Stop the Abolition of DLA

[Glitterknickaz]

The government are proposing to get rid of DLA in favour of PIP. full consultation here

Riven started a fantastic thread in Chat with the very pertinent point that this applies to everyone, that every one of us could be just one step from disability themselves.

There is NOTHING in the media about this. These proposals could mean poverty for the disabled and their families in this country. It could leave some in residential care completely isolated from their families and support networks through the removal of the mobility component.

My family has already been hit three times through the NHS, education and aiming high, via the cuts, if they now remove the money from our pockets we are going to be in a heat or eat situation.

Please MNHQ do something, as many are oblivious to these proposals and what they will mean, including those who themselves already claim DLA.

I take it you have reported him then? Do I need to as well or have you heard back?

Eventually he will run out of PCs to use (they ban ISP addy IIRC not just name).

Hope you're not availing yourself of a free library to use the internet access dear man ;-)

I've reported him three times now. Last two times no response.

I reported the link that he posted earlier to a diet website.

Dear all have read all your comments re DLA reform. You can respond to the DWP consultation process by post or email. see www.dwp.gov.uk/consultations/2010/dla-reform.shtml You all have a chance to object until 14 February if you look up 'Disability Living Allowance Reform Public Consultation' If everyone objects it would be harder for them to ignore you. My son and his wife are both disabled and will suffer terribly. If it helps you, this is my response to only one of the questions about taking DLA mobility away from those in residential care:
Reference Question 5 Para 21, Page 15: the payment of the mobility component of DLA (or the PIP equivalent to this allowance) should depend on the needs of individuals rather than their place of residence. To obtain the mobility component of DLA, the disabled in residential homes should have to show that they need and can use it. This is the opinion of my family, the residents in their home, those who run the home and their care managers. They make the following points:

1. The Government?s proposal to remove the DLA mobility component from people living in residential care is due to a mistaken belief that the disabled in residential homes are like hospital patients or residents in nursing homes and residential homes for the elderly, where residents spend the vast majority of their time in the homes or, as patients, unable to go out or being nursed. This is not the case at the Disabilities Trust and similar homes for those with physical disabilities where getting out and about in the local community is a vital aspect of residents? everyday way of life. Residents in these homes must meet their own transport costs from their DLA mobility to access specialist transport to education, volunteering, day opportunities, libraries, shops, banks, public life and services, church, fitness activities, visits to friends and families. Many residents live at a long distance from their families who cannot help them with mobility needs.

1. The Government mistakenly thought that there was an element of double funding in that local authorities were already meeting the mobility needs of these residents. This is not the case. The cost of transport is not included in contracts with residential homes other than to cover needs deemed to be substantial and critical (usually medical). At the Disabilities Trust and similar residential homes residents must meet their own transport costs from their DLA mobility to access all the services listed in 1. above. The care home provides free transport to medical appointments and for medical matters but residents must pay for transport to support their normal activity.

1. Maria Miller, Minister for Disabled People, has now written to MPs and the public to say that, ?where individuals? needs are met through residential care, the local authority contracts with the care home to ensure that the agreed services are provided.? The Minister?s letter is seriously misleading. Her letter implies that transport to all the services listed in 1. above is provided free of charge in a contract and that residents therefore do not need a mobility allowance. This is not true.

Local authorities, whose budgets are already under considerable pressure, do not have the funds available to pay for these transport services nor do they have a statutory duty to do so. Generally their existing contracts with care homes do not cover assessed mobility. It has been confirmed to me that this is the case at the Disabilities Trust and that such arrangements are standard in the industry.

1. The Disabilities Trust points out that they do not have the staff, resources, finance or vehicles to provide the services to their residents which at present the residents provide for themselves out of the mobility component of DLA. I have been assured that the same would be true of similar residential homes. If they were legally obliged to assume this function, Government would ultimately have to fund their extra costs, costs that would be far greater than the current DLA mobility costs of £160 million. This amount is tiny when compared with the £81 billion of spending cuts planned by Government.

