Man refused benefits dies of starvation

[2old2beamum]

A 44 year od man with mental health issues, aspergers and OCD deemed capable of work has benefits reduced to £40/week dies and has a BMI of just over 11. I weep with shame.

That's another of the cruel quirks of having Asoergers. You can seem capable when, in reality, you are not. You cannot transfer what you've learnt in one situation to another different situation. That's what makes the condition very hard to deal with. It can be so bizarre that a person may be able to travel on a No 2 bus, because they have practised this route many times with helpers before trying it themselves and they now know how to get on, what to ask for when buying a ticket and when to get off. Great you think. The person can use buses!

Wrong! That person can use a No2 bus. Ask him to go somewhere ona No 4 bus and it would be like asking him to go to Mars. He could not do it without practising many times.... So it's a disability that is hidden and can be very strange to those who don't understand cognitive difficulties.

Yes, he seems to have some fragile support framework in place that collapsed at the first sign of problems. ESA is just as challanging to claim for as IB (I've tackled both). In my own recent experience ATOS no longer contact GPs. So if the potential claimant or person being reassessed doesn't actively engage in that process they would just be refused ESA and told to contact the DWP. Most people with Aspergers could not engage with the DWP, that's why they have DWP Appointees (usually family members) to do the paperwork for them.

DLA lifetime awards for those who have, until now, been deemed to require additional assistance for the rest of their lives, will be abolished next year and replaced with PIP, which will require another very large set of forms to be completed and submitted with theappropriate medical evidence. Again, something that may well have been done for a person with Aspergers many years ago to secure the person lifelong support, only for them to have to undergo reassessment without anyone appointed to assit them in this process and you can see another crop of DWP failures being sown ready to be harvested next year.

It really does make you weep.

100 percent agree, GillTheGiraffe

I'd go with the sheltered living theory to be honest...

Well I'm sure Waitingforme that if you contacted your local branch of the National Autistic Society they could probably put you in touch with someone who wanted to work. But don't expect to be able to leave them a key and say 'clean the house'. It doesn't work like that. They'd need clear unambiguous instructions, often given sequentially and probably reminded to lock the windows and doors before they left.
It doesn't make them a bad worker, just one that needs constant direct/supervision and there are not many managers who are willing to do that. I know one young person with Aspergers who is a gardener and probably one of the hardest working people I've met (has to be explicitly told to 'Stop' at lunchtime).
It's just a shame that many people don't even get the chance of work.

Waitingforme, I'd agree that jobs can be very hard to fill. I have to say that market forces would suggest you are not paying enough if you are not getting applicants. £19K is a very good wage for full time job adverts round our way but I have no idea how anyone survives on that income given the rents in this area. I supported a family on £600 a month take home for a school hours job for a couple of terms but in the end i just ran out of money and was lucky enough to land full-time hours.

Maybe try a Mumsnet ad, or somewhere else that specialises in part-time roles.

I've worked with people with Aspergers before. My opinion is that employers just need to be a bit more creative.

My networking group has got involved with the local deaf association on the basis of the staff there actually being willing to help prospective employers make the required adjustments. So far it has been far more effective than going through the job centre or similar.

A carpet fitting company took on an autistic bloke to help with clear ups - they've upped their service and he's doing meaningful (and supported work).

But my comment wasn't specifically about those with disabilities. There were several comments on this thread saying there was limited work for everyone and I see little evidence of that.

So, you just check on the elderly people in the flats next door, Pisc? Not the middle-aged bloke with no visible physical disability at the end of the street?

You see the problem.

And I repeat, the state already knew about this bloke. He was already claiming. They were already investigating the ins and outs of his life.

He would had to fill in incredibly intrusive forms and provide bank statements to get Housing Benefit and apply for ESA. The ATOS assessor visited his home.

This didn't happen because the agencies didn't know about him or it was too difficult to get information.

It happened because the agencies decided to throw him to the wolves.

WaitingforMe a lot of jobs are on zero hours contracts There are ppl in work having to use food banks.

Shameful that anyone has to resort to this whether in work or not

I remember all the threads before the cuts came in. So many on mn were saying this would happen. So so sad to see it come true. If everyone else. Could predict this, why couldn't the government? :(

He was a victim of the total fragmentation of the system. ATOS do their bit of the process, the DWP do their bit, GP does their bit if necessary, the LA does theirs, the Housing Assoc will house him... But none of these agencies talk to each other. Assumptions are wrongly made. Responsibilities are shirked. The claimant has to drive the process and namy claimants are incapable of doing this.

Nobody has overall responsibility for the welfare of this vulnerable person.

And that's where the system falls down. It's something that is seen time and time again in the enquiries into social services failings. That's why we need a register of vulnerable people, so the disabled woman does not die unattended because the private company that provided her care went into administration and no longer visited her. If you're lucky it might all just hang togteher for a while, but as we've seen in this case it does not take much to upset that fragile illusion of support.

The underlying problem as I see it is that there is no joined up thinking when it comes to ASD in the UK. I have Aspergers but I didn't ever feel supported by the system until I emigrated. In the UK it was up to me to push for help. I don't really have the capacity for that so I was left to drown.
Where I am now there is an autism support unit at the hospitals and once contact is made everything is driven by them (with your agreement). They are experts and know how to ask the right questions, all the options available in solution to a particular, and once you decide which option you want they do all the legwork to make it happen. But no matter what I'm struggling with, I just have to call one number / email one address.

