Ok who wants to swap £2500 a month in benefits for my husbands MS and my epilepsy, narcolepsy and fibromyalgia.

[bluebirdblackbird]

Well according to a lot of people on here we are on a good thing.

the 20 seizures I have in a week, chronic pain and night terrors, losing my memory after a seizure, pissing myself, hallucinations. They are all great fun. Not to mention the amount of times I have been accused of being drunk after a seizure.

or there is my husband. Diagnosed with progressive MS. Cronic Pain, shaking, cronic pins and needles, weakness in limbs plus losing mobility. Had to give up his teaching job 4 months ago after gradually reducing hours.

Not to mention the judgement when we use a blue badge because we look ok in that moment. And apparently labour are going to find us both work. Yippee cant wait to meet the employer who is going to take us both on. I am sure pissing my chair on a reg basis won’t matter to them or the losing counciouness at least a couple of times a day.

i am just fed up of yet another they are on benefits and get money and it’s not fair stamp stamp stamp. The bastards have saved up for a holiday- it’s not fair. The bastards have a mobility car but they look fine, OMG- they have got new carpets or a new sofa.

since I am guessing they none of the moaners would actually swap places with us if they could then STFU.

oh and that pip that is easy to get- my husband gets lower rate for both and that is despite providing all the evidence and appealing so we are off to tribunal. He can’t even dress himself most days and he can’t hold a pan safely or manage his medication plus many other things. If he stays on the points he is on he will lose his pip completely under these new labour proposals.

but most people know someone who’s friends, aunts, nephews, stepdaughters, cousin twice removed who lied and got it. I was taking to a lady in a wheelchair who does not get any mobility component of pip at all.

You forgot the other "perks" we get as seen in the DLP thread...

I don't mean just my household - this is between parents, siblings (I have 5), in laws.

I remember your original thread
Another one with MS here. Another one working part time and driving to work in my motability car. Basically I will probably keep the car because it's the Daily Care bit they are going after.

Solidarity to all.

But it's true, you can attempt to put in a claim for a child who is extremely shy or a very fussy eater but unless they also have many other care needs compared to their peers, it's incredibly unlikely they would be accepted for DLA.

You'll get hundreds of replies saying "we don't mean YOU, your situation is ACCEPTABLE" oblivious to how stupid that is.

Because these cuts are affecting you and you shouldn't have to suffer them just so that Stacey in the Shop or Pete down the Pub can feel better knowing that the bloke they heard about 7th hand, who is ABSOLUTELY scamming the system don't you know, will get "caught out" 🙄

From my children's friendship circle I know extremely shy kids that need a lot of extra coaxing and support, very fussy eaters, children that struggle to regulate their emotions and highly anxious children. I would go as far as to say over half have something notably 'difficult' about them and only one has a diagnosis and is by no means the 'hardest' child to raise. If everyone put in claims for DLA then where would that leave the system?

DLA isn’t awarded because kids need a bit of extra care, are fussy eaters or a bit shy. When you parent a child with a disability you adjust your parenting to meet the needs of your child and often you don’t realise how much additional time, effort or cost is involved - because you just do what you do to make it work.

Its often when I’m around my kids friends that I realise how different my parenting style needs to be, my sister stayed with us recently and commented on how full on my parenting was despite having older children. In her view I’m doing much more than she needed to when her kids were the same age.

It’s not the first time I’ve realised that not every parent does x or y thing that I do automatically to support my kids, or how much extra time, effort and cost is involved. Much more than coaxing a fussy eater.

There’s a disconnect between people saying “these benefits are impossible to get, for Motability you need to be unable to walk more than 20 m” and the like, and people seeing in their daily lives - where the poster at the CAB has people saying “oh I’ll just play the MH card” and people turning up to work in their Motability car or walking round the shops.

And I thought the poster using their benefits to replace a written off car so she could get to work - there are many normal people who would be utterly shafted by the loss of their car -and not have a benefit to help replace it. They can absolutely question whether that is fair or right to fund from the public purse.

But objectively that is still a lot. I don’t know a single person in my wider family and friends that have issues large enough to claim. I appreciate there are genetic issues in families but it still seems statistically unusual for 3 in a group of maybe max 20 people. You can see how people would question it even if yours is a family where it is all completely justified.

If this was about helping people who can to work and not purely about money the government would put something in place to help people work part time rather then expecting people who can't even wash themselves to work 40/50 hr weeks

I agree. Part of my original post was that only 1 of the 3 has any care or mobility needs, and he was the one who struggled to get it.

And I thought the poster using their benefits to replace a written off car so she could get to work - there are many normal people who would be utterly shafted by the loss of their car -and not have a benefit to help replace it.

People on benefits are “normal
people”, and benefit money is there for them to spend on whatever they need to. People budget and save from their income to meet their priorities wherever that money comes from or are you saying people on benefits shouldn’t be able to run a car?

