One in six PIP claimants have no extra costs linked to their disability

[Allseeingallknowing]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/40693771/pip-claimants-disability-benefit/
So, can money be saved here?

Surely pip was invented because it was cheaper and quicker than supplying the services centrally. Just like we sold off the utilities. The government and local authorities in this country don't want to do things for people directly and often make a complete hash of it when they do. I have been waiting 2 years for education provision on ds ehcp, do we really want to move to people not getting the physio they need for 2 years too?

I don't think she is purposefully doing this

Question - are you aware of whether one can claim PIP for being empathy-deficient?

Can you explain why vouchers are “dehumanising”? It’s help with incremental costs and works exactly like cash does for this purpose.

Suppose one claims PIP for the cost of taxis due to Generalised Anxiety Disorder preventing them from taking public transport (note this is a real example from the other PIP thread), what’s wrong with giving that PIP in the form of taxi vouchers / Uber credits? Why does it have to be cash in the bank?

Labour will have to deal with it yep. Some will say fine to whatever they put forward but the RF approach looks multilayered enough to be expensive.

I am a real person. I have 100 pages of medical documentation following my accident not least because we claimed on accident insurance and the company disputed it right up to the point of court so I have reports written by medical experts prepared to fe cross examined in court over my injuries and my hospital treatment.

you want to pm me your email address I’ll send the lot I had to scan all the fuckers for the pip and esa claim when I stopped working five years ago.

i am real and I seriously fucking object to you saying that my actual real life is not believable.

Because you’re spending taxpayer’s money?

One of the things DS PIP pays for is a small group session with a private provider who does work which supports his mental health in ways his years of work with CAMHs can’t. This is a tiny business who do great thing.

should she be expected to take on the cost and hassle of changing these vouchers? Or should disabled people only be able to access support from a pre approved list of places?

Ah pal, it’s scary isn’t it? DP and I were discussing this yesterday and we were saying that so many parents like us when we get to an age caring is too much will be those parents in the news who walk into the sea with their kids.
It’s a fear nobody without a disabled child will ever know.

What hassle of changing vouchers?

In this age of technology and AI, it could be as automatic as you paying by card. Instead of your card number, you input the e-voucher number. Simple.

No need to invent problems.

I can think of one.

My adult son has life limiting and life threatening epilepsy. He also has 50% paralysis on one side of his body, severe learning disabilities, no apparent sleep pattern, is blind in one eye and is functionally illiterate. He's frequently in and out of intensive care.

The additional costs are all the informal care provided by family. We're 'on call' 24/7. We clean, cook, take him shopping, bathe, provide most of the social interaction, do all the life admin, stay with him in hospital because he can't be alone, etc.

He's on maximum PIP and this gives him a relatively ok life.

He'll never work.

Is he the type of scrounger they want to punish? Should be be condemned to a lifetime of starvation rations with no spare money ever for things like paying for the internet?

And when the voucher doesn't cover the full cost?

Lets get people frothing at the mouth at people claiming PIP claimants just use the money for take aways and holidays, when they announce the inevetable cuts for benefits for under 21s then there will be no public outrage stopping them.

Lots of people spend pip on ordinary living costs.
And pip is not to make up for any reduced earning power.

I don’t pay by card, I pay by bank transfer each month. Whichever way you look at it its an extra hassle.

and who decides what is allowed to have money spent on it? Ds is tube fed and has very little orally but his weekly Starbucks is something he looks forward to - is he allowed thag under this judgement scheme?

I really wish we could find a quick and stress-free eligibility test that identifies people who need Pip straight away with no delay, but weeds out those like the poster above using it for a luxury holiday & stops them receiving it, thereby leaving more in the pot to be given to those who genuinely need it. The Holy Grail, I guess!

Part-pay as with any other voucher? 😐

Push back like this is one of the reasons people are skeptical about the ballooning benefits bill. I’m not one of them - we have more disabled people and a mental health crisis therefore we need to pay more benefits. But every time a perfectly sensible suggestion is made to reform benefits so they are less open to abuse is met with faux-outrage and responses like “degrading” and “dehumanising”, the less patient and sympathetic the general public will be.

