What do people think of the recent Welfare Reform Speech by the PM; any likelihood of any of this becoming law, or is it just more scaremongering and whipping up of hate against some of the most disadvantaged in society?
Of course it would be good to know what Labour’s policies were going to be with regard to benefits, but I suspect they will keep their cards very close to their chest pre-election. They won’t want any disadvantagous policies being leaked in case it damages their chances…
Although they would have to do something dire to fare worse in the polls than the Conservatives at the moment.
My son was brain damaged at birth by the NHS. He is fit as a flea but can’t read, write or do any maths. No one can change this. Those with a life long disability should be treated with dignity and respect. So should people who are genuinely ill. Doctors are medically trained to diagnose and treat them. My main concern is who the new decision makers will be? If they are not doctors how can they properly assess someone genuinely too ill for work, and those who are not? I’m now a pensioner, I’ve had a terrible cough and cold, and cellulitis. Most of the last month I’ve been either in or on my bed. Strong antibiotics make me really weak. If I was of working age, under the new system, anyone not medically qualified who didn’t know me and the side effects of the pills might well think, wrongly, that I was malingering. In fact I’m desperate to get my usual vitality back.
I don’t like the idea as the Conservatives have had a few go’s at the disabled and vulnerable people. They shut remploy places down, then they have a go at the carers and vulnerable people over money which in most cases it not their fault but the Dwp. They don’t seem to go after the one’s who are swinging the lead or doing odd job but are off on sick and I bet we know a few. Some people would like to be in work and do some caring roles but can’t due to red tape or people closing the job interview down just because you are a carer. Some of these idiots should spend a few days doing our job and see what it is really like.
A good friend is a retired copper. He has a Medical Pension and a few years ago the force decided to review ALL medical pensions (to avoid being accused of discrimination) and brought in an outside ‘consultant doctor’ who had no knowledge of police. My mate was subjected to over three years of being told there was no problem with him working and his pension was cut by 50%. This sent him into a downward spiral of depression and he was at the stage where he didnt get dressed in a morning and simply sat staring at the TV all day til bedtime. One of the prime pieces of evidence for his fitness to work was a letter from his GP some years before confirming he was physically fit to crew a small boat from Jersey to the mainland (required for insurance) but what the reviewer did not quote was the paragraph stating “I consider this trip to be the best thing you could do as it will help your mental health which is of great concern to me at present. You must not over exert yourself and I believe if you are able to join such activities on a regular basis you will generally feel better.” He did ONE trip and yet was penalised for TRYING. There was never any doubt over his physical fitness, it was his mental health which was what caused a break-down and him retiring (all due to issues at work when he was nearly sectioned).
In the end the whole review was abandoned as the guy was inept and cherry-picked bits from reports where the paragraphs suited his report - and missed red flags. He never even spoke to the people concerned!!! So many coppers challenged the decisions and the Police Federation legal team threatened group action that the Chief called a halt. It still took him five more years to get back the money they had deducted from him!
If THAT is the sort of approach to be taken - forcing someone into a situation which could potentially result in them self-harming, God help us all. Perhaps I will be forced to go out to work full-time and abandon G all day. “Oh dear - he’s fallen again and is in hospital. What do you mean that 's the fifth time this month and he needs to be more careful moving around? How much is that costing???” Currently all I cost the State is £81.90 Carer’s Allowance (OK I am excluding the cost of meds and health care). Speaks volumes, doesn’t it? The Caring Society!
I can understand that GP’s are overloaded but as BB says - a non-qualified person who doesn’t know the individual CANNOT make an informed decision - and will doubtless be given TARGETS for getting people back to work - and we all know what targets mean.
We know here that the waiting lists for physios, Occupational Therapists and mental health support are incredibly long. If they spent more money on these services then people could be made better quicker and could return to work fit and well. When I had a car accident, needing knee replacements afterwards, the operations were done in a private hospital with weekly physiotherapy at home, paid for by car insurance. 15 years ago each op cost £10,000. The physio told me on the NHS, she would probably only see a patient in the same situation a couple of times, she really enjoyed being able to help me properly recover. I felt sorry for her NHS patients. Surely if the NHS is investing a lot of money on major surgery the goal should be full fitness afterwards? Likewise if someone has a mental health issue. The goal should be a timely course of treatment if someone is struggling?
I agree with your comments. But I can understand that young people need to work but if there is no infrastructure to treat their health issues, it is all too easy for them to stay on benefits. However, there are jobs available and I sometimes think that maybe there is a need to make these available jobs more attractive to workers? Better conditions as well as pay? I am thinking of caring jobs - low status, physically and mentally demanding and low paid. Can well understand anyone will mental health or physical health issues not wanting to take a caring job. Ditto a supermarket job as the way these staff are treated is frankly horrific. I have become quite close to a few of them over the years and they do not deserve the amount of abuse customers give them.
I too would love to work but would constantly worry about husband setting fire to the house/falling/letting cats out/bath overflow. I totally hate being a carer. I would have loved to have gone for the Saturday library job - would have been away for 7 hours including transport, but given how difficult husband was did not dare apply. I know he would have played up when I was due to leave and I would have been left not knowing if he was genuinely feeling ill or just being manipulative. I would have to be around when an ambulance came as he is very confused with regard to his medication.