1. I question how much background research has gone into this proposal, whether it has been properly thought through and whether the Government fully understands how a particularly vulnerable sector of society will be hit hard if these changes are introduced in 2012. Article 20 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities commits signatories to ?take effective measures to ensure personal mobility with the greatest possible independence for persons with disabilities, including facilitating the personal mobility of persons with disabilities in the manner and at the time of their choice, and at affordable cost.? Removing the DLA mobility component from disabled people jeopardises this right. If the Government?s proposal is carried, these disabled people will have no means to pay for transport, will be confined to their homes, will be denied their independence, will be denied the right to access services and to participate freely in society. This is inhumane and tantamount to being imprisoned - in many cases for life.

1. This proposed cut is discriminatory and unjust in that disabled people who live at home and get help with personal care will continue to receive a mobility allowance, whereas those living in residential homes and getting help with personal care will be denied a mobility allowance. The latter are already means-tested for their care costs.

1. Confining a large number of disabled and vulnerable people in their homes, denying them the right to access services and participate freely in society, runs counter to the Government?s claim in the Coalition Agreement document that fairness would be at the heart of its decisions so that all those most in need would be protected.

1. Those who live in the Disabilities Trust and similar homes are very active people who have profound or complex needs. Many will need to live in this residential setting for the rest of their lives for long term assistance and support. Many will have no family to help them financially. If their only allowance to pay for their transport to the outside world is stopped, it will be of little consolation to tell them that their underlying entitlement remains so that they will not have to reapply when they leave the care home.

1. The proposed change is in conflict with other government policies on personalisation, independent living, ideas about dignity, respect and choice. Residential homes are not hospitals or nursing homes, nor are they prisons, or places to hide people away and then deny them opportunities that the rest of us take for granted ? Residential care homes are homes for people who need additional care, these people are full citizens and should be afforded their allowance to be mobile and participate in society as they see fit.

We know that savings are needed but this is too great a price to pay. This is not ?fairness and togetherness?, this is unfair, unjust, cruel and, frankly, offensive, inflicting isolation on the most vulnerable who are the least able to protest for themselves. Please withdraw this particularly nasty proposal.

Feel free to use any or all of the above.

I noticed this thread and I want to add my support to it. My mother has schizophrenia. She was very distressed when she heard of the DLA changes last year. It?s the only little bit of money she gets to have any quality of life. She was scared and worried, and the strain finally tipped her over the edge. She barely knows her own age right now and has been under a mental health section in hospital for a month.

The support we get as a family is minimal in the community. My father, who works, knows this and had had to make a decision that he can no longer work full time and care for her full time. He obviously will have to claim carer?s allowance which is dependent on her DLA claim.

The strain on my family is enormous and we are all very worried and distressed over the future. Yet, more red tape, reviews, medicals, applications and a change is goal posts await us. There is so little out there to help my mother function in the community, or support for our family. We feel hopeless and depressed for the future as a family.

Yet, the ConDems have decided to cause more fear and uncertainly in our lives. My family is falling apart; we can?t take much more.

It's genetic and I am afraid of my future too.

I thinki they're a bit slow today at MNHQ but ahve reported again for you Glitter.

Ahg missed the diet thing. Alarm bells a ringing there then. Will go check out.

DarkBlueSky
So sorry, that this is causing your family so much pain. I started a thread in Chat recently about genetics of MH issues, and was quite reassured by the posts there.

Thank you Peachy and MmeLindt. Unfortunately, both myself and one of my sisters have been diagnosed already. There is a strong link of mental illness right through my family.

The government has announced reform after reform, and clearly not for our benefit. We feel overloaded by the strain of it all.

That's a shame Red but then as you know, schizophrenia has so many differnet paths and outcomes: lots of things can affect it. Scary for you though.

Greycoat

Can you follow the link to The Broken of Britain's blog and contact us about using your testimony, sign the petition and write to your MP about the EDM?

Glitter - I had an e-mail from MNHQ telling me they had deleted a post I reported......

Is 'it' still stalking you lovely?

Anyone heard from Cage - been tied up with DS all day on and off, couldn't get my browser to open more than one page! Grr.

How did she get on yesterday?

Sorry - must dash, DS needs me.

Back tomorrow. xx

[bgrin]

Yep, here frolicking on the non-serious boards. Gave brief report at 18:25, Monday, on this thread.

Not too bad today - having to stay flatish, but could be worse.

Hope you OK Mouseface.

not since a page or two ago....

Did anyone else say "Bwahahahahaha" when they read this?

