On the 3rd December 2012 the DWP announced that people who had been through the exceptionally tough Atos work capability assessment and found to be not fit for work could be mandated indefinitely onto the work programme or have their income sanctioned. This new rule applied to people in the work related activity group. People, who according to the government, should be expected to recover within twelve months. This group includes the greatest proportion of sick and disabled people receiving ESA. The support group is so difficult to get into that it excludes many of those with degenerative and fluctuating illnesses, chronic conditions that have gone on for years and cases of terminal illness when they are expected to live longer than six months. Of course you'd want to spend your final months doing some work experience to improve your future job prospects wouldn't you?
It's plain to see that the work related activity group is fast becoming indistinguishable from job seekers allowance. Coalition politicians have stopped referring to it as a disability benefit and the media has frequently included the sick and disabled people in the group as people found fit to work. The benefit was also one of those capped at 1% and it will not increase in line with inflation. Dividing sick and disabled people up with a points scoring system into two groups, has always seemed to be flawed and unfair to me. If you're too sick to work, then you're too sick to work. How difficult can that fact be to understand?
I'll start by explaining a little about myself so that you might better understand the situation I am now facing because of this rule. Back in March I had a face-to-face assessment at my home with an Atos doctor. It was a tense and anxious wait for the brown envelope because the assessment is a lottery. No one can predict what their decision will be. When the dreaded letter finally arrived in the middle of May I didn't even realise it was the decision. Nowhere did it refer to a decision, or contain words such as, "we have made a decision" or "you have been placed in the work related activity group", or any reference to the assessment at all. What they did send was a leaflet about appealing a job seekers allowance decision. Confused? Yes! It took two phone calls and a week to find out what it was they were telling me.
In the meantime, I received a letter from my local job centre demanding that I attend a work related interview at a date in the near future or lose my benefits. I say local, but it's not the job centre in my own town, but a bigger one nearby in a busy shopping centre. My problem is that I have agoraphobia. I haven't been able to walk into that place in over a decade. I couldn't go there even if someone trusted went with me. I'm also terrified of telephone calls and speaking with people I don't know. I get worked up into an anxious panic, my mind becomes blank, I can't think, I feel unreal and floaty and words won't come. I also get panicked speaking to my own family and friends on the telephone, but that's another matter. The point is, I suffer from severe anxiety. I can't just have a nice meal out, take a trip or a pleasant walk down the street, go shopping on my own, get a haircut, meet new people, sit and socialise comfortably, attend family celebrations (and funerals) and sit with the family around the table at Christmas. I don't want sympathy, I just want to emphasise that if I can't do all of the ordinary and enjoyable things in life, then how can I be expected to suddenly overcome my agoraphobia and anxiety and jump through hoops for the job centre? All of this was explained in thorough detail in the assessment forms, and what a demoralising depressing experience describing it was too. There were lots and lots of letters and reports included from the multitude of mental health team workers who have tried, and failed to cure me over the last fifteen years as proof that I was genuinely diagnosed and struggling to cope with anxiety on a daily basis.
I really didn't feel able to speak to the job centre adviser when they called, but I had no choice. Not knowing what to expect I was brave and listened to what she had to tell me. She was referring me to the work programme and if I didn't attend I would be sanctioned. She asked if I had a mortgage or paid rent. "No". It has been suggested that the job centre have targets for sanctions and I have been set up.
All of this has happened so quickly that my claim was still within the four week time period to make an appeal for the support group. What troubles me most is that I am now receiving nonsensical and threatening letters from A4E and the job centre to arrange a work experience placement even though I still had time to make my mind up whether to appeal or not. I will tell you that I have now sent in an appeal form. This had to be requested and posted to me, and I will also tell you that it does not contain any advice or reference about how to appeal an employment and allowance decision or even where to post it. Are they making this difficult on purpose? You have to wonder?
I think it's cruel to harass someone who isn't fit to work and who can't get out of the house without a great deal of support to attend a work placement when it's simply impossible. I have barely slept and I'm experiencing a lot of horrible anxiety symptoms. Rather than helping me they are making my condition much worse. I don't want to imagine the horrors of having a massive panic attack in a public place with strangers around. Last time that happened in a work environment, I spent the afternoon in A&E.
You also have to wonder if the government is simply denying that sickness and mental illness exists, unless you're so ill or disabled that you're bed bound or in a hospital. If time limiting ESA to 365 days doesn't get you, because you have a partner who will not only be expected to care for you if you haven't recovered quickly enough, but they'll be 100% responsible for supporting you too and you won't have this marvellous tailored support to get you back to work (a blessing). You will find yourself sick and with no independent income or state support whatsoever. If you don't have a partner, or your household has been means tested and found to be dirt poor, the constant harassment and never ending stress might force you to attempt to live off thin air, kindly relatives or just simply throw in the towel for good.
The work programme claims to support sick and disabled people into work. Politicians like to boast that it helps to find lots of jobs for this difficult group of people who face massive barriers to getting into the work place. It is failing miserably. Out of the 80,720 people on employment and support allowance who were attached to a work placement, 1,290 actually ended up with a 'job outcome'.*
There is no way that I can mentally or physically attend this work programme placement whatever they have planned for me. If I can't function in a supermarket or shop or any place unless my mother is with me at all times, how can I be expected to work there? At the moment I am ignoring the letters because I can't cope with them. I am now waiting for the one that tells me my benefit has been stopped.
*http://ilegal.org.uk/thread/7123/work-programme-working
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Showing posts with label ESA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ESA. Show all posts
10/05/2013
The Atos Inquisition
Guest post by Henry Benedict Tam @HenryBTam Author of the blog Question the Powerful
There was a time when the Spanish Inquisition hunted down those with the ‘wrong’ beliefs and made them recant their heresy. Now the British Government has rekindled its spirit, but with the aim of confronting the sick and the maimed so as to make them recant their disability.
Imagine you have been struck down by an illness, and according to your doctor, you will no longer be able to carry out work that would earn you a wage in today’s economy. For a time, you draw solace from the fact that you live under a state that maintains a genuine safety net for all, and you will not be left jobless, homeless, or having to beg for charity to keep you alive.
But then a Conservative-led Government comes along and decides that the best way to deflect public attention from its refusal to curb the excessive powers of the corporate elite is to serve up scapegoats. So it tells two and a half million people incapacitated by diverse forms of illness and injury that it will no longer pay any attention to what the doctors who have actually dealt with them have to say. Instead, it brings in the corporation, ATOS, to light the flame of recantation.
ATOS Inquisitors, armed with the mandate to interrogate and declare as many disabled people as undeserving of public support, have plunged countless vulnerable people into the deepest despair.
Examples of ATOS callousness and incompetence abound. Calling themselves ‘assessors’, they ask those summoned to appear before them questions such as “how long have you had Down’s Syndrome?” or “when did you catch autism?” A middle-aged woman, registered blind, was simply told that her benefit would be withdrawn. In another case, a 24-year-old epileptic, who was subject to grand mal seizures, had his benefit cut after he was ‘assessed’ to be fit for work. Just three months later, after living in fear that he could not pay his rent or buy food, he had a major seizure and died. People with debilitating and terminal cancer have also been told they had to surrender their benefits.