That sounds like good support WestieMamma. Wish we had similar here.

And anyone nursing the belief that current ESA assessments are an honest, well-meaning attempt to assess disabled people but haven't quite hit the mark, I can disabuse you of that notion.

I have been filling EB/ESA forms in for 10 years. I have watched the questions change to capture less and less relevant information, by changing the tick boxes.

For example.

The question about climbing stairs used to offer answers from*

I cannot go up even one step

through gradations such as

I can use stairs but have to rest halfway
I can use stairs but in a special way, eg going up sideways

to

I have no difficulty using stairs.

In 2012, you still had to fill in the question - but the answers had been cut to only two:
I cannot go up two steps
I have no difficulty using stairs.

In 2013, this changed again. You still had to fill in the question and there were only two answers. But your answer wouldn't be counted unless you scored more on it than on the walking-on-level-ground Q with which it had been combined. (Oh, and the walking Q wasn't about walking anymore: using a wheelchair was deemed to be the same as walking.)

This isn't an oversight.

This is a deliberate reduction in the information collected and use of that info - while still forcing the claimant to jump through the same hoops.

Ironically, if you know enough, and have the energy to spend researching or guessing what might be deemed relevant, you can write large amounts in the "anything else you want to say" boxes. This has been shown to significantly increase the chances of getting an award.

But you have to know to do this and what will be relevant. So the new forms hugely disadvantage new and very ill claimants, while having slightly less impact on experienced, mentally competent ones. (Guess into which category the few actual fraudsters fall?)

All this, when the original forms just asked the questions outright in an easy-to-answer format.

*from memory: exact wording may differ.

Meh. IB/ESA forms. Typing going to shit.

I make very full use of the anything else you may want to tell us in every category. I send multiple sheets of A4. I refuse to be constrained to tick boxes.

If I write it - they have to read it. And as they only get a few minutes to process each claim they can't possibiliy read everything I have written about how the illness affects the person.

i cant begin to even find words. this could be my son. Just this week he disclosed his AS to his employers and they immediately suspended him to assess "the risk to the business".
They saw the light a couple of days later. DS would be one who would not get benefits because he would be assessed as being too able, but yet when his employer became aware of his disability they panicked and actually told him they were taking him off the job while they assessed the risk! He works in IT!! What risk could he have posed?

and at the end of the article is a bit about ATOS writing to a coma patient to tell them they needed to begin intensive job seeking activity.

words fail me.

drews where I live, it's almost impossible to get into supported housing for MH issues, even when someone is willing to be there. Just not enough support to get them there in the first place, and then, not enough places. I work with offenders/ex offenders and some of them have ASD, ADHD and other conditions that affect their ability to manage their lives, they have no support in place.

No, Gill, ATOS do not do their bit of the process.

They are supposed to request GP reports. That's the system. There are forms for it.

They appear to have unofficially stopped doing this. From the evidence I've seen, at least.

Pastor Martin Niemöller on the Holocaust.

"when the concentration camp was opened ... the people who were put in the camps then were Communists. Who cared about them? We knew it, it was printed in the newspapers.Who raised their voice, maybe the Confessing Church? We thought: Communists, those opponents of religion, those enemies of Christians - "should I be my brother's keeper?"

Then they got rid of the sick, the so-called incurables. - I remember a conversation I had with a person who claimed to be a Christian. He said: Perhaps it's right, these incurably sick people just cost the state money, they are just a burden to themselves and to others. Isn't it best for all concerned if they are taken out of the middle [of society]? - Only then did the church as such take note. Then we started talking, until our voices were again silenced in public."

Please note, Godwin's law is not applicable here, before some smart-arse raises it as, horrifically this is actually relevant.

No, the government is not carting people off and killing them. But they are introducing policies which they know will kill vulnerable people. It is happening right now, they have the evidence, and yet they continue. That makes them responsible.

Deaths such as this aren't one offs, it's not that people fell through the cracks of an otherwise robust system. Situations like Mark Wood's are inevitable and part of this new system, which will get worse under Universal Credit.

If you are aware of this and vote Tory at the next election, you are signing a death warrant for many of the most the vulnerable in our society IMO.

This is something Dickens would have written about, or maybe Kafka.

I don't agree that there's plenty of work out there. Gill has pointed out the problem precisely - no one checks on the quite middle aged man and may I just add to me the point is bollocks anyway. It wasn't up to his friends and family to support him. That's what the safety net is there for! Atos assessors don't see the invisible (and I use that term loosely) disabilities because they lack the adequate training! It is why people with Schizophrenia have found themselves in a Tribunal arguing that are not possibly fit for work. The physical side doesn't matter much to them neither. A Paralysed lady in a wheelchair who came to her Tribunal with not one, but two Carers? These are the bonkers decisions that Atos make and I will blame them as their HCP 'recommendations' are heavily relied up on by the government.

There isn't plenty of work out there, there are many fewer jobs than applicants. Unemployment was built into the old system. Absolute destitution, especially of the vulnerable in our society , is built into this one.

Whether there is work or not is irrelevant to those unfit to undertake it. Even the most creative of employers could not find use for someone in a coma!

Good point Caterpillar