. The NHS has just done an autism screening on her, where she achieved a high score per the consultant psychiatrist. She is waiting for the full autism assessment. It is as clear as the light of day that DH has undiagnosed ADHD, OCD and autistic traits. DGD is on the pathway for assessment for ADHD.

We have all had genetic testing done, as part of a research project - both DH and I carry a recessive genetic mutation, going back to one person with it in Central Europe 50 generations ago. We are not related, but are both descended from that one person. DD1 has inherited two copies of the same mutation from us. It causes many neuropsychiatric problems, including depression, anxiety, hallucinations, emotional volatility, ADHD, psychosis, etc. We can both be affected by it, as carriers, just not as much as DD1.

They only looked at 1,200 genes in DD1 the first time, and having found one mutation, they looked at another 1,500 genes. This is a drop in the ocean out of all the genes. Then they tested us for it.

The vast majority of the population cannot get this kind of genetic testing done, so they don’t know what genes they have inherited from their ancestors, or what hidden disorders their ancestors suffered from. Many children died in infancy until the 20th century, so nobody knows the true incidence of things like autism or ADHD, until more recently. None of us knew what ADHD was, when DH and I were children and SEN was an unknown concept at school.

I also want to know how she gets away with it. After all medical evidence has to be given and I don't know of a medical professional who would lie. (I was actually told at my pip assessment that my consultants were lying. Neither my consultant or GP have reason to lie)

What on earth are you talking about?

No, neurological issues weren’t “very rare” 10 years ago, they were just hugely underdiagnosed.

As I asked before, has Dr Wildflowers actually got the qualifications to be disputing the medical research in neurology? Or, indeed, even read any of it?

Neurological conditions have nothing to do with “transgender ideology”. Do you also say this to people with epilepsy or dementia? If not, why not?

Nobody “gets benefits” for having a specific medical condition of any kind. PIP is provided based on someone’s capability to perform basic tasks required for daily living and moving around, regardless of any medical diagnosis (because almost all medical conditions vary so much in severity in terms of how much they impact someone).

Your other comments about “virtually everyone” being disabled are straight out of Daily Mail territory and again, I ask you to provide any evidence to support this assertion. The fact that medical science has advanced and many previously undiagnosed people are now being diagnosed and treated for conditions that they previously would simply have suffered in silence or died from, from cancers to diabetes to autism to many rare genetic disorders etc, does not make these medical conditions a fabrication. Do you believe that cancer sufferers should be denied treatment if they wouldn’t have been diagnosed and treated by the techniques available in the 1950s? Do you assert that it’s “not believable” that many more people have cancer than previously thought? If not, then why do you think it appropriate to disregard the advances in medical science in some areas and not others? What’s your evidence to support this?

You don’t seem to grasp the concept of money and the challenges for us that would pose. You seem purely focussed on the emotional and what you feel you should get.

I do not “get” anything. And no, my posts have been, in the vast majority, about facts and data and science, not “emotion”. It is other posters - like you - who have reacted angrily based on feelings and emotions and “beliefs” and refused to engage in a factual or rational discussion about anything. In fact, you accused me of being unemployed and “sneering at minimum wage workers” when I used to be one of those. I’ve been poor, I’ve done the low paid jobs. You have made assumptions about people and made personal comments to them rather than engaging with or responding to the factual points put to you.

“The challenges for us” is stretching it a bit, isn’t it? Given that you’ve already admitted that you aren’t a net contributor to tax revenues so you’re not actually contributing anything to the costs of PIP (or indeed the education of other people’s children) which you object to so strongly, and in fact you are also being funded by those or us who are net contributors and are simply angry that those of us who do contribute more to the state than we cost the state give more of the money that we have earned to some people who are more in need than you are (e.g. the disabled) than we give to you. Not a good look. You contribute nothing to the cost of PIP or education of other people’s children, so I’m not sure what right you think you have to be so apopleptic with rage about it as nobody asked you to pay a penny towards it.

As for me not “grasping the concept of money”, I am an economist. 😚Are you? If not, what are your qualifications to back up the economic (and, indeed, medical) assertions that you’ve made?

Yes. I have seen her. I know her very well. I wonder why your are so committed to defending cases of dubious claims you have no knowledge of.

I know how she’s claimed disability status for her child. I also know some of how she’s done it for herself. I don’t know how she persuaded a judge she couldn’t walk more than very short distances , and I don’t know what specific lies she offered up in her PIP assessment to claim any, let alone the full, amount. I wouldn’t consider myself close to her and I’m not comfortable or interested in asking her that - it’s not the kind of thing I want to hear about tbh.