"look i've got work to do, campaign, get the press involved do whatever, but don't expect my support in some of the things i have seen here like winding people up or deliberately putting yourselves in difficult positions, thats all"

Seriously, hands up who wants his support?

When you have your own disabled children, tell us what you would do. Giving a few hours to a neighbour is nothing like looking after your own disabled child 24/7.

Noooooo, confuddled, don't feed it! We'll have to block up the catflap!

LOL sorry.

I've had over the last few weeks people telling me how to be a neonatal unit mum and a bereaved mum, people who were neither. Now I come here and see someone telling people how to be a carer for their disabled children. My children aren't but my brother had Aspergers and I saw what that did to my parents. I might have got my sleep at night but I knew they weren't getting it.

Thanks to all on here who are trying so very hard to get action on this. I have tried too for months but find it disheartening that so few people respond on other websites to any attempt to suggest actually DOING something - even as simple as signing a petition.

I am very low on spoons as they say and make myself much sicker trying to use computer. But I am very scared for the future. I live alone and have no one I can really turn to for any help. I am worried that all these months of disabled bashing and trying to fight back with no media coverage at all is taking its toll on me.

I am getting quite depressed and the little help I do get simply don't believe me when I say what is happening. Thye don't think the disabled would be treated like this in this country - or they think if people lose thier benfits after a medical it is because they must have been faking.

My whole life has been taken over with worry and anxiety about this and worry about being found fit for work by the ESA medical - never knowing when the letter is going to come. I have been ill a long time and managed to fight pain, lack of sleep,complete exhaustion, isolation and loss of any normal life. I have managed to avoid sinking into deep depression but I don't know now with all this if I can anymore. I know if I give in to it I will be finished. I know if I fail the ESA medical I will be finished. If my DLA is taken away I will be finished. My life is so bad anyway i wonder if it is worth fighing for anymore anyway.

I just want the public to know what is really going on and react with outrage. Why don't they? Why does no one care about anyone anymore? Why is a man who had a disabled child the one responsible for inflicting this fear and misery on thousands of people?

My idea to fight back is that we have a day or week or month when everyone starts ringing up the DoH/writing to ATOS and asks for the "euthanasia pack" as the guy in the You Tube video and post this video to TV news over and over, until they cover it.- it is so funny, miserable as I was, I laughed my head off! If this "video"/recording - that many disabled and sick people feel they have no other option- doesn;t get through, then nothing will. I have survived so much in my life I will not die now for lying politicians or bankers or even "hard working tax payers". I was one once and what happened to me can happen to them any moment.

I can't seem to get this link to work directly but lisa 1 has also posted it at 6.22 above.

I know how you feel Cressa Well sort of, as a carer of a young girl who is completely oblivious to most things, I worry desperately on her behalf

Thanks MissQue - it is nice to know there are other people out there but i am sad for everyone too feeling the same way. There are so many terrible stories, it is hard to believe this is really not just a bad nightmare

I just can't believe that they can consider this to be progress.

Oh God, the Daily Mail is at it again

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1350359/Sickness-benefit-scandal-Just-6-incapacity-handout-claimants-work.html

i can't take much more of this

The express is at it too :(

Have deleted the link - it was pretty much the same as all the rest.
Cant imagine anyone is desperate to read it.

Good news though. There is an Early Day Motion, I think it is EDM 1332.

Broken of Britian blogspot have an email that you can send to your MP.

An EDM is basically an MP's petition against something, in this case reform of DLA.

I know its asking a lot, but it will give an indication of feeling, and highlight the MP's we can help, and those we can hate (!).

So can you (Oh ye gods, i hate to keep asking for stuff) please, please ask your MP to sign the EDM.

Links at BoB, complete with already written email.

Thank you!

Cressa - I know what you mean, most of this week has been spent sobbing.
However we do have two bits of good news, a disability supporter in the Lords, and the EDM (which is another MP who supports us.)

I have just written to my MP, a real creepy email to buddy him up, singing his praises, and then asking him to sign the EDM.

I also sent hime the letter I am sending Maria Miller... which rips into her assumptions.

I still have to pull together my consultation response :(

Someone somewhere lend me some spoons !

Oh and I know what you mean about apathetic responses on other websites... at least on here there is positivity, and not revolving door debates.