For those who managed to find help to appeal against ATOS, a third have had their assessments overturned. But many are too stressed or isolated to mount a challenge. Justice can only prevail if the entire inquisition regime is cast aside. The National Audit Office has investigated and found ATOS work to be unsatisfactory. The British Medical Association has asked for the assessment system to be scrapped.
But the Government is not relenting for one moment, even if people are dying from the fear and reality of losing what little money they had hitherto relied on to stay afloat. The Government is bringing in even more stringent inquisitional criteria to cut the provision of life-saving benefits. Meanwhile, they reward ATOS so handsomely that its chief executive is given a £1 million bonus.
If the ATOS Inquisition had featured in a dystopian novel about what a rightwing government might do, it would be decried as irresponsible scaremongering. Sadly it is all too real.
[To learn more about the Employment & Support Allowance (ESA), take the ESA Quiz. Note: the number of people claiming benefit as they are unable to work has not actually risen since 1997]
There was a time when the Spanish Inquisition hunted down those with the ‘wrong’ beliefs and made them recant their heresy. Now the British Government has rekindled its spirit, but with the aim of confronting the sick and the maimed so as to make them recant their disability.
Imagine you have been struck down by an illness, and according to your doctor, you will no longer be able to carry out work that would earn you a wage in today’s economy. For a time, you draw solace from the fact that you live under a state that maintains a genuine safety net for all, and you will not be left jobless, homeless, or having to beg for charity to keep you alive.
But then a Conservative-led Government comes along and decides that the best way to deflect public attention from its refusal to curb the excessive powers of the corporate elite is to serve up scapegoats. So it tells two and a half million people incapacitated by diverse forms of illness and injury that it will no longer pay any attention to what the doctors who have actually dealt with them have to say. Instead, it brings in the corporation, ATOS, to light the flame of recantation.
ATOS Inquisitors, armed with the mandate to interrogate and declare as many disabled people as undeserving of public support, have plunged countless vulnerable people into the deepest despair.
Examples of ATOS callousness and incompetence abound. Calling themselves ‘assessors’, they ask those summoned to appear before them questions such as “how long have you had Down’s Syndrome?” or “when did you catch autism?” A middle-aged woman, registered blind, was simply told that her benefit would be withdrawn. In another case, a 24-year-old epileptic, who was subject to grand mal seizures, had his benefit cut after he was ‘assessed’ to be fit for work. Just three months later, after living in fear that he could not pay his rent or buy food, he had a major seizure and died. People with debilitating and terminal cancer have also been told they had to surrender their benefits.
For those who managed to find help to appeal against ATOS, a third have had their assessments overturned. But many are too stressed or isolated to mount a challenge. Justice can only prevail if the entire inquisition regime is cast aside. The National Audit Office has investigated and found ATOS work to be unsatisfactory. The British Medical Association has asked for the assessment system to be scrapped.
But the Government is not relenting for one moment, even if people are dying from the fear and reality of losing what little money they had hitherto relied on to stay afloat. The Government is bringing in even more stringent inquisitional criteria to cut the provision of life-saving benefits. Meanwhile, they reward ATOS so handsomely that its chief executive is given a £1 million bonus.
If the ATOS Inquisition had featured in a dystopian novel about what a rightwing government might do, it would be decried as irresponsible scaremongering. Sadly it is all too real.
[To learn more about the Employment & Support Allowance (ESA), take the ESA Quiz. Note: the number of people claiming benefit as they are unable to work has not actually risen since 1997]
14/04/2013
ESA Fit To Work Decisions and Reconsiderations - Rough Justice for Sick and Disabled People
From October 2013 anyone wishing to appeal a fit-to-work decision
will have to ask the DWP to reconsider before
they can appeal to the tribunals service. The revised appeals process is called "mandatory reconsideration" and the government has refused to set a time limit for how long the DWP should
take to complete each case. During this time claimants who were on Employment and Support Allowance will no longer be allowed to
claim the sickness benefit and will be automatically transferred to Jobseekers Allowance or have to do without an income until a revised decision has been made.
All too often the computer-based work capability assessment results in an incorrect decision being made which can have devastating financial and emotional consequences for those concerned. There have been more than 600,000 appeals since ESA was introduced which cost an additional £50 million each year on top of the £112 million paid to Atos to carry out the assessments. In fact 38% of these decisions are overturned in the claimants favour when they appeal, casting serious doubt on the accuracy of the assessments.
The Public Accounts Committee recently investigated the contract between the DWP and Atos, the company contracted to carry out 738,000 work capability assessments in 2011-12. The report stated,
"The Work Capability Assessment may unduly penalise people with specific health problems. The one size fits all approach is not appropriate for particular groups, for example, people with mental health, rare or variable conditions. The process is too inflexible and makes it extremely difficult for individuals with particular conditions to demonstrate the impact of their conditions on their ability to work. Too often the process is so stressful for applicants that it can impact on their health. The Department should assess whether the Work Capability Assessment process is unfair to these claimants."
Negotiating the legal points of the benefit system is a complicated process and Citizens Advice estimate the success rate at appeal when people have access to legal advice and representation rises to around 80%. Ministers have responded to the alarming numbers of incorrect decisions being overturned at independent tribunals not by holding Atos and the DWP to account for their failures as recommended by the Committee, but by scrapping legal aid which helps people to challenge bad decisions and making specialist benefit advisors redundant in the process.
There is a serious and alarming possibility that in the near future sick and disabled people will be made penniless during the period of mandatory reconsideration which has no time limit to complete. ESA will no longer be paid during this time. When I asked for a reconsideration last year, I had to wait four months for the DWP to sort things out. I was lucky, I do know of people who have have been effectively left in ESA limbo for many months longer than that. Currently people can still get ESA during the reconsideration process, at a rate which is the equivalent amount to Jobseekers Allowance, provided they can obtain regular 'fit-notes' from their doctors to prove they are not capable of seeking work. The changes will deter people from pursuing justice and fail to support some of the most vulnerable people to get the benefits they need and are entitled to, leaving them to turn to family, friends, or worse, foodbanks, whilst the DWP sort out their mistake. I wrote to my MP and asked him to contact the Minister for Welfare to find out what would happen to people who had sick notes from their doctors and would not be eligible for Jobseekers Allowance because they were too ill to meet the strict conditions of applying for work attached to the benefit. The answer is not forthcoming (see letter below this post). It would appear that the government is under no legal obligation to provide an income to sick people failed by the benefits system.
Anyone needing to appeal a decision after the mandatory reconsideration will have to apply directly to Her Majesty's Court and Tribunals Service which will add confusion to an already bewildering process for many people, especially those with mental health problems and learning disabilities. Transferring people to another benefit such as Jobseekers Allowance or Universal Credit and then placing them back on ESA once they are given leave to appeal or the DWP have accepted that they are not well enough to work is going to complicate matters and cause problems, rather than simplifying the system.
