Category: #ToryDisabilityAssessments

#ToryDisabilityAssessments

Epilepsy patients left high and dry following PIP benefit reform

From The Guardian: Helen Purdon, 47, had been on disability living allowance (DLA) for 10 years, following a diagnosis of epilepsy, which means she has seizures every 10 to 15 days. She is unable to work and assumed her transfer to PIP would be seamless. But she was wrong. “It was unreal. My DLA stopped, which was around £400 a month. I didn’t get any money at all for months,” she says. “We couldn’t afford to put petrol in the car, we were living off pasta and beans.”

Purdon’s case is all too common. According to the latest figures from the Department for Work and Pensions, more than half of existing epilepsy patients and two-thirds of new claimants are being denied disability benefits.

PIP was introduced in England, Scotland and Wales in 2013, replacing DLA. The benefit is supposed to cover some of the additional costs of having a long-term health condition, and is available to people in or out of work… But since PIP was introduced, 65% of claims from people with epilepsy who did not have DLA were rejected, while 54% of those in receipt of DLA were turned down for PIP, the second-highest refusal rate of all health conditions and double the national average. Of those who challenged the decision 78% won on appeal. According to Epilepsy Scotland, which obtained the figures, the benefit assessment system is flawed because it fails to take account of fluctuating conditions like epilepsy. Claims assessors focus too heavily on the type and number of seizures a person has, while ignoring other symptoms like memory impairment, confusion, anxiety and depression.

[Read full article on Guardian website…]

Atos threatens to call police after claimant questions PIP assessor’s mental health training

From Disability News Service: Staff working for discredited benefit assessments contractor Atos threatened to call the police after a claimant asked about the mental health qualifications of the nurse who was assessing his eligibility for personal independence payment (PIP).

She appears to have wrongly blamed the decision to refuse him a home assessment on the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), when such decisions are taken by the assessment companies, Atos and Capita.

The assessor can then be heard leaving the room after Weston began asking about her experience and qualifications in mental health.

She told Weston that she was “not happy to sit in this room with you” because she said he had questioned her qualifications and was “being difficult for no reason”.

Weston, who did not raise his voice or threaten the assessor at any point in the conversation, told her: “You seem to have had a bit of an attitude from the start, a bit of a blasé attitude.

“You didn’t look at me, you didn’t say hello to me, you didn’t treat me like a human.”

Despite the lack of any aggression or threats from Weston, a colleague of the assessor then told him he needed to leave the building “or we’ll call the police”, before repeating: “We’ll call the police if you don’t leave.”

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DWP ignores concerns from disabled people who shun activity over benefit fraud fears

From Disability News Service: The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has refused to offer a solution to disabled people who say they are fearful of taking more exercise in case they have their support cut or are branded benefit cheats.

A new report by the disability sports organisation Activity Alliance found that four-fifths (83%) of disabled people they surveyed would like to be more active, but nearly half (47%) feared losing their benefits if they took more exercise.

More than a third (34%) had either had their own benefits sanctioned or removed because of being physically active or knew someone this had happened to.

The Activity Trap: Disabled People’s Fear Of Being Active – which was commissioned by the Dwarf Sports Association – says that “ambiguity remains a problem in terms of what level of physical activity is acceptable and what might lead to removal of support”.

One of those surveyed said: “I have a lot of concerns when it comes to benefits and the constant fear of them being taken away or worry of being reassessed.

“It then impacts my life and any involvement in sport and physical activity which is none at the moment due to the concerns I have and not wanting my benefits to be taken off me, as DWP are not known for being understanding or nice and will try and find any reason to remove someone’s #disability benefits.”

[Read full article on Disability News Service…]

Revealed: Half of DLA claimants lose higher mobility rate support when moved to PIP

From Welfare Weekly: Nearly half of sick and disabled people who were in receipt of the highest mobility rate of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) were denied the equivalent level of support when moved to Personal Independence Payment (PIP), a Freedom of Information (FOI) request has revealed.

In response to an FOI request, the DWP state that 471,000 DLA claimants who were receipt of the higher mobility rate of DLA had been reassessed for PIP by 31 October 2017.

Of these, 241,920 (52%) were awarded the enhanced PIP mobility rate, 65,200 (25%) had their benefit reduced to the standard PIP mobility rate, and 65,200 (23%) lost their mobility rate entitlement altogether.