I had the same. I have a rare condition and my consultant is a professor and knows his stuff also knows me inside out after being my consultant for years and performing multiple surgeries on me yet the pip assessor who I had who is most likely a nurse, physiotherapist or podiatrist etc thought she knew better then him

If your not close to her how on earth do you know what her day to day life is like, like I said previously when I see people I put on a show otherwise I would have no friends or family as nobody wants to be around someone who is showing there pain, lying in bed all day and just generally struggling that would get old really fast. The thing is to put on this show there is a lot of things I need to do prior and then I will need several days to recover. This is what people do they hide their disabilities and they hide there pain for your friend to get high rate pip there must be stuff going on that you don't know about. It's like I have bpd and nobody accept my partner and medical professionals know because it carries stigma just like invisible disabilities do

My daughter had a brain tumour a few years ago, a gruelling 18 months of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. MacMillan Cancer Care encouraged us to apply for PIP, we only wanted it for the one year. They helped us fill in the form, The assessor came when we were away at a wedding, she asked them not to but they said they didn't want us there anyway. She is very poor at advocating for herself and easily frightened by people she thinks are in authority. We read the report which seemed to be about someone else entirely. They said she had no problems with mobility when she was using a stick for fear of falling, and even a wheelchair when we went away to Disneyland because she couldn't manage the long days. And she had so many other issues, pain , sleep, nausea, vomiting. I could almost accept that she didn't quite reach the criteria but I was astounded that they awarded her 0 points. How can that be? She wouldn't let me appeal because she said it was so humiliating and the worst experience of her life - remember this was someone who had brain surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the PIP assessment was worse than that. We genuinely wanted it just for the year of her treatment.

There vile and they blatantly lie its an awful process and people will never understand unless they've been through it. Iv never been so stressed in my life I overdosed during the process as I just couldn't cope

This woman is extremely able bodied and in no sense meets the criteria for any PIP, let alone the full amount. Her child also does not meet criteria for DLA. She is a chronic and pathological liar . (Hence having a statement that she cannot walk more than 200 meters when she is a prolific walker; declaring that she can’t use her hands or lift things, despite me watching her carrying a 4 year old in a pushchair up several flights of stairs, etc). Everyone who knows her in real life knows this. These aren’t my particular, personal judgements.

To be honest I think it was silly for me to bring up this example because she is such an extraordinary individual- i don’t actually think there are many people out there quite like this. I guess it was simply that, having seen how she can manipulate the system, it has opened my eyes to the extent to which it can be done, so when the government says the assessment processes aren’t right, I understand it.

On the whole those who receive PIP with HRC and HRM are not likely to be difficult to identify, they will have years of notes to present and a history of needing accommodations to manage their condition. Similarly those who receive LCWRA in addition to UC will be very obviously unable to work/do day to day. There may be a minuscule few who are invisible to the untrained eye, but I doubt in any number.

But how can it be done as I sent hundreds of pages of medical evidence and they scrutinised every little bit also walking 200m wouldn't get you enhanced rate pip maybe lower end mobility which i think is about £20 a week

@GivenUpOnSleep
You have completely lost track of who has written what and are actually reiterating many of my points regarding experiences and MP expenses. Of course though, I'm expected to believe you an intellectually superior, higher tax payer..... Right.

I’m not doubting that’s your experience honestly .

I'm wondering too.

For my son to get high rate care and high rate mobility, I was expected to send so much medical evidence which is impossible to manipulate. I can't force my son's physio to write that he can't walk and why on earth would she risk her career and lie?

When you say ‘expected to send’, do you mean you attached it and sent it off, or did they specifically request it? I’ve not done an application so would be interested to know. What do they ask for?

You keep going on and on about medical science but there is no proof that a nonverbal 5 year old in nappies with an ASD diagnosis has exactly the same condition as somebody like Bella Ramsey. None whatsoever. There is no definitive test for autism. There may be studies which show ‘autistic individuals are more likely to..’ but no scan, no blood test, no biopsy, no medical imaging can diagnose it. It’s based on self reported symptoms which are entirely subjective to the individual. Going on about ‘medical science’ is utterly misleading as this very same ‘medical science’ acknowledges gender identity which is a nonsense concept to me (and most posters on here, by the sounds of it).

The sooner we start to crunch the issue of ‘neurodiversity’ in the same way we’ve scrutinised gender identity, the better.

no scan, no blood test, no biopsy, no medical imaging can diagnose it. It’s based on self reported symptoms which are entirely subjective to the individual.

I hate to break it to you but this is true of so many medical conditions

So, and I say this not as a trick question, why are there far more children ‘in need’ now than 20 years ago? This is indisputable. Surely children born 30 or 40 years ago also carried these genes. Why so many children struggling now? None of it makes sense to me. Virtually every poster has a child with ASD, ADHD or anxiety.

Yes - but they’re diagnosed based on similar symptoms.

Some of those children (and I'm related to 2) were born premature. Some of those children wouldn't have survived. They're now surviving but with severe disabilities

And similarly with autism there is a defined set of diagnostic criteria.

In theory yes but ‘if you’ve met one person with autism..’

I’ve seen people on here describe their autistic kids as ‘highly sociable’, ‘easygoing’, ‘no sensory issues’, ‘no signs until 16 when they became anxious.’

🤷🏼‍♀️