Sick and disabled to do workfare or lose £71 a week.

[Darkesteyeswithflecksofgold]

Guardian has revealed even more heartless plans towards sick and disabled people.



www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/sep/03/disabled-benefits-claimants-fines-work

[OrangeKipper]

Dunno, I had some a few years ago who were part of the old guard and gave a shit.

They were as helpful as they could possibly be without jeopardising their jobs, in terms of supporting complaints up the chain. Sadly I was too ill at the time to see the complaints through.

But the ones who think its clever they're taking home taxpayers' money for bullying the most vulnerable people in the country... They're dirt on the bottom of my wheels, as far as I'm concerned.

[OutragedAtThePriceOfFreddos]

This wouldn't be a problem if people were assessed correctly.

The government planning to do this is fine, it is right that people should be assessed to see if they can work. The only problem is that people are being assessed wrongly.

[NurseRatched]

This wouldn't be a problem if people were assessed correctly > absolutely, OutragedAtThePriceOfFreddos. Repeat: correctly

[OrangeKipper]

The behaviour to people in the WRAG is wrong whether they've been correctly assessed or not.

It would be perfectly possible to have appropriate work-readiness courses for those being discharged from ESA onto JSA. And indeed to have opt-in assistance to match willing employers and suitable posts with some quite severely disabled people's abilities.

The whole concept of the WRAG is based on the principle, articulated at the 2001 Woodstock conference supported by UNUM and the DWP, that sickness/disability is a social deviance and form of privilege, and sick people must recognise their moral obligation to give up this privilege as soon as possible. (I'm not making this up.)

Under this principle, anyone sick must already be on the journey back to their correct station in society - their default station being paid work. Hence all the govt rhetoric about the welfare state being there to support you temporarily, and the recently enacted removal of contribution-based ESA after one year. If your spinal cord hasn't regenerated after one year... well, you should just buck your ideas up.

[NurseRatched]

as in by Doctors rather than 'someolerandomperson' ticking boxes on a computer screen. Or: why not accept existing medical reports by erm Doctors instead of dragging sick people to ATOS medicals?

[OrangeKipper]

Sorry, link to article on Woodstock conference: "New Labour, the market state, and the end of welfare". (Free sign up to read it, I think.)

[2old2beamum]

Orangekipper wow are you saying my DD's Down Syndrome will in 365 days will disappear also her heart will be repaired. Better let the genetics people know and Great Ormond St are not doing their job as they couldn't repair her heart properly

Seriously though when she was school-age she was labelled as having severe learning difficulties Strange how things change when it suits them

[sunshinenanny]

It frightens and saddens me that we are becoming such an uncaring society.
Newspapers that demonise the sick and disabled should be ashamed of themselves and OrangeKipper, when I read your post and use the link I despair.

I hope the moron's responsible for these welfare assessment changes will one day find themselves on the recieving end of disability and sickness. I bet they won't use the word's privilege or deviant or the phrase moral obligation to give up the privilege!

[tazzle22]

Without condoning any situation where someone with a life limiting illness for example is proclaimed fit to work.......... one of the problems with having tick boxes and rigid systems is that it is inflexible and I can see how it can be hard to set up realistic guidleines for the assessors to to work to. Sometimes they will get it wrong.

eg, How can it be explained that person A who is paraplegic is able to work yet person B claims (s)he cannot ???? How can many people who are blind work and person C says they cannot ???? Many people with mental illness / depression work........ many do not..... who decides when depression is an illness that will pass and when it is such that the person cant work ???

That is the reality of it all ....... we are all individuals and our conditions affect us in different ways......... and our ability to start / remain at work can depend as much on our employers willingness and / or ability to accomdate to our needs. Sometimes we cannot continue on our chosen career and need to adapt....... sometimes its just not possible to do so.


It must be hard, if not impossible, to devise a system whereby accurate assessment can be carried out ..... and one that does not put yet more burden on an already stretched medical service.




Like or not there are some people who do milk the system and who are capable of work ..... these people do need weeding out and its the vast majority who suffer in the process. Just like for example in sport..... in order to weed out the few who cheat and use drugs..... everyone must be tested and unfortunately the rest of us put up with testing !!!!

Before I ge flamed..... as well as personal experience of debilitating illness and having to accomdate to failing sight limiting my work choices I have friends affected by the issues being discussed ! I just dont think its as simple as horrid evil "them" vs poor sick and disabled people forced to work.

[threeorangesocksmorganisagirl]

because disability affects people differently.
2 people with the same disability can be affected in totally different ways.
it isn't that hard to understand

[nooka]

Also circumstances vary hugely. I have two friends with MS. One is working and the other is not. One was diagnosed many years after starting to work with a large company in a professional role. Accommodations were made to keep her healthy at work, and support her when she wasn't well enough. The other had a less settled life, and held a series of semi-professional type roles. She was diagnosed during a period when she was out of work and has never been able to work since.