“Those disabled people whose entitlement has been reduced to the standard mobility rate of PIP have lost £37.10 per week (the equivalent of £1929 per year)”, says Disability Rights UK.

They have also lost their entitlement to the Motability scheme, because it is restricted to only those receiving the enhanced mobility rate of PIP.

Those sick and disabled people who have lost all entitlement to mobility support when moved to PIP have lost £59.75 per week, or a staggering £3107 per year.

[Read full article on Welfare Weekly…]

‘Indifferent’ DWP took six years to correct error depriving disability claimants of £340m

From The Guardian: A cross-party group of MPs has criticised the Department for Work and Pensions’ “culture of indifference” after it took six years to correct a major error which left chronically ill and disabled benefit claimants thousands of pounds out of pocket.

An estimated 70,000 claimants were underpaid by between £5,000 and £20,000 between 2011 and 2016 because the DWP failed to ensure they received the correct amounts when moving them from incapacity benefit on to the employment and support allowance (ESA).

As well as losing out on thousands of pounds through underpayments, the DWP’s failure to check claimants’ entitlements meant some were also denied their rights to help with dentistry costs, as well as free school meals and free medical prescriptions.

The report criticised the DWP for rushing into the transfer without taking legal advice or making basic checks, brushing aside evidence that people were being underpaid, and ignoring warnings from its own policy advisors that it should pause and fix the process before proceeding.

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DWP silence over ‘thousands of ESA claims lost in IT black hole’

From Disability News Service: The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has told a disabled woman whose benefit claims repeatedly went missing that thousands of other claimants have lost their applications in the same departmental black hole.

Vicky Pearson, from Lincolnshire, had to survive for nearly two weeks without food over Christmas and the new year, a distressing experience that she believes caused significant long-term damage to her health.

When she asked a DWP civil servant what she should do over Christmas, she was told to “rest a lot and drink a lot of water”.

[Read full article on Disability News Service website…]

Woman with epilepsy so severe she set herself on fire sees benefits removed

From Metro: Pippa Hammond’s epilepsy is so severe that someone has to wait in the room with her every time she has a shower, goes to the toilet or even blow dries her hair. Despite this, she has been denied any disability benefit under the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) scheme, with her application scored zero in every category.

[Read full article on Metro website…]

Benefit delays leave hundreds of thousands penniless and reliant on foodbanks

From Welfare Weekly: Delays in processing new benefit claims are leaving tens of thousands of vulnerable adults and children without money for long periods of time and dependent on foodbanks to stave off hunger, damning figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) reveal.

Minister of State for Employment Alok Sharma confirmed in a written Commons answer that the DWP failed to achieve its own target of processing new claims within ten days on 214,000 occasions last year.

This is equivalent to more than 1 in 10 claims, leaving some of the poorest in society struggling to heat their homes and put food on the table.

The same figures also reveal how more than 970,000 claims took longer than a week to be processed.

Mr Sharma admitted 110,180 Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) claimants and 103,650 Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants waited more than two weeks for their first payment.

More than 671,000 JSA claimants and 302,900 ESA claimants were made to wait longer than a week before hearing from the DWP, iNews reports.

[Read full article on Welfare Weekly…]

Inquiry into disability benefits ‘deluged’ by tales of despair

From The Guardian: A House of Commons inquiry into disability benefits has heard from more than 3,000 people in despair at the system, including dozens who say they have been driven to suicidal thoughts by the process.

The evidence includes testimony from many saying their mental health had deteriorated as a result of trying to claim the employment support allowance (ESA) for daily living costs and/or the personal independence payment (PIP) to cover the extra costs caused by long-term disability.

It comes after longstanding concerns among mental health groups, medical professionals, user groups and MPs about the operation of both benefits, which see claimant assessments run by outsourced providers and final decisions made by officials at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

The submissions included more than 100 people reporting that they or someone they care for feels their suicidal feelings have worsened or been triggered by the process. Read more

Disabled man worried by benefit cuts killed himself by setting himself on fire

From Daily Mirror: A disabled man committed suicide in front of horrified shoppers in a town centre by setting himself on fire, after fearing that he faced a cut in his benefits, an inquest heard.

[Read full article on Daily Mirror website…]

DWP ‘tells disability benefits assessors to discriminate against people with mental health conditions’

From The Independent: New guidelines from the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) to assessors for the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) benefit appears to explicitly single out those with mental health conditions who suffer identical impacts as those with physical conditions.

[Read article on Independent website…]