Tories considering benefit review for people with drug and obesity problems.

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I have to be really angry to start a thread in this topic .

Cutting benefits for people with addiction problems is surely only going to lead to them committing more crime to raise the money for drugs? Seeing as mental health support is already virtually nonexistent I can't imagine how they think this is going to work.

bbc link

agree but you can see how their utter refusal to even try would merit someone saying ok well we're not supporting the lifestyle choice then right? my point is there's a difference between refusing treatment or not being willing to even try to get better and the alleged treatment being a joke re: being told to 'just stop drinking'

there are almost no mh services these days. I had to wait for 2.5 yrs and several visits asking for help to be given a piss poor trainee counsellor.

well that's the point pilchard - FINE if you're being offered legitimate treatment appropriate to the condition and outright refusing, not fine if what they're claiming to be 'treatment' is a load of nonsense. which inevitably, given treatment and funding doesn't exist, it would be. so essentially this is a spin bollocks sun/daily fail winning vote winner scam that couldn't amount to anything unless translated into the doctor told you to stand on your head twice a day to cure your depression and you didn't.

addiction isn't a lifestyle choice.

what treatment for obesity are they going to offer that the patient is going to refuse?

what treatment for alcoholism are they going to offer that the patient is going to refuse?

there aren't any. most people with obesity who are seeking doctors help would love to be offered treatment, likewise those seeking help for alcoholism or other substance addiction. so what is it they're going to refuse to comply with that would get their benefits cut?

ergo this policy is a headline vote spin that would make zero difference AT ALL except increase the impression that the obese and addicted are all sitting around claiming benefits whilst enjoying addictions and obesity and refusing to get better. all those happy jolly obese addicts laughing it up - yeah right

more tory bollocks

think you're preaching to teh choir pilchard

I had CBT for my anxiety/agoraphobia. 4 times. It helped for a while then in July I had a huge panic attack that scared me stupid and I've gone completely backwards. So far backwards that I am worse than what I was before I had it.

I have been told I can not re-refer to the CBT/Mental Health services because I know how to get over this (I really do!!) I am just unable to actually do the practical stuff of actually going out. The fear of the feelings overrides my knowledge of what to do.

I now have no support. The only option left open to me is antidepressants. I don't want them. I took them before and was literally floored by them.

What now??

Will I be denied financial help because I am also fat??

What not why

isithappening i think that was the point

Dolally I'm afraid that mental health services are now judged- and therefore get funding- on the basis of performance. Meaning that if you're not demonstrably improving, they have a vested interest in not having you on their books.

.........yes, I know. What the actual fuck?

Hmm. The Welfare budget is there for people who can't support themselves, not for people who won't. In my aunt's case, and anyone else refusing valid treatment, it looks a lot like won't.

It's not a valid treatment.

There have been whole threads on MN about doctors who simply stop at "You're overweight" or "You're stressed", and fail to listen to the other condition the person comes in with.

Combine that with reduction of incapacity benefits for the overweight, and this is a disaster in the making.

Oh and just to add to the joy, there seemed a sexist whiff to the doctors' behaviour. Lovely.

AddToBasket is enacting what I'm talking about.

Nothing will make her address the point that the "treatment" may not be valid.

Well, people of the internet, you might not think it is valid but her GP does. And it is pretty reasonable for welfare to take medical professional's advice into account.

A doctor friend of mine reckons about 50% of what he was taught at university is now considered out of date and would now be considered wrong.

I hope he's exaggerating.

But his point remains.

And come to think of it, I recently discovered a doctor I was at university with was censured by the GMC for trying out his pet treatment on M.E. patients.

For all I know his "treatment" may have been better than some of the NICE-approved ones.

But according to you, any of his patients who declined his "treatment" should have their subsistence support cut.

Either that, or the ones accepting his "treatment" should have their subsistence cut because they were turning down the NICE-approved "treatments".

Yep, there will be flawed GPs just as there are flawed every-other-jobs.

However, a trained professional has advised my aunt to have CBT to improve
her condition and she refuses. I think the taxpayer is entitled to infer that she is not seeking all avenues of treatment.

The same is true of other conditions that the sufferers can address if they need to. (Not 'want' to). In an ideal world we support everyone, but we aren't there. Welfare resources are needed by so many people, we need to address the needs of the genuinely weakest, not those with the weakest commitment to improving their own lives.

Would you care to address my post of 14:17?

That medicine now considers many of the things it was saying even 15 years ago to be wrong?

So what? At some point you take a doctors advice! The world would grind to a halt if no one took any medicine or acted on medical advice because in 15 years it might be different. Crazy argument.

While it sounds reasonable to suggest that people might only be penalised for "refusing" treatment, there are a lot of reasons why treatment might be deemed to be refused. I was referred to a pain clinic, a few years ago. I was the ripe old age of 41 and the clinic was held in an elderly care centre, so before even considering anything else, that was a bit of a kick to my self esteem. The centre was an hour away by public transport and the only option was for 2:30pm and would have been held weekly for 12 weeks. Unfortunately, I needed to pick the boys up from school, just after 3pm. No childcare - they both have SN that makes this impossible.

So I was recorded as refusing the treatment because I couldn't make it.

Action for ME found by survey of its members that less than half found CBT to have made them better/significantly better....this was down to helping them cope with the symptoms.
The rest said it made no difference and around 12% said it made them feel significantly worse.
If I felt that crap then a greater than 1 in 10 chance that it would make my symptoms worse would made me think very carefully about accepting the treatment.

But you would penalise people for ceasing to follow medical advice that doesn't work. It doesn't work because it's wrong.

But you want them to follow it anyway.

This isn't about people getting better, for you, is it? This is about them demonstrating their moral worth to a self-appointed spectator (you).

Personal,y having been both a tax payer and a higher rate tax payer in my time, I couldn't care less if someone decides a treatment is not for them.
I want far more to see tax evaders brought to justice and not allowed to walk away...tax avoiders like Paul Bloomfield for example...now there a REAL scrounger.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31459067