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?

Disability benefits have been around since at least the 1970s.

there’s a bloke in my village who was in a car accident in 1977, head injuries and arm injuries and he’s used a wheelchair ever since.

the name of the benefit has changed but he’s been on disability benefits since 1977.

(he lived with his mum until she died and now he’s in sheltered housing with a care package)

@Octavia64 how did you get to the toilet? Feed yourself? Why would you agree to go home if you can't do these th8bgs and had no care? Did you get admitted back into hospital that day because you couldn't look after yourself?

If an alcoholic has an illness or disability that affects their mobility or daily needs, then yes.

I hate this discussion about vouchers. Who decides what I need when it changes week to week?

Is PIP bashing the replacement for UC bashing or are we joining them together now?

I’ve just had to spend £2k on a mattress because my joints are so bad, all over my body. I saved a lot of my PIP for that, DH used some of his wages. How do you think it would have felt for me to go in the shop with some fecking vouchers? Shall I ask the woman who gives me acupuncture if she accepts vouchers from the DWP, or the one who does my massages?

If someone suggested giving a pensioner their pension credit in the form of vouchers the internet would break within minutes, but the disabled? They’re fair game. It makes me sick.

Incapacity benefit was equivalent to ESA. There was disability allowance for those who couldn't walk. No one else got it and this was the nearest equivalent to pip.

Alcoholics and drug addicts do get pip for their addiction if they meet the criteria. Not helpful to them though.

Because it would not change the minds of bigots and would probably get me banned.

I think you’ve misunderstand the person you’re replying to, their point is that they can’t think of a health condition that would have someone meeting the criteria for a PIP award but doesn’t come with extra costs. They’re countering the type of people who think it’s very common for folk to easily get pip but not have needs that come with extra costs and has said they can’t think of a condition that fits that narrative.

Your son’s condition very clearly does come with extra costs, which was the person you’re replying to point. If someone meets the criteria, then there’ll be extra costs.

You will be in the five out of six for whom PIP does not cover the costs of their disabilities.

Vouchers could replace cash for specific costs. If you’re claiming £400/month for taxis, the PIP could be paid in Uber credits / taxi vouchers. If it’s extra energy bills you want PIP to cover, then you’d get vouchers in your name and tagged to your energy account that you could use to offset bills, etc.

Yes, of course, a disabled person could somehow circumvent the security / account restrictions and ‘sell’ their energy vouchers at a discount to someone who wants to pay less for their electricity. But that would be the definition of “hassle”. :)

It does not say pip does not cover costs for five out if six. Simply that they do have costs their pip covers.

I know a family claiming DLA for a child with ADHD… they spent it on a 3-D printer.

Apparently children with type 1 diabetes are now getting DLA…. Which I would understand if they had to fund their medication and medical devices, but generally they don’t. So why is the funding required? It’s a relatively new development- how did families cope before?

That’s not what the survey says.

I do think we also need to discuss the fact that lots of people "don't quite" meet the threshold for PIP I don't if I apply the criteria honestly) but have heaps of extra expense for their chronic and disabling conditions.
I don't get any PIP but due to my rare neurological condition I :

• have to self fund an electric wheelchair as I regularly need it

• have to pay for a cleaner /gardener and handyman to do DIY as I cannot do this stuff without getting ill.

• have to pay a lot of parking costs as I can't use public transport

• have to fund a reliable car (it's as small and basic as possible but I could not manage life without it)

• need to heat the house most of the day as I am mainly stuck at home

• lots of parking costs for hospital parking

• costs for online delivery as I can't get round shops

And that's just the ones I can think of off the top of my head!

I know I am very lucky and privileged to be able to work from home full time but I hate the misconception that anyone who doesn't claim PIP is bouncing around full of health

Perhaps the Resolution Foundation can suggest how someone who is completely wheelchair and bed bound and can't do anything at all for himself, as he is unable to move any part of his body, will be able to improve his ability to engage in society? And while they're at it, perhaps they'd also like to suggest how the 5.8 million unpaid family carers can improve their ability to engage in society too?

I have poor eyesight and my prescription glasses are £400 a pop - people who don't need glasses can't believe that that's just a standard price. And that's not even classed as a disability.

People don't realise how much the simplest things cost.