If sicknotes are no longer issued by GPs it will be someone not medically trained with a tick list of questions designed to prove the person is fit for work, rather like the PIP and UC work capability assessment.
I was asked how often S received treatment for his autism and related learning disability and what the treatment was!! Implying when would he be ‘better.’
Instead of using (to coin a phrase) ‘tax payers’ money employing more people to prey on the ill and disabled - they should spend it as BB says on getting people the treatment they need.
I am sure there are people on benefits who shouldn’t be but it disgusts me that they instigate this negative feeling to all ill and disabled people.
It might actually be better if they undertook a “Cost/Benefit Analysis” to see if more rapid treatment would actually help get people back to work more rapidly - and therefore off benefits and back to being taxpayers. There is the double benefit of not claiming and paying into the system…
That only works for people of working age who need operations or treatment, but its easy to calculate!! I am on meds which are certainly not cheap, but until I became f/t carer, I was able to work and support myself and pay tax and have money to spend (thus helping the economy) - my GP said it was a small cost to keep me able to work, so he saw the advantages straight away. QED !
If only the policy makers would talk to us! It would be cheaper to pay Carers Allowance equivalent to thr NMW and in turn that would free up paid carers to get “bed blockers” back into their homes!
That just goes to show the level of ignorance and lack of basic understanding of the people who are supposed to be carrying out these assessments. Scary!
My fear is that unqualified people will be used not only to make ill-informed medical assessments for which they have no training, but that it will ultimately be a tick-box exercise for getting as many people off benefits as possible.
Quite where they think all the jobs are magically going to come from I don’t know. Even with remote working roles, there are scant few that are totally work from home, most require the person to be able to go to a workplace for some portion of the week. There is also the willingness (or not) on employers to give applicants a chance. There aren’t that many who are disability-friendly and if you add being a carer into the mix as well, your chances of securing that job just reduced exponentially.
The ill and disabled have become victims of the modern-day witch-hunt.
It’s a perfect example of a “good idea” which has been ill-thought-through. Complete lack of joined up thinking as reducing the “benefit scroungers” plays well with certain parts of the electorate and in an Election year that is all that matters.
can’t bring myself to watch the speech just yet (bound to raise blood pressure and then some!) but…
there’s a meme on fb where the (former) scottish mp mhairi black says something along the lines of 'when we need more money to bomb syria, we find it, when we need money to bomb/fight some other country, we find the money, but there’s never money for pensioners (or, we can simply insert any social support/care service, nhs, education, etc) that’s what makes me, personally, really angry and frustrated and devastated at how much of this anguish is internalised, how we’ve been conditioned to think that this is acceptable, to think that ‘scroungers’ are not those same politicians, some of whom have 2nd and 3rd additional income sources other than the mp salary, or their banker/arms/other industry friends who get government contracts and money without having to jump through (m)any hoops… i really think it’s a question of choice, a simple choice, of whether we (as a society/government) decide to invest in each other, in a caring, forward-looking (free education, including free university education), society or not
Although my husband, my mum and me are Al retired ( I am the unpaid carer for both my husband and mum mum) this makes me feel really anxious. This government are not known for compassionate interventions and I do not trust people who don’t know the patient or their circumstances to make these decisions. Of course there is no bottomless pit of funding, I get that, but I just don’t trust the motives of this government. I wonder if they have looked into correlations between the rising numbers of people leaving the workforce and Long Covid. Long Covid has physically damaged my husband’s kidneys, lungs, duodenum and stomach, all of which are still inflamed due to an autoimmune response to the virus. He also has long Covid related brain fog, anxiety and depression due to the inflammatory process affecting his Braine too. There may very well be long Covid related reasons why large numbers of people are suffering from anxiety and depression post Covid. Reading between the lines of this government paper makes me feel that they just want to target disabled people and force them away from state support rather than support them to find ways of doing what they can do in a way that promotes better mental health. I am still waiting for the “oven ready care policy” promised by Boris Johnson before the last election. I would like to know what the Labour Party has to say on this topic.
My son was brain damaged at birth. He can’t read, write or do any maths but if you met him socially you might not realise how disabled he was. He is always sociable, clean and tidy but needs someone alongside him when he goes out for a walk as his road safety is poor and has a Companion bus pass. I’m really worried that an untrained assessor wouldn’t understand his limitations. Even trained social workers, seeing him in his flat, have got it wrong!
@BB I agree. It ideally needs someone who knows the person applying. A friend used to work as a PIP Assessor. She hated it as she felt those who really deserved it 'failed; the tick box exercise and those who ‘knew how to play the system’ flew through! Thankfully she was able to find another job. But the point i am making is that the Assessors are going to be under a lot of pressure to reject claims and anyone with compassion and empathy doing this job, wont last long!
That said, I think we need as a society to look at WHY certain jobs are unfilled. Generous benefits OR jobs not being attractive to applicants? A combination of both? I use my local Morrisons daily a lot and have got quite friendly with some of the staff but the way they are treated is dreadful and the turnover very high. A couple of Sundays ago, the Assistant Manager was on her own - had to be there for 5.30 to accept paper delivery. She could not even have a loo stop as there was no one to take over the till. I immediately offered to ‘watch’ the till for her and she did say she had other regulars who would probably do this. She finished at 2pm…I can well see why the unemployed do not find shop work or carers work attractive and I think we need to make conditions better for people doing those jobs.