On the surface you might think the second person was 'work shy' but in truth she would love to be able to work, but in a competitive marketplace it's just not going to happen. It would be great if there were lots of positions ready and waiting to accept those with disabilities or illnesses who might need time off (planned and unplanned) or limited hours or lots of support. But there aren't. It's all horribly shortsighted and uncaring.

[MrsjREwing]

This scapegoating of the ill and disabled can't be allowed to continue, if someone links I will complain about the inaccurate reporting too.

[DoubleLifeIsALifeHalved]

oh i hate the world we live in. i am struggling so so hard not to give up work due to disability, and you know who, amongst others, are making it so terribly terribly hard... yes, the government itself (or at least, the council which are representatives of the government on a local level)... its hard not to feel persecuted when they people that will be the ones to starve me and make me die quietly out of sight somewhere are the same ones pushing me to that situation... where is the positivity? where is the trying to make the most economic success out of the disabled?

but stupid me, its not about that is it, its about getting us off the streets, away from themselves, and out of their society.

its sick they openly do this.

[cornzy]

Telegraph uses the term WORKSHY in their Headline to describe disabled people. Appalling.

[threeorangesocksmorganisagirl]

and here is the legacy of the Paralympics

[OrangeKipper]

Oh thanks for the reminder about this thread. I too am planning a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission about the Telegraph headline.

Press Complaints Commission

This clearly comes under §1(i) of the Editors' Code, Accuracy: "The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures."

[MrsjREwing]

Cameron has hurt the disabled and ill vulnerable in society so badly, his son and Father must be watching elsewhere in disgust.

[pumpkinsweetie]

Absolutely DISCUSTING to call the disabled & ill workshy !!!
Maybe the goverment should comw and see people that have cancer and are in immense pain and come to see my mil who cannot even walk across the room with out her hips being in immense pain from hip displacia.

This government make me sick, sitting in their posh offices, wearing posh suits & sipping the finest spirits yet all they do is TAKE, TAKE, TAKE

I just hope they are not expecting the terminally ill to work aswell ffs-fuming doesn't even cover it!!!!

D I S C U S T I N G!

Cameron you make me sick

[MrsjREwing]

When I am on a pc later I will complain.

What is that quote?

First they came for the...

Now there is noone to speak for me.

[OutragedAtThePriceOfFreddos]

This isn't the legacy of the Paralympics.

The legacy of the Paralympics is that much is achievable by disabled people, if they have the right support.

I believe there are a lots of disabled people who could work but don't. Sometimes because people are unwilling, but then that's no different to the rest of the population. Much more often, the will is there, the ability is there, but the support simply isn't.

Obviously not all disabled people are capable of work, but some are, and they are being denied the opportunity. The economy and the country is being denied the chance to put valuable skills to good use. It makes no sense whatsoever to leave these barriers to work standing, but that is what is being done at the moment. The government should be paying the cost of the support that disabled people need to be able to work so that private companies are not put off employing those with disability. That way, a disabled person will be paying tax, claiming less in benefits, there would be employment and tax paying in providing the support, and we would have a much happier and more productive population. I don't see why the government has to make something that is actually quite simple so sodding difficult.

[CherryBlossom27]

It is quite frightening the way the government is steamrolling ahead with these cuts. DM knows a man who has a brain tumour and has short term memory loss due to the tumour, but he has been assessed and apparently he is fit for work....the mind boggles.

[cornzy]

pumpkin sweetie - according to the guardian article they do expect the terminally ill to work if they have longer than 6 months to live.
They are a hateful government.

[domesticgodless]

I'm trying to write an article about all this now. The more I read the more coldly disgusted and horrified I become.

Read the Rutherford article linked to by OrangeKipper, it tells you a lot. Also google Unum (a fraudulent and high-grossing US insurance giant) and welfare reform. They helped design a lot of these tests and policies in the New Labour era.

This is all about opening up the UK as a market for critical illness insurance. More money for the Tory boys and the global conglomerates; middle class people will be expected to get cover as a matter of course (did you see the scaremongering 'challenge' by Unum on this very website? People being challenged to live on benefit amounts per week then asked oh so subtly if this had changed their perspective on getting critical illness cover). Those who cannot get cover will be framed as 'irresponsible'; therefore it will be their fault that the die. I think that's the situation already in the US.

The middle and below in this country face a truly frightening future. It's like Neil Kinnock said: 'I warn you not to get sick, I warn you not to grow old; I warn you not to be young'.

[threeorangesocksmorganisagirl]

it is the legacy
always was going to be,
a lot of disabled people will never be able to work, they *have to be supported,
Camscam, knows this, he more than anyone else in government should.
yet he is happy to take the little money that disabled people get off the and let them live in poverty.
very sick man

[domesticgodless]

cornzy I think they just exempted cancer patients from the rule about terminal illness but not sure about other illnesses. Presumably those are sort of 'less' terminal cos they don't grab Daily Mail headlines like cancer.