Reform want to cut PIP

[Daygloboo]

Reform want to cut benefits for disabled people. They want businesses to pay more towards sickness etc. I find it repulsive that they want to do this. When will people understand that they are a bunch of self interested sharks who want to make a stack of dosh for themselves while in govt and that they font give a damn about anyone in need. Why cant the most vulnerable ppl who vote for them see thus. It's astonishing. It's ac joke. I eish ppl who get what Reform.iscreally about and how it manipulates would make sn extra effort to tslk to.ppl who dont seem to get it.

Yes, I understand how percentages work !
You are quite right.

Having looked it up it has increased due to fiscal drag and pensioners now paying it.

This - too many people receive benefits but instead should receive help to get back to work ( those with mild conditions).

Welfare spending as a percentage of GDP has not changed significantly over the last 5 decades - in fact, the welfare bill is actually lower now than it was under austerity and at points in the 80s and 90s under Thatcher and Blair. And compared to other OECD countries we spend a totally average amount on welfare - many countries spend vastly more and are not in any way crippled by their spending. The fact that our spending was roughly the same during multiple periods of strong growth would also suggest that welfare spending is not the reason we're struggling.

Define mild conditions in a way that doesn't make ableist assumptions or rely on stereotypes and limited knowledge.

If you can, you'll be one step ahead of Reform and many other politicians.

Some will differ in diagnosis
But i think most know when somonec is genuinely ill
The study waa fascinating but over50 years old
Mental health and the treatment of mental illness has moved on a lot since the early 70s
Plus America has a very different heath care system to the uk.

PIP pays for medical services and social care support that is not available via councils and the NHS because of decades of cuts and underfunding. It is nigh on impossible to get support with chronic pain via regular physio unless you pay for it privately. Councils reserve cleaning and meal services for the most extreme cases, which leaves many people struggling and needing to pay for carers, cleaners, food delivery out of pocket. If you need counselling or MH support beyond a very short and acute need (which is also challenging to get) again, you must pay for it privately.

By having PIP many people are able to work - part of full time - because they are partially subsided for private services that used to be, but are no longer available through public services.

If you want to reduce the need for PIP, these services need to exist via social care and the NHS - which would require a substantial amount more investment than the current cost of PIP.

They will.

It's the same principle as insurance.

Because your disability brings extra costs. For example, someone with severe anxiety might not be able to use public transport, and need to pay for taxis; or may need to pay for a companion/ carer to escort them.

Because 'anxiety' and 'depression' are also used for everyday emotions, there is often a misconception that they just mean being a bit worried or sad. Nobody gets a diagnosis of anxiety or deprssion just for being a bit worried or sad. According to the most commonly used diagnostic manual, the DSM 5, such disorders can only be diagnosed if, in addition to other criteria, they 'cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning'

Very few patients have ECT for depression. Most have antidepressants as I'm sure you know. It's easy to put on form you are so depressed you can't cook, you can't bathe yourself, you are so depressed you never leave your flat so can't communicate to anyone. Who can disprove it? If a person goes to their GP claiming anxiety or depression and has looked up symptoms on internet and says these are how they feel their GP will believe them. There is no objective test which is why fraudsters claim to have these disorders in the first place.

With no objective test, symptoms easily accessible on internet I'm sure some people fake having MI just to claim benefits.

I’m not the person you’re replying to, but I do think it needs to be means tested, and there needs to be a much bigger focus on ensuring that those who have medical conditions that do entitle them to PIP receive the award. So many people, usually working class, don’t claim because they don’t know about it, are worried it would affect their UC, and/or cannot fill out the forms, or underplay their difficulties.

Meanwhile, the middle classes are plugged in and aware of what PIP is, and are more likely to apply for it and get it, because of their ability to write to a criteria which is set for PIP.

Professionals should be able to refer people for PIP (doctors, social workers, housing officers etc) without having to complete the forms.