It is unlikely that a reconsideration will take less than a month, as Lord Freud, the Minister for Welfare points out in his response to Dave Watts MP,
"The length of time taken to complete mandatory reconsideration will vary from case to case. This will be dependent on whether additional medical evidence is required, and if so, how quickly it is provided by the claimant. Where the Department requests additional evidence, regulations state that the Department must allow one month for the claimants to supply it, so these cases could take in excess of one month to process."
I know how long medical records take to obtain because I've sent for my own. The very day I received my ESA50 I applied in writing for my medical history and had to pay my GP £50 for the privilege. Despite haranguing the practice manager on a regular basis, they still took six weeks to make photocopies and then I discovered that everything after 2005 was missing. Four weeks to return the ESA application and attach the relevant medical notes is farcical. Why don't they simply give people more time to gather evidence and continue to give them ESA (at the reduced rate) until the decision is sorted? I understand that some GPs and consultants are charging extortionate fees for letters relating to benefit claims. This coupled with a loss of legal aid which helped to pay for medical evidence is going to have dire consequences and be a disaster for some of the most vulnerable people the benefits system was supposed to be designed to help.
WOW Campaign is deeply concerned that the policy is being driven by the government's desire to cut the cost of appeals. The fitness-to-work tests are not fit for purpose and no justice will be served until they are scrapped and replaced with a fair assessment. We are alarmed that vulnerable claimants will be dissuaded from proceeding with their appeal because they may have no one to help them and the process is taking too long. People are waiting months from their inital application to the face-to-face assessment. Months more for a decision to be made by the DWP. Months more for their appeal to be heard and then the whole process starts again in an endless cycle of assessment and reassessment. When people are forced off ESA whilst they wait they may give up altogether. Those who turn to Jobseekers Allowance may face the possibility of being sanctioned because they are sick and not able to fulfil the conditions of seeking work, be placed on inappropriate work program placements because Jobcentre advisors are not equipped and trained to deal with incapacity and disability, and some will have to try and survive with no income at all.
Sources:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/apr/02/disability-benefits-welfare-legal-aid
http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/press_20130117
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmpubacc/744/74402.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/08/dwp-fitness-to-work-fiasco
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/adviser/updates/appls-process-changesl/
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201213/ldhansrd/text/130213-0003.htm
http://www.nhs.uk/chq/pages/1309.aspx?categoryid=68
All too often the computer-based work capability assessment results in an incorrect decision being made which can have devastating financial and emotional consequences for those concerned. There have been more than 600,000 appeals since ESA was introduced which cost an additional £50 million each year on top of the £112 million paid to Atos to carry out the assessments. In fact 38% of these decisions are overturned in the claimants favour when they appeal, casting serious doubt on the accuracy of the assessments.
The Public Accounts Committee recently investigated the contract between the DWP and Atos, the company contracted to carry out 738,000 work capability assessments in 2011-12. The report stated,
"The Work Capability Assessment may unduly penalise people with specific health problems. The one size fits all approach is not appropriate for particular groups, for example, people with mental health, rare or variable conditions. The process is too inflexible and makes it extremely difficult for individuals with particular conditions to demonstrate the impact of their conditions on their ability to work. Too often the process is so stressful for applicants that it can impact on their health. The Department should assess whether the Work Capability Assessment process is unfair to these claimants."
Negotiating the legal points of the benefit system is a complicated process and Citizens Advice estimate the success rate at appeal when people have access to legal advice and representation rises to around 80%. Ministers have responded to the alarming numbers of incorrect decisions being overturned at independent tribunals not by holding Atos and the DWP to account for their failures as recommended by the Committee, but by scrapping legal aid which helps people to challenge bad decisions and making specialist benefit advisors redundant in the process.
There is a serious and alarming possibility that in the near future sick and disabled people will be made penniless during the period of mandatory reconsideration which has no time limit to complete. ESA will no longer be paid during this time. When I asked for a reconsideration last year, I had to wait four months for the DWP to sort things out. I was lucky, I do know of people who have have been effectively left in ESA limbo for many months longer than that. Currently people can still get ESA during the reconsideration process, at a rate which is the equivalent amount to Jobseekers Allowance, provided they can obtain regular 'fit-notes' from their doctors to prove they are not capable of seeking work. The changes will deter people from pursuing justice and fail to support some of the most vulnerable people to get the benefits they need and are entitled to, leaving them to turn to family, friends, or worse, foodbanks, whilst the DWP sort out their mistake. I wrote to my MP and asked him to contact the Minister for Welfare to find out what would happen to people who had sick notes from their doctors and would not be eligible for Jobseekers Allowance because they were too ill to meet the strict conditions of applying for work attached to the benefit. The answer is not forthcoming (see letter below this post). It would appear that the government is under no legal obligation to provide an income to sick people failed by the benefits system.
Anyone needing to appeal a decision after the mandatory reconsideration will have to apply directly to Her Majesty's Court and Tribunals Service which will add confusion to an already bewildering process for many people, especially those with mental health problems and learning disabilities. Transferring people to another benefit such as Jobseekers Allowance or Universal Credit and then placing them back on ESA once they are given leave to appeal or the DWP have accepted that they are not well enough to work is going to complicate matters and cause problems, rather than simplifying the system.
It is unlikely that a reconsideration will take less than a month, as Lord Freud, the Minister for Welfare points out in his response to Dave Watts MP,
"The length of time taken to complete mandatory reconsideration will vary from case to case. This will be dependent on whether additional medical evidence is required, and if so, how quickly it is provided by the claimant. Where the Department requests additional evidence, regulations state that the Department must allow one month for the claimants to supply it, so these cases could take in excess of one month to process."
I know how long medical records take to obtain because I've sent for my own. The very day I received my ESA50 I applied in writing for my medical history and had to pay my GP £50 for the privilege. Despite haranguing the practice manager on a regular basis, they still took six weeks to make photocopies and then I discovered that everything after 2005 was missing. Four weeks to return the ESA application and attach the relevant medical notes is farcical. Why don't they simply give people more time to gather evidence and continue to give them ESA (at the reduced rate) until the decision is sorted? I understand that some GPs and consultants are charging extortionate fees for letters relating to benefit claims. This coupled with a loss of legal aid which helped to pay for medical evidence is going to have dire consequences and be a disaster for some of the most vulnerable people the benefits system was supposed to be designed to help.
WOW Campaign is deeply concerned that the policy is being driven by the government's desire to cut the cost of appeals. The fitness-to-work tests are not fit for purpose and no justice will be served until they are scrapped and replaced with a fair assessment. We are alarmed that vulnerable claimants will be dissuaded from proceeding with their appeal because they may have no one to help them and the process is taking too long. People are waiting months from their inital application to the face-to-face assessment. Months more for a decision to be made by the DWP. Months more for their appeal to be heard and then the whole process starts again in an endless cycle of assessment and reassessment. When people are forced off ESA whilst they wait they may give up altogether. Those who turn to Jobseekers Allowance may face the possibility of being sanctioned because they are sick and not able to fulfil the conditions of seeking work, be placed on inappropriate work program placements because Jobcentre advisors are not equipped and trained to deal with incapacity and disability, and some will have to try and survive with no income at all.
