A little balance to the disabled/'scroungers' debate

[Upwardandonward]

There's a nicely written article by Ian Birrell here re: the current trend towards demonisation of people with disabilities.

Excellent article, makes a refreshing change, thanks for posting.

It was also nice to read intelligent comments underneath instead of the usual spite.

Thank you for posting this, what particularly stood out for me was:

"Focus groups found people suggesting seven in 10 claimants were fraudulent; in reality, levels of fraud for disability benefits are 0.5%, much lower than for other benefits ? and less than the level of errors made by officials."

It does show how perception has been so grossly twisted away from reality.

Excellent article, very calm and balanced.

As the mother of a child with a fluctuating disorder I am always aware of how vulnerable she is to accusations of lying.

To date she has:

*been told by a consultant that it is all in her mind (it is in fact a purely physical and diagnosable disorder)

*been told by another consultant that she must not use any aids "as that might make her think of herself as disabled"

*been told by her HT that "of course we accept that Corydd is ill but you can't expect us to be happy about it"

*had another student shout "you're just faking it" at her in the corridors

And yet I would say dd has had an almost charmed life in a supportive environment - compared to most disabled people

Its wrong but some days I thank my lucky stars that my brother has Downs as opposed to a fluctuating or 'invisible' disability. He's still experienced his fair share of discrimination and bullying though.

I was reading yesterday about the latest false claimant of dla.

As someone with a fluctuating and invisible condition, it concerns me. It bothers me that if I was doing something on pain killers and pay for it for days, how it could come across to an unfeeling, ignorant person as something different and it could come across as looking like you are ok when you are not, and it could be recorded and twisted, it is worrying.

this is why we did not put in that second claim for DLA for dd despite her being wheelchair bound at the time: I just couldn't live with the curtain twitchers

Been reported so many times it's not true. Funny, nobody in authority ever found anything amiss.

The DM is always reporting such stories. What strikes me is that the people who are prosecuted, are never people who never had anything wrong with them, they have always in the articles I have read started with legitimate claims, they just got a bit better and didn't inform DWP, most of them still have physical problems, that are not as bad as they were claiming for though, so say they are claiming for high rate Care or mobility, they maybe should be on middle rate care ormobility that type of thing. I personally have never seen a case where there was not a genuine problem in the claimant, it is normally that they are on the wrong level and haven't reported a change in circumstances.