That as the same for anyone applying for PIP.
They don't send someone out to check to see if you can actually cook yourself a meal.
Why are you so determined to make out that anyone on PIP for MH issues must be lying?

Disability benefits may be going up but the welfare bill as a whole is stable and has been so for decades because other areas of spending have been cut and demographic changes also mean less is being spent in other ways. We spend roughly the same amount of our GDP on welfare today as we have done at more or less every point over the last 5 decades. In fact we spend slightly less now than under austerity and at several points under Thatcher and the labour governments of the 90s.

And yes, there is a huge amount of evidence of rising levels of ill health and disability. I don't know why you think there's not? It;s all over the news every day - do you not follow the news?

Can you give examples of these ‘mild conditions’?

PIP is not an out-of-work benefit, and is indeed what makes it possible for many disabled people to work. The two PIP recipients whom I know best- one blind, the other a wheelchair user- both work full-time.

From what I gather they have looked at explosion of new claims since COVID for people claiming specifically for ADHD and anxiety. Basically disorders with no objective test. It's not like a blood test, scan image or X-ray can be used to objectively test these disorders. The number of claims for these 2 specific disorders is far higher than in the rest of Europe.

I would never trust the biased BBC.

Agsin if they were so severe they would be under the CMHT have a CPN ; consultant psychiatrist
Who would provide evidence from their own assessment
Which i know you think they are all clueless

But do have years of experience
But look we are going around in circles with this so i think we will have to agree to disagree.

It is a lie.
There is indeed a form, online now I believe, not sure if so in all cases. However documentary proof has to be gathered, collated, copied, numbered, and referred to on the form as proof for each point. You have to explain in great detail how your condition affects your ability to perform in several categories, in both self care, and mobilising. This can be gruelling in itself. Admitting the truth of how shit your life really is to strangers is uncomfortable and upsetting.
Then there is the actual assessment, performed by someone who in all likelihood has no clue about your condition, nor its effect on the body or mind. This can be face to face or sometimes by telephone and can last hours. I've had a face to face assessment with a paramedic who said they knew nothing about my condition. I also had a face to face with a doctor who was deeply sympathetic, and told me he could see my struggles and was recommending i was awarded. He didnt. My report was so full of outright lies I thought I'd been sent someone else's.
I appealed and ended up having to go to the Upper Tribunal, assisted by a pro bono solicitor.
You need to stop spreading such vile misinformation.
The lives of disabled people are hard enough with this level of hatred.

I'm suggesting there are some very good liars around who don't want to work and have found a disorder for which there is no objective test. I'm sure many are very convincing. A health professional would always give a patient the benefit of doubt.

I’m sure Covid did have an impact on our anxiety levels as a country.

I had struggled with low level anxiety my entire life, constant but manageable. Covid worsened it incredibly, the mild social anxiety I had turned into agoraphobia, I developed health anxiety that I’d never had before, my mood dropped drastically and by the end of 2021 I was medicated for the first time ever, waiting forever for online therapy - and I left my now ex husband. I changed my whole job when we went back to hybrid/office working, so I could WFH.

I lived in constant, and I mean constant, fear that I was going to accidentally kill someone’s grandma. When lockdown ended, I didn’t want to go back out and live my previous life, because I was hugely uncomfortable in any populated space, and didn’t want to see anyone beyond my immediate family. I’d avoid them sometimes, if I could.

I’ve kept some of those increased MH issues, 6 years on.

There’s something quite dangerous about already mentally vulnerable people being locked in their houses with their own thoughts.

I’m not on PIP, but I don’t think we need to think very hard to work out why a worldwide pandemic might have worsened MH.

https://www.motaclarity.co.uk/bmw-motability-cars

This is very typical Populist politics. It’s just back-of-a-fag-packet stuff. Nothing is worked out or calculated properly, they just come up with any old shite that they think people want to hear.

I don’t click dodgy links. But if you have evidence that BMW weren’t removed in 2025 you could screenshot that info and post it.

🤣