Sources:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/apr/02/disability-benefits-welfare-legal-aid
http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/press_20130117
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmpubacc/744/74402.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/08/dwp-fitness-to-work-fiasco
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/adviser/updates/appls-process-changesl/
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201213/ldhansrd/text/130213-0003.htm
http://www.nhs.uk/chq/pages/1309.aspx?categoryid=68
22/03/2013
The Lump Hammer Approach to the Work Capability Assessment
Explaining an invisible illness to someone isn't easy at the best of times. When you suffer from a mental health condition, it can be difficult and traumatic to translate the troublesome thoughts and feelings running through your head into words. People tend to be alarmed by behaviour and ideas that they can't relate to themselves and you soon learn that it's probably better to keep your personal horrors hidden from your friends and family and make up more acceptable excuses for yourself when you don't feel well. Mental health professionals generally know that people feel stigmatised and frightened to open up. That they're scared of speaking out because it can be confusing and upsetting and there are no simple solutions. They tread carefully at first on tip-toes around you. Little by little they build a professional relationship based upon the solid foundations of your trust. A good therapist offers a sensitive ear to your troubles and waits patiently until you feel stable, comfortable and ready to share your inner depths. They listen and put you at your ease....
...which is far from the reality of the work capability assessment. The face-to-face assessment has all the sensitivity of a blunt lump hammer bashed against your skull to knock the answers they demand right out of you with thumping great whacks. No moment is given to recover from your upset here my friends. Your time is their money.
The face-to-face assessment was scheduled to be done at my home because of the nature of my illness. It was a huge relief that they had accepted and believed my difficulties demanded it. My last assessment was just twelve months ago and despite having a long-term history of chronic anxiety conditions, more therapy than Ruby Wax (not possible) and a poor prognosis, following a fit to work decision and a battle, I was placed in the work related activity group. Thank the Holy Lord and mother nature herself that no one from the jobcentre has ever contacted me. I could not have coped if they had.
The Atos health care professional was not the person named on the letter. When he arrived my heart sank. It was the same man as last time. The same man who twisted and manipulated my answers and wrote a work of fiction about me on his report. I hadn't been expecting a fair or reasonable assessment however. At least this time I knew not to trust. I had been dreading it. Effectively two months had been wiped from my life with worry and stress. I couldn't think of anything else. The apprehension grabs you by the guts and twists them until you're curled up in a quivering foetal ball. I could barely function for fear of what was going to happen next. Suffice to say the night before sleep had eluded me. By the time he arrived in the morning I was ragged and a little bit delirious.
Ten whole minutes of rapid fire questions followed. Barely time to catch my breath, yet alone my composure, which crumbled when he asked me to describe a panic attack. Despite enduring possibly thousands of panic attacks, right there and then under this pressure my mind was a blank vacuum of emptiness. I just couldn't think and hot tears swelled in my eyes so I had to cover my face with my hands. My thoughts dried up, my throat constricted, my voice cracked and words would not come. He was perched on the end of the settee tapping his pen. I noticed him turn his wrist to look at his watch.
"Did I take medication?" I shook my head and told him, no. His scribbled with his pen and I hastily added that I didn't take medication because the side effects had been intolerable and in the past had made my condition significantly worse. I noticed that the pen didn't write this clarification down on paper.
"Did I ring the doctors myself?" I had to think for a moment, "sometimes" I said. I'm familiar with my GPs surgery and it's probably the one place on this earth that I'm not too afraid to ring. Had he asked if I rang the hairdressers, or the dentists, or the DWP, I would have said no, never, because I am too anxious.
"Do I go there by myself?" I do yes, because it's literally around the corner, takes less than a minute to reach by car and you can park right outside the door. "So you walk to the doctors yourself?" he enquired and started to write the answer down before I had started to speak. "No! I am taken there!" because I can't walk that far without panicking. Once again, his pen lay still in his hand.
Two sheets of A4 paper were completed, and with that he opened his briefcase, placed the forms inside and clipped it shut. He said that I didn't need to see him out, and with that, he was through the door and gone, leaving me huddled on the chair feeling stunned and bewildered, as if I'd just been violated in some way. It was over so quickly I didn't really know what to feel. Certainly I was relieved that it was done and dusted, but if that was a credible and fair assessment to reflect a fifteen year history of a crippling mental health condition, I am very worried. I have no idea if he's read my detailed forms and the assessment was a mere formality, or if he's made up his mind already to find me fit to work.
Once the dreaded (white) envelope of doom arrives, you have exactly four weeks from the date it was issued to complete and return the ESA50 forms contained inside. What these forms fail to mention is that for each question you complete, you will awarded a set amount of points from zero to fifteen. You need at least 15 to "pass". However which way you finally get to the stage where you're given the benefit you are legally entitled to, be that as a direct result of the assessment, by a reconsideration of a fit to work decision, or at an independent tribunal, it is extremely disconcerting to feel that you have succeeded in "passing the exam" because someone with no medical training acknowledged the severity of your illness. It really does feel as if your illness is on trial.
How Atos will interpret your answers is something of a mystery. The questions are vague and ambiguous and perhaps in the majority of cases, bear no relation to the real life limitations to work your condition poses. People who are mostly housebound and need someone to support them to go outside cannot score enough points on that particular activity to be awarded the benefit. People who are not aggressive or violent every day, but only some days, cannot score enough points to be awarded the benefit. Okay, so there is a clause which states that if work will cause you or others harm there is some discretion in the decision making process. The problem in reality, is proving to them that is the case. In order to try and understand what was actually being asked of me, it took me almost the whole month to complete the few answers I believe might possibly be relevant to my mental health condition. It is a miserable experience, and utterly demoralising and soul destroying to have to go over and over the very worst aspects of your ill health. By the end of the process you're emotionally battered and more unwell than when you started.
Mark Hoban, the minister for Work and Pensions would have you think the reason why at least 40% of fit to work decisions are overturned at appeal is because additional medical evidence was presented to back up the claims. I challenge the minister to obtain his medical history within this narrow time frame and see if he can do it without having to pay. The maximum your GP surgery can charge for copying your medical records is £50, which is precisely the sum that I was charged. I contacted the GP surgery the day I received the forms. I was told to put my request in writing. That letter was delivered to them within hours. It took six weeks to get hold of some of the documents, but they had missed off everything from 2005 to date. That afternoon, I confess, I cried.
I hope that the clerk at the DWP who makes the final decision does read the two inches thick paper documentation to support my claim. Frankly, I couldn't flip a coin one way or the other to tell you what their decision will be. The major problem with the work capability assessment is that the outcome is so completely uncertain. People keep telling me that they have their fingers crossed. Some have their toes crossed for me too. Isn't that the point after all? No one can second guess what the decision will be. It's a test based not on facts, or evidence. It's more a game of chance which gambles with your sanity and your desperate need for support and a subsistence income. I wait anxiously to learn if they pull my ticket out of their tombola machine. Wish me luck?