There used to be no pip. Just home helps and district nurses. If you didn't need their care you got nothing.

I think this is really generous

Yes, we are rolling in it. Making a profit.

In reality, we spend far more on DC’s disability related expenses than we receive in benefits. Some examples include:

• Higher electricity costs - medical equipment (feed pumps, seating, bed, rise and fall bath, changing table, nebs, hoist, through floor lift, etc.). DS1&3 have EOTAS/EOTIS, some of which is delivered from home so some days they are both home with up to 4 extra staff when others their age would be in school with no staff at home, DS1 has carers at home so sometimes there are 2 extra people in the house using electricity.
• Higher gas costs - we need the heating on higher and longer for DSs’ medical conditions and DS1’s reduced mobility. Because DS1&3 are at home more during the day, the heating needs to be on more than if they attended schools - both for their needs and because there are other people working in the house.
• Higher water costs - DS1’s clothes/bedding etc. need changing more than the average person. This is more than a bit of extra washing. His specialist bath uses more water than many conventional baths. He also needs washing more. With carers and education staff in the house, there are more people using our water.
• Higher food costs - for medical reasons.
• Motability vehicle - the AP and adaptations. DS1’s current vehicle cost over £15k. That is on top of the monthly amount.
• Car parking charges and fuel costs - we have to drive places we would otherwise walk. Not all car parks offer free blue badge parking. More hospital trips.
• Equipment - Not everything is funded. We are lucky we have had a lot of charity grant funding for equipment that isn’t funded, including for things such as SN car seat, SN buggies, bike trailer, wheelchair power pack and off road wheel, specialist seating and some other equipment, but not everything is funded or has charity funding available. From the little things such as slider mitts, incontinence swim products, topping up the incontinence products provided because the NHS supplies aren’t enough even though we get a lot more than many to bigger expenses such as topping up the funding to have a H-frame hoist because only a single track hoist would be funded even though the OT recognised a H-frame would be better and was really needed. Not to mention all the things we buy in the hope they will help but don’t.
• Costs associated with hospital admissions.
• Medical assessments and treatment - assessment and medication for one of my DSs. The medication has now been taken over by the NHS.
• Pre-action letters to hold the LA and ICB to account. I can write my own, but my LA laughs and says good luck finding someone with a legal aid contract to take it further.
• Independent assessments for EHCP purposes to hold the LA to account - although the LA contributed to these costs with the settlements from previous complaints. As a result of these, we have therapies in their EHCPs.

These are just some examples of the additional costs, I could could continue.

It is laughable you think PIP is generous.

@roaringdragon I think everyone recognises pip is not enough for severely disabled people.

I believe you. I know two people personally who were left in similar circumstances. People who’ve only ever found accessing healthcare straightforward and efficient just can’t understand that other people really are left to crawl or shit themselves.

They don’t. Anyone who has read threads like these on MN previously, knows that.

You part pay I guess.

So many areas where our taxes are ridiculously wasted, yet it’s always bash the people with disabilities or old people?! Funny that’s the only thing that’s over paid, how about bloated expenses and the waste in the nhs x so many things that are not run efficiently and yet that’s the only thing they can back on? Seems more like bash the weakest members of society?
how about the tax dodgers, all those ppe payments they dished out and could claim back, how about all those companies who don’t pay tax either that would bring in a ton of revenue

I don’t know why people think vouchers would be better or prevent fraud. I mean, they haven’t worked for other things in the past. For example, when Healthy Start vouchers existed. And they were much lower value. The healthy start scheme is now paid via a pre-paid card, but was previously vouchers. It didn’t work. Some shops would accept the vouchers as payment for items they shouldn’t. Some would exchange them for cash. Similar happens now in some shops with the pre-paid cards.

You've never bought things second hand things on Facebook or eBay? Or off another parent? Or bought materials to make something yourself or mend something that has broken? Or shop somewhere that only does cash?
Tell me how vouchers will work then.