Alcoholics should absolutely be entitled to PIP. It’s a life-deranging illness that makes it very difficult to hold down a job, maintain a support network of family/friends, and yes, it can affect mobility if severe. We should not be leaving addicts of any sort to suffer and become impoverished from their addiction. (Under the voucher scheme, they could claim for medication and therapy, and then essentials like food and energy bills if their addiction prevents them from staying in employment.)

Surely it’s very individual? My aunt gets AA full amount as she is now almost blind but as she is retired she doesn’t really have additional costs.

Money for a cleaner? She had one before though.

It’s quite exhausting for us on PIP having to explain ourselves, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you have no insight on this subject rather than trying to be ‘goady’ and upset people.

PIP in the form of vouchers would be incredibly dehumanising as vouchers strip away autonomy and trust. It would turn disabled people’s independence into a bureaucracy.

In your example, someone receiving PIP for GAD who relies on taxis: imagine one day local drivers are fully booked, there’s an Uber surge price that is too high or a friend steps in to offer the journey instead. Cash then allows this person to adapt and use accordingly. Vouchers trap people into a rigid system that assumes the state knows their daily needs better than they do.

Cash = “we trust you to manage your health needs”

Vouchers = “prove you’re spending your money the ‘right’ way”

This sort of administrative paternalism is precicely what makes them dehumanising.

So the taxi company then claims the money back from the DWP, meaning the DWP is still paying the same amount to the taxi company as it would have to the PIP claimant, so where does the savings come in to it, given all the extra people it would take to administer the refund? If the DWP are late paying then the taxi company would withdraw from the scheme pretty darn quick, Vouchers will not save money, they will ended up costing more in the long run.

Imagine if all this ire were directed at toxic work place culture, forcing people to work stupid hours for the sake of presentee-ism, make-work and 'last out the door' attitudes for no good reason...

What if it were aimed at the tanking of the NHS that has left many people - me included - under treated, under diagnosed, without support, to get worse, lose mobility, become less and less well... and unable to work.

What if it were aimed at the enormous living costs for the sake of an ever increasing profit for certain companies, no matter what...

The idea that disabled people are the reason everyones struggling and the government is broke (which it is not!) is a wild misdirect.

You have all been sold a lie, if you grasped that the vast majority of disability benefits claimants are genuinely in need, then the attacking of the disabled would be too unpalatable to contemplate, just as attacking pensioners would be - so the media, aided by the government, has built you up to believe that only non-genuine claimants will be affected by cuts.

This is a lie. It has always been a lie. Genuine disabled claimants have been struggling to get benefits and the help they need for YEARS and it looks like it is only going to get worse.

What that poster says is not what the RF actually said, their report is far more nuanced.

This report examines how Personal Independence Payment (PIP) in England and Wales should be reformed to better meet its aim: to contribute to additional costs of disability to enable disabled people to live fuller and more active lives.

Well, mostly I crawled.

in all honesty I was m so many drugs and in a lot of pain so eating wasn’t really high on the agenda.

I made a drink in a flask and put it on a rucksack on my back (after realising that trying to crawl with a drink does not work).

I did have crutches and the ot people had insisted I go up and down one stair (not one staircase, one stair) before they discharged me.

I think I might have eaten some bread.

I was bloody determined to stay out of the hospital though because they’d given me serious antibiotics against an infection (open multiple ankle fracture) which give me diarrhoea so I’d spent most of the previous week crawling to the loo in our bay and having explosive diarrhoea over it.

fortunately the other people in my bay were very nice and used the loo across the corridor which was er, less contaminated.

so in all honesty I was so happy to get home to a private loo that I could diarrhoea on in peace that o wasn’t really worrying about eating.

i was on pretty strong morphine which probably helped.

Vouchers are not a sensible suggestion though, they absolutely are open to abuse. And have been tried unsuccessfully in several counties IIRC.

There may well be sensible suggestions but in these threads the same lazy unworkable ones keep being made and then people complain that people who don’t like those ideas have faux outrage.

The Tory government have cut every bloody benefit over the last 14years and restricted eligibility to them. Including all the disability benefits. Numbers claiming and the bill itself has just gone up. At some point we may just have to accept that this constant narrative of needing the restrict access and stop the undeserving claiming isn’t the answer and probably has more to do with people wanting equality not equity.

Pretty sure the solution is incredibly complicated and is linked to austerity & cuts to lover the last 16 years and wider society in general. I think it might be possible to cut the housing benefit bill and UC for working people easily in theory but I think it might be very unpalatable to the posters that start threads about benefits in AIBU.