If anyone is feeling alone and worried about their own assessment please contact Jane on twitter @WOWpetitionchat
There is an excellent interactive guide to the complex work capability assessment written by a specialist benefits advisor at http://ilegal.org.uk/thread/7049/mlinteractive-guide-completion-esa-50
If you would like to share your own experience please contact us. We will be delighted to hear from you.
Above all, we demand that this degrading and unfair assessment process is stopped as soon as possible. Please give your support by signing and sharing the petition...
...which is far from the reality of the work capability assessment. The face-to-face assessment has all the sensitivity of a blunt lump hammer bashed against your skull to knock the answers they demand right out of you with thumping great whacks. No moment is given to recover from your upset here my friends. Your time is their money.
The face-to-face assessment was scheduled to be done at my home because of the nature of my illness. It was a huge relief that they had accepted and believed my difficulties demanded it. My last assessment was just twelve months ago and despite having a long-term history of chronic anxiety conditions, more therapy than Ruby Wax (not possible) and a poor prognosis, following a fit to work decision and a battle, I was placed in the work related activity group. Thank the Holy Lord and mother nature herself that no one from the jobcentre has ever contacted me. I could not have coped if they had.
The Atos health care professional was not the person named on the letter. When he arrived my heart sank. It was the same man as last time. The same man who twisted and manipulated my answers and wrote a work of fiction about me on his report. I hadn't been expecting a fair or reasonable assessment however. At least this time I knew not to trust. I had been dreading it. Effectively two months had been wiped from my life with worry and stress. I couldn't think of anything else. The apprehension grabs you by the guts and twists them until you're curled up in a quivering foetal ball. I could barely function for fear of what was going to happen next. Suffice to say the night before sleep had eluded me. By the time he arrived in the morning I was ragged and a little bit delirious.
Ten whole minutes of rapid fire questions followed. Barely time to catch my breath, yet alone my composure, which crumbled when he asked me to describe a panic attack. Despite enduring possibly thousands of panic attacks, right there and then under this pressure my mind was a blank vacuum of emptiness. I just couldn't think and hot tears swelled in my eyes so I had to cover my face with my hands. My thoughts dried up, my throat constricted, my voice cracked and words would not come. He was perched on the end of the settee tapping his pen. I noticed him turn his wrist to look at his watch.
"Did I take medication?" I shook my head and told him, no. His scribbled with his pen and I hastily added that I didn't take medication because the side effects had been intolerable and in the past had made my condition significantly worse. I noticed that the pen didn't write this clarification down on paper.
"Did I ring the doctors myself?" I had to think for a moment, "sometimes" I said. I'm familiar with my GPs surgery and it's probably the one place on this earth that I'm not too afraid to ring. Had he asked if I rang the hairdressers, or the dentists, or the DWP, I would have said no, never, because I am too anxious.
"Do I go there by myself?" I do yes, because it's literally around the corner, takes less than a minute to reach by car and you can park right outside the door. "So you walk to the doctors yourself?" he enquired and started to write the answer down before I had started to speak. "No! I am taken there!" because I can't walk that far without panicking. Once again, his pen lay still in his hand.
Two sheets of A4 paper were completed, and with that he opened his briefcase, placed the forms inside and clipped it shut. He said that I didn't need to see him out, and with that, he was through the door and gone, leaving me huddled on the chair feeling stunned and bewildered, as if I'd just been violated in some way. It was over so quickly I didn't really know what to feel. Certainly I was relieved that it was done and dusted, but if that was a credible and fair assessment to reflect a fifteen year history of a crippling mental health condition, I am very worried. I have no idea if he's read my detailed forms and the assessment was a mere formality, or if he's made up his mind already to find me fit to work.
Once the dreaded (white) envelope of doom arrives, you have exactly four weeks from the date it was issued to complete and return the ESA50 forms contained inside. What these forms fail to mention is that for each question you complete, you will awarded a set amount of points from zero to fifteen. You need at least 15 to "pass". However which way you finally get to the stage where you're given the benefit you are legally entitled to, be that as a direct result of the assessment, by a reconsideration of a fit to work decision, or at an independent tribunal, it is extremely disconcerting to feel that you have succeeded in "passing the exam" because someone with no medical training acknowledged the severity of your illness. It really does feel as if your illness is on trial.
How Atos will interpret your answers is something of a mystery. The questions are vague and ambiguous and perhaps in the majority of cases, bear no relation to the real life limitations to work your condition poses. People who are mostly housebound and need someone to support them to go outside cannot score enough points on that particular activity to be awarded the benefit. People who are not aggressive or violent every day, but only some days, cannot score enough points to be awarded the benefit. Okay, so there is a clause which states that if work will cause you or others harm there is some discretion in the decision making process. The problem in reality, is proving to them that is the case. In order to try and understand what was actually being asked of me, it took me almost the whole month to complete the few answers I believe might possibly be relevant to my mental health condition. It is a miserable experience, and utterly demoralising and soul destroying to have to go over and over the very worst aspects of your ill health. By the end of the process you're emotionally battered and more unwell than when you started.
Mark Hoban, the minister for Work and Pensions would have you think the reason why at least 40% of fit to work decisions are overturned at appeal is because additional medical evidence was presented to back up the claims. I challenge the minister to obtain his medical history within this narrow time frame and see if he can do it without having to pay. The maximum your GP surgery can charge for copying your medical records is £50, which is precisely the sum that I was charged. I contacted the GP surgery the day I received the forms. I was told to put my request in writing. That letter was delivered to them within hours. It took six weeks to get hold of some of the documents, but they had missed off everything from 2005 to date. That afternoon, I confess, I cried.
I hope that the clerk at the DWP who makes the final decision does read the two inches thick paper documentation to support my claim. Frankly, I couldn't flip a coin one way or the other to tell you what their decision will be. The major problem with the work capability assessment is that the outcome is so completely uncertain. People keep telling me that they have their fingers crossed. Some have their toes crossed for me too. Isn't that the point after all? No one can second guess what the decision will be. It's a test based not on facts, or evidence. It's more a game of chance which gambles with your sanity and your desperate need for support and a subsistence income. I wait anxiously to learn if they pull my ticket out of their tombola machine. Wish me luck?
If anyone is feeling alone and worried about their own assessment please contact Jane on twitter @WOWpetitionchat
There is an excellent interactive guide to the complex work capability assessment written by a specialist benefits advisor at http://ilegal.org.uk/thread/7049/mlinteractive-guide-completion-esa-50
If you would like to share your own experience please contact us. We will be delighted to hear from you.
Above all, we demand that this degrading and unfair assessment process is stopped as soon as possible. Please give your support by signing and sharing the petition...
06/03/2013
ESA SOS - The Starting Gun
ESA SOS - An important post from @suey2y author of Diary of a Benefit Scrounger.
I've been collecting them for about 6 months and if there's any justice left at all, they will kill ESA once and for all.
They will totally change your perception of ESA and WCAs
We need a Spartacus 2 and as you all know, I've been sick as a dog.