You never know when you might develop a disability. I was 37. I kept going until 18 months ago after twenty years of daily pain and steriods.
I claim PIP now. I will return to part tine work next month after recent surgery.
I'm interested to know why I can't be medically retired. I've paid over forty years of NI. No pension for me until 67. I can only have £90 a week in sickness benefit for a year. After that nothing but my PIP. I truly don't know if I'll manage to hold a job down as I can neither walk or sit for any length of time. I cannot claim UC as my husband works yet I'm taxed as an individual.
Our daughter is disabled and she has never had any benefits. We paid for all her additional needs. I did the same for my parents.

I would advise everyone on here who hasn't to actually look at the pip descriptors and see how bad things have to be to get pip and how changing it to a minimum of 4 points will make something that's already incredibly hard to get even harder and leave people with no options taking pip away doesn't mean people won't all of sudden be disabled

I am sorry for the benefit bashing which has cruelly become rife on this site. Stories of people fiddling the system to stir anger and upset with all disabilities and people on benefits, single mums that need the help while their kids are young. It’s disgusting.

I'd swap.
Because my kids are the reason we get benefits and for it to be me that suffers to make them NT and not face challenges would be worth it.
That's facetious - I hear you. I know what you're saying.

I think you're missing the point. Able bodied people have more opportunities to improve their earnings. Disabled people physically or mentally can't.

Presumably that sum is including housing benefit. Would you like to see them homeless?

Sorry you are going through all this. Only a fool would maintain that you are onto a good thing and unfortunately there are plenty of those about. Hoping that things get at least a little better for you with treatment.

So that's me you are referencing. Prior to my disability, if I lost my car, I could have taken public transport to work. Yes it would have taken hours, but I could have done it. Now, that wouod be impossible, that's the difference, when something is desirable/more convenient vs essential

And if we are talking about the public purse - I'm a health professional who sees life limited children in their own homes - I am much more efficient in my job due to having a car and do a lot more visits in a day than my colleagues without. I would be in significant pain and be off sick in my bad days if I didn't have a car. All this would be much more costly to the taxpayer (of which I am one) than my approx 3k a year pip.

I don’t think it is unfair for people to question the system. I don’t think anyone who questions it should be accused of benefits bashing. It is very clear something is broken in the society that so many people need to claim.

cases like the OP have stated are exactly what the system is designed for. If I was the government I would be ensuring that the OP had everything they needed. I fundamentally believe we should as a society be looking after our most vulnerable.

but the government can’t because of the sheer volume of claims and it just hard to intuitively believe that so many people have health issues now, way above the rate of 50 years ago. I don’t know what the solution is.

With the severity of the disabilities described in the OP, I'm guessing OP and her husband almost certainly have some kind of package of care that they'll need to contribute the PIP money to.

It’s for TWO disabled people. So it’s £1250 each which is the equivalent of a £16K salary each - significantly less than minimum wage with a lot more costs.

I don’t think anyone begrudges any genuine circumstance benefits
its the piss takers they object to

There's a lot in my family. We have a very rare genetic disorder which affects around 500k people globally. It's caused by a dominant gene in our case and my father, his brother, my late cousin and I all drew the short straw. We don't yet know whether my baby is affected - there's a 50/50 chance they are.

I get standard rate mobility PIP. My elderly father and uncle get full AA (they also have other issues like severe arthritis). We all work/did work when working age. My Dad left school at 13 and worked from then until he was 63. He's now 85.

My late cousin also claimed. She didn't work much as she suffered with brain tumours from a young age and she couldn't feasibly work for most of her adult life. Covid finished her off in her 40s.

My grandfather is blind and gets AA for that.

MIL also claims full PIP for MS and terminal cancer. FIL briefly claimed full AA for terminal cancer. Both in their 60s.

Sometimes people just have rotten luck.

M y son is thankfully healthy but we also have a mobility car and get quite a significant amount in benefits for him.but he's severely autistic ,non verbal( can't speak a word),cognitively around 2/3 years of age he's 15 next week it's not a walk in the park so many seem to think it i s.

The problem is the current situation is unsustainable! And healthy working ppl can be taxed only so much or they will also fall ill with all the stress and pressure on them. I work full time and manage a large team and the Mental health card is often used as an excuse for time off. There are genuine folk with actual mental health issues like bipolar etc. and then those who say they have anxiety each time you give them any work with a deadline even if it is two weeks away and a totally reasonable amount of time for the work assigned. Infact I usually look at how much time it would take me or any other employee and then add a few more days for this particular person but they still find excuses not to do anything. Everyone in the team complains he is work shy and lazy and cancels meetings all the time, uses hospital appts, dentist appts, childcare issues etc as excuses not to do any work. So frustrating! My point is there are ppl who play the system always, even those in work saying they have mental health issues and endlessly taking time off, this person had 4 months off last year for mental health issues but then was able to be perfectly well enough to go to disney land for 3 weeks! 😂