Tories' plans to take half a million people off incapacity benefits

[policywonk]

There's not much detail available (that I've been able to find) but the story in a nutshell is here

IIRC, you have to fill in a vast form and be signed off by a GP to receive incapacity benefit. What 'medical assessment' are the Tories going to devise that's going to be more accurate than that? Or are they just looking for a way to take vulnerable people off higher rates of benefits?

Or am I missing something?

X posts there- perhaps we're closer then I initially thought.

Yep ok peachy but I had severe depression - I wasn't in the market for benefits because I was a student but it did mean that had I been in the market for work I couldn't have held a job or got one because I was on another planet. I was assessed and assigned therapy that kind of went along the lines of 'your issues are due to your childhood' - heck you don't say! Not much you can do about the things that happened in your past.

I got worse and got better without the help in the end and got of the ads which quite honestly making me a zombie. a few years later life on track - had to chuck it in to come back to live in UK to look after my dm who was very ill - had I not she'd have been dead. we had to jump through hoops to get her IB. I was her carer. I'm happy we got it for her but unhappy she had to jump through hoops. After a few years she was OK enough to get off it.

I'm not clouded by my time at BA - far from it - but we do have issues with fraud - now we're in a severe recession - I disagree with getting a quota of IB or any benefit but we do need to sort out the real cases from the fraud and we also need to ensure that the people who need help - the most vulnerable. I've had lots of jobs 0 I've worjkede witgh homeless who can suffer multiple issues and it's heartbreaking seeing some of them not being able to reach a point where they can function.

I would advoate really severe punuishments for fraud in the benefit sector, too often its seen as taking a chance.

Tryingher- Dh found meds really saved him but he ahd to try a few first. he has a cyclical form of depression which will occur, but I can spot it ocming early on now. I dread his med weaning next year but he has to try it. I am not certain he will work for anyone again but he is working pt for himself now and retraining at Uni, I am proud of him and its the tcv that enabled this (and in some ways I blame his 'cure'on the credit crunch as redundancy finally saw him leave the shift (perm.nights) job that I know worsened an existing illness; funny how things work out isn't it? He'dtried to elave so many times but they always want a medical history and well..... quite.

I do know what its like to be a student with MH in fact- I did half my nurse training before having a bout of depression and never qualified. I now know it wasn't depression as such but something more subtle(I have AS traits that I passed down as more severe AS / HFA and Autism to 2sons)- nevertheless nursing was wrong for me, I care too much and oculd neverleave cases at the dorr. My newlife works with that rather than against