Today is stage one. If you're in, please leave your Name and user name on twitter or Facebook (Feel free to only provide the latter if you like to keep your anonymity a little) and Constituency
There will be a task most days, so please keep watching my blog.
Today, I would like something very specific. What is the worst thing, for you about ESA/WCAs? I need you to simply leave a one line answer if possible, ie "1 Year Time Limit - It totally undermines any contributory principle"
The most popular of these "subjects" will make up every short section of the new report.
Share this post everywhere you can. This will be the start of our biggest fightback. EVERYONE will have to give this everything if it is to work. We need hundreds of responses to every request to make this a truly representative report from disabled people, by disabled people. The more join, the more powerful our voice and the more impact any final work will have.
What's more, by crowdsourcing our information and skills, believe me, we have 100 times the resources and ability of the DWP.
I have an awesome team in place - they produced #esaSOS in just 4 days. Hard though it will be, PLEASE, I'm still very weak and CAN'T read endless comments or pages and pages of Hansard or reports. Make this easy for me by keeping as close to the brief each day as you possibly can. I WILL cover everything, nothing will get missed. I'll ask the question you're itching to comment on, honest, but if we do it this way, I can delegate very much and empower you all to know exactly what we need.
Even a shadow of division will see us fail. This will need every group, every campaigner, every supporter, no matter how radical or moderate, how powerful or unknown, every journalist that has supported us, every politician who is fully signed up to our arguments.
If you have a prominent welfare/disability/political voice, website or other outlet, please cross post this from me.
So today, in the comment thread below please leave :
Name and social media name/s (or just the latter if more comfortable)
Constituency
The WORST thing for you about ESA/WCAs in one line.
****ESA is the most terrible failure of any developed nation for a very long time. The reasons are numerous and utterly undeniable. The government has failed to implement Harrington with any commitment and is actively increasing the rate at which vulnerable people face a failing and unfair test. We have engaged with a democratic process that has failed us at every stage. We have no choice left but to stop this ourselves. Over 100,000 people now face some kind of ESA assessment every MONTH. We can't afford to wait. ****
Enough is Enough.
From today, please use the hashtag #ESAendgame in all your tweets. We must build awareness and create an army or support and dissemination.
"Alone we Whisper, Together we Shout"
Leave your comments at Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
Please sign the petition http://wowpetition.com/
30/01/2013
Open Letter to Liam Byrne - Will Labour Protect Disabled People?
Pat's Petition is going to Westminster on the 6th February to meet with Shadow Work and Pensions Liam Byrne to find out what Labour will do to support sick and disabled people. WOW Petition was created to ensure that the work done by Pat's Petition will continue into the future and we have some points and questions for Labour to answer too.
An Open Letter to the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary
Dear Rt Hon Liam Byrne MP
The WOW Petition is a crowd-sourced grass roots campaign created and supported by disabled people, people with physical and mental health illness, care workers, carers and family members. We have come together because we are frightened. We have each been affected by the devastating consequences of the Welfare Reform Act and feel we are fighting for our lives.
We are determined to continue and build upon the achievements of Pat’s Petition. We are not satisfied that the government will understand or care about the consequences of the cuts and changes to benefits and services until a comprehensive impact assessment has been completed. We are aware of the Prime Minister’s intention to scrap impact and equality assessments. It is vital therefore, that a cumulative impact assessment is carried out with urgency.
Since the WOW Petition was launched on December 18th 2012, at the time of writing almost 18,000 people have supported us. We expect to reach the 100,000 target as we expand into new initiatives and the campaign grows.
Our petition has been championed by disabled actress and comedian Francesca Martinez. Francesca has spoken out publicly against the arbitrary cuts and the unfairness of disproportionately targeting the benefits sick and disabled people rely on. She has appeared on Newsnight and BBC This Week Programmes to voice her concerns. Baroness Grey-Thompson has also supported our campaign.
Sick and disabled people do not understand why the government wishes to wage a “war on welfare” against them. People who are genuinely too sick to work have been cruelly labelled as “feckless” and “scroungers” by government ministers. Welfare statistics have, we believe, been purposefully misrepresented, and the tabloid media has chosen to wage a campaign of misinformation and misleading stories about the level of welfare fraud. This in turn has altered public perceptions of disabled people and hardened attitudes towards benefit claimants.
Where is the sense in forcing people suffering with long-term and chronic conditions onto a depressed employment market where eight people on average are fighting for every job? People with mental health problems find it especially difficult to overcome employment discrimination and to establish themselves in work even when the economy is buoyant. The greater cruelty is that many of these people will not have access to treatment or therapy.
Sick and disabled people do want to work, but the Work Capability Assessment completely fails to recognise their limitations or how they can realistically function in the workplace. The consequences of forcing people to look for work and mandatory Work Related Activity under threat of losing income could cause illness to deteriorate and place a further burden on stretched NHS and mental health services. Sick and disabled people can and do make huge contributions to society. This does not have to be purely based on their ability to make money. Voluntary work and caring is vital for the economy but isn’t paid. For some “making work pay” will not improve their life chances, opportunities and finances. These people deserve to be better supported.
The third ‘Harrington Report’ revealed that just 9% of people expected to recover within twelve months had found work eighteen months later. The support to get people back to work isn’t working. Less than 1.5% of disabled people referred to the Work Programme had found employment.
We are certain that you are already aware of the failings of the fitness to work test, and the increasing numbers of recorded deaths resulting from the loss of income and stress. The fear of the Atos envelope landing on the doorstep is real. When people know that they are not going to have a fair and honest assessment that takes the opinions of their doctors and consultants into account they feel frustrated, helpless and terrified.
Over 330,000 people have been forced to appeal a decision they believe to be wrong. 40% of these are overturned, rising to 70-80% with specialist advice. The government is removing legal aid to make obtaining legal advice at the tribunal stage even more difficult, and we can only presume that it is a cynical attempt to deter people from appealing rather than fixing a broken system.
Under clause 99 of the Welfare Reform Act sick people could be forced onto Jobseekers Allowance whilst potentially waiting many months for the DWP to reconsider a challenge to a decision. These changes are going to have a huge impact on people’s lives. It is insufficient and dismissive of government ministers to blame Labour for introducing Employment and Support Allowance and to complain that they have inherited a flawed assessment process. This is an unacceptable defence for a serious failure.
We want a reassurance that the current fitness to work test will be scrapped and replaced with a credible medical assessment carried out by medical professionals who are allowed to apply their discretionary judgement based on their medical expertise. People feel they are being ‘tricked’ by confusing forms, tick box assessments and an impossibly narrow set of descriptors which excludes severe and enduring illness from the support group. Assessment recordings should be made available to all who request them to reassure people that the face to face tests are above-board.
People will and do work when they are well and able and appropriately supported. Battling illness and battling the current benefits system for some, unfortunately, is simply too much to cope with.
Universal Credit is yet an untested system of delivering benefits but the uncertainty surrounding it is causing a great deal of worry and confusion. Contributory ESA is excluded but the means tested component is not. Some people receive an element of both.
Hundreds of thousands of sick people have lost and will lose all of their Employment and Support Allowance after 365 days because they have a working partner, regardless of whether they are recovered or not. This arbitrary cut is penalising working families and proves that the government’s aim was to cut the budget and not to support sick people back to work. Without access to specialist employment advice they will be further excluded and isolated from the workplace.
We learn that in Merseyside alone the cost of the new “bedroom tax” to social tenants will be £16 million annually. What is most disturbing is that three-quarters of the households include a disabled person. Depending on the locality some people will be asked to pay council tax from their disability benefit incomes.
The government promised vulnerable people that “they had nothing to fear” and that “disability benefits are being protected” but Coalition MPs voted to cap the annual benefit rise of Employment and Support Allowance at 1%. This also includes the support group as only the disability premium is excluded from the cap. With food prices expected to rise above 5% this year sick and disabled people will struggle to buy the basic necessities. Many, including households with disabled children, are already having to cancel hospital appointments due to transport costs, take out loans to buy essentials and are choosing whether to heat their homes or buy groceries.
Local authorities are being forced to cut back massively on the care and support services they deliver to vulnerable people. The charity Scope report a funding gap of £1.2billion for adult social care. 40% of disabled people who require care are saying that their basic needs are not being met.
Disability living allowance is being replaced by the personal independence payment and the ‘goalposts’ are being moved so that by 2018, 600,000 fewer disabled people will be entitled to the benefit as would have received DLA. This is another arbitrary cut as changing the eligibility will not change the disability. Just because someone is ‘less disabled’ than another doesn’t mean that they don’t require the additional support to allow them to stay in work, maintain their dignity, be independent and have an equal chance in life as their peers. 100,000 disabled people are expecting to lose their mobility vehicles because they can move a mere 20 metres. Not even the length of the Commons floor. How is this “supporting disabled people”?
The cumulative impact of these cuts and changes, inadequate social care, along with many others such as the cuts to Children’s Disability Premiums under Universal Credit, the scrapping of Independent Living Fund for disabled adults who live alone, closure of day-care centres, degradation of mental health services, NHS services, amongst others, is too much to bear.
We would like to thank you for considering our concerns and we look forward to your response. Our hope is that we can co-operate together for a better and fairer future for all sick and disabled people in the UK.
The WOW petition team
email info@wowpetition.com
website www.wowpetition.com
The Petition
An Open Letter to the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary
Dear Rt Hon Liam Byrne MP
The WOW Petition is a crowd-sourced grass roots campaign created and supported by disabled people, people with physical and mental health illness, care workers, carers and family members. We have come together because we are frightened. We have each been affected by the devastating consequences of the Welfare Reform Act and feel we are fighting for our lives.
We are determined to continue and build upon the achievements of Pat’s Petition. We are not satisfied that the government will understand or care about the consequences of the cuts and changes to benefits and services until a comprehensive impact assessment has been completed. We are aware of the Prime Minister’s intention to scrap impact and equality assessments. It is vital therefore, that a cumulative impact assessment is carried out with urgency.
Since the WOW Petition was launched on December 18th 2012, at the time of writing almost 18,000 people have supported us. We expect to reach the 100,000 target as we expand into new initiatives and the campaign grows.
Our petition has been championed by disabled actress and comedian Francesca Martinez. Francesca has spoken out publicly against the arbitrary cuts and the unfairness of disproportionately targeting the benefits sick and disabled people rely on. She has appeared on Newsnight and BBC This Week Programmes to voice her concerns. Baroness Grey-Thompson has also supported our campaign.
Sick and disabled people do not understand why the government wishes to wage a “war on welfare” against them. People who are genuinely too sick to work have been cruelly labelled as “feckless” and “scroungers” by government ministers. Welfare statistics have, we believe, been purposefully misrepresented, and the tabloid media has chosen to wage a campaign of misinformation and misleading stories about the level of welfare fraud. This in turn has altered public perceptions of disabled people and hardened attitudes towards benefit claimants.
Where is the sense in forcing people suffering with long-term and chronic conditions onto a depressed employment market where eight people on average are fighting for every job? People with mental health problems find it especially difficult to overcome employment discrimination and to establish themselves in work even when the economy is buoyant. The greater cruelty is that many of these people will not have access to treatment or therapy.
Sick and disabled people do want to work, but the Work Capability Assessment completely fails to recognise their limitations or how they can realistically function in the workplace. The consequences of forcing people to look for work and mandatory Work Related Activity under threat of losing income could cause illness to deteriorate and place a further burden on stretched NHS and mental health services. Sick and disabled people can and do make huge contributions to society. This does not have to be purely based on their ability to make money. Voluntary work and caring is vital for the economy but isn’t paid. For some “making work pay” will not improve their life chances, opportunities and finances. These people deserve to be better supported.
The third ‘Harrington Report’ revealed that just 9% of people expected to recover within twelve months had found work eighteen months later. The support to get people back to work isn’t working. Less than 1.5% of disabled people referred to the Work Programme had found employment.
We are certain that you are already aware of the failings of the fitness to work test, and the increasing numbers of recorded deaths resulting from the loss of income and stress. The fear of the Atos envelope landing on the doorstep is real. When people know that they are not going to have a fair and honest assessment that takes the opinions of their doctors and consultants into account they feel frustrated, helpless and terrified.
Over 330,000 people have been forced to appeal a decision they believe to be wrong. 40% of these are overturned, rising to 70-80% with specialist advice. The government is removing legal aid to make obtaining legal advice at the tribunal stage even more difficult, and we can only presume that it is a cynical attempt to deter people from appealing rather than fixing a broken system.
Under clause 99 of the Welfare Reform Act sick people could be forced onto Jobseekers Allowance whilst potentially waiting many months for the DWP to reconsider a challenge to a decision. These changes are going to have a huge impact on people’s lives. It is insufficient and dismissive of government ministers to blame Labour for introducing Employment and Support Allowance and to complain that they have inherited a flawed assessment process. This is an unacceptable defence for a serious failure.
We want a reassurance that the current fitness to work test will be scrapped and replaced with a credible medical assessment carried out by medical professionals who are allowed to apply their discretionary judgement based on their medical expertise. People feel they are being ‘tricked’ by confusing forms, tick box assessments and an impossibly narrow set of descriptors which excludes severe and enduring illness from the support group. Assessment recordings should be made available to all who request them to reassure people that the face to face tests are above-board.
People will and do work when they are well and able and appropriately supported. Battling illness and battling the current benefits system for some, unfortunately, is simply too much to cope with.
Universal Credit is yet an untested system of delivering benefits but the uncertainty surrounding it is causing a great deal of worry and confusion. Contributory ESA is excluded but the means tested component is not. Some people receive an element of both.
Hundreds of thousands of sick people have lost and will lose all of their Employment and Support Allowance after 365 days because they have a working partner, regardless of whether they are recovered or not. This arbitrary cut is penalising working families and proves that the government’s aim was to cut the budget and not to support sick people back to work. Without access to specialist employment advice they will be further excluded and isolated from the workplace.
We learn that in Merseyside alone the cost of the new “bedroom tax” to social tenants will be £16 million annually. What is most disturbing is that three-quarters of the households include a disabled person. Depending on the locality some people will be asked to pay council tax from their disability benefit incomes.
The government promised vulnerable people that “they had nothing to fear” and that “disability benefits are being protected” but Coalition MPs voted to cap the annual benefit rise of Employment and Support Allowance at 1%. This also includes the support group as only the disability premium is excluded from the cap. With food prices expected to rise above 5% this year sick and disabled people will struggle to buy the basic necessities. Many, including households with disabled children, are already having to cancel hospital appointments due to transport costs, take out loans to buy essentials and are choosing whether to heat their homes or buy groceries.
Local authorities are being forced to cut back massively on the care and support services they deliver to vulnerable people. The charity Scope report a funding gap of £1.2billion for adult social care. 40% of disabled people who require care are saying that their basic needs are not being met.
Disability living allowance is being replaced by the personal independence payment and the ‘goalposts’ are being moved so that by 2018, 600,000 fewer disabled people will be entitled to the benefit as would have received DLA. This is another arbitrary cut as changing the eligibility will not change the disability. Just because someone is ‘less disabled’ than another doesn’t mean that they don’t require the additional support to allow them to stay in work, maintain their dignity, be independent and have an equal chance in life as their peers. 100,000 disabled people are expecting to lose their mobility vehicles because they can move a mere 20 metres. Not even the length of the Commons floor. How is this “supporting disabled people”?
The cumulative impact of these cuts and changes, inadequate social care, along with many others such as the cuts to Children’s Disability Premiums under Universal Credit, the scrapping of Independent Living Fund for disabled adults who live alone, closure of day-care centres, degradation of mental health services, NHS services, amongst others, is too much to bear.
- We would like to know how Labour intends to correct the injustices sick and disabled people are currently having to cope with under the policies implemented by the Coalition government?
- What reforms to the welfare system does Labour have planned?
- Will Labour scrap and replace the Work Capability Assessment with an objective and trustworthy medical test?
- How do you plan to support those disabled people who have lost work through the Remploy closures?
We would like to thank you for considering our concerns and we look forward to your response. Our hope is that we can co-operate together for a better and fairer future for all sick and disabled people in the UK.
The WOW petition team
email info@wowpetition.com
website www.wowpetition.com
The Petition
We
call for a Cumulative Impact Assessment of Welfare Reform, and a New
Deal for sick & disabled people based on their needs, abilities and
ambitions
Responsible department: Department for Work and Pensions
We call for:
A
Cumulative Impact Assessment of all cuts and changes affecting sick
& disabled people, their families and carers, and a free vote on
repeal of the Welfare Reform Act.
An immediate end to the Work Capability Assessment, as voted for by the British Medical Association.
Consultation
between the Depts of Health & Education to improve support into
work for sick & disabled people, and an end to forced work under
threat of sanctions for people on disability benefits.
An
Independent, Committee-Based Inquiry into Welfare Reform, covering but
not limited to: (1) Care home admission rises, daycare centres, access
to education for people with learning difficulties, universal mental
health treatments, Remploy closures; (2) DWP media links, the ATOS
contract, IT implementation of Universal Credit; (3) Human rights abuses
against disabled people, excess claimant deaths & the disregard of
medical evidence in decision making by ATOS, DWP & the Tribunal
Service.
19/01/2013
15,000 People Have Now Supported the WOW Petition
Since it was launched just five weeks ago, the WOW Petition has now exceeded...
15,000 signatures!
Thank you so much for supporting this vitally important petition. Please sign and share widely with everyone you know.
We need to reach 100,000 signatures urgently to call for a cumulative impact assessment of all the cuts and changes affecting sick and disabled people, their families and carers.
17/01/2013
Emotional MPs Discuss Anxiety and Hardship Caused by Work Capability Assessments
Atos told incontinent woman to ‘wear nappy’
Thousands of sick or disabled people have died after undergoing assessments to find out whether they were fit to work, the House of Commons was told today.
Atos, the firm contracted to conduct work capability assessment (WCA) tests for the Government, was condemned by MPs for “ruthlessly” pressurising sick and disabled people into returning to their jobs.
The debate was told of cases of people who had committed suicide after being stripped of their benefits under the process and of an incontinence sufferer who was told she could return to work wearing a nappy.
Former Labour minister Michael Meacher opened the debate saying that 1,300 people had died after being placed in the “work-related activity group”, for those currently too ill to be employed but expected to start preparing for an eventual return to work...
...Kevan Jones, a former Labour minister, said suicides of claimants who were found fit to work by Atos had been reported. “There are...a number of well-publicised cases where people have taken their own lives because of this system,” he said. “It is not too strong to say that this Coalition Government has blood on their hands for the deaths of those individuals.”
09/01/2013
Government Broke Its Promise to Protect Disability Benefits
You could be misled into believing that disabled people are protected from benefit cuts when Iain Duncan Smith said that "they had nothing to fear" and the Chancellor claimed that "we will support the vulnerable." However, today in Parliament MPs voted to cap Employment and Support Allowance which will be limited to a rise of just 1% for the next three years. In real terms this is a cut as the rise falls well below inflation.
This income based benefit is given to people who have been through the ordeal of the flawed Atos work capability assessment and have been found unfit to work. They are too ill to "make work pay". Around 500,000 sick and disabled people depend upon this essential benefit to pay for their most basic necessities. The work related activity group includes people with progressive and chronic physical and mental illnesses, diseases and disabilities. Their benefit will not rise above 1%. The government claims to have protected disabled people in the ESA support group. This higher premium benefit is more difficult to receive because of a restrictive and narrow set of criteria which excludes all but the most severely disabled and terminally ill with short life expectancies. On closer analysis however, this too is subject to the real terms cut. It is made up of a basic allowance of £71.00 which is now capped at 1% and the support group component of £34.05 which is exempt and will rise with inflation. Essentially a benefit cap of 1.4%. This brings the total number of sick and disabled people effected by the cut to just under one million. Let's be clear. The government are not protecting disabled people.
A rise of one per cent equates to approximately £1 per week. Or one loaf of bread. This week the managing director of Waitrose has warned that the price of basic food items could rise as much as five per cent in 2013, or even higher across the whole market. The cost of utilities is also set to rocket further. For someone already battling with illness, at home needing to heat the house throughout the day these costs are simply not affordable. Disabled people are being forced to choose between food and heat, some are cancelling hospital appointments because of transport costs. This, at the same time as the very richest people in the UK who are earning over £150,000 receive a 5% tax cut.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has calculated that the minimum amount a single working age person needs to participate in society is £16,400 a year, or an hourly pay of £8.38. The average wage in 2012 was £26,000. "A disabled person in the support group will receive £5,486 a year, or £15 per day. Less still for those who have work related conditions attached to the benefit who receive a daily amount of £14.12. Barely enough to survive yet alone participate equally in society. To suggest that it's unfair that benefits have risen with inflation when working incomes have not risen at the same rate misses the point entirely. There is no fair comparison to be made. Disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty and only a small loss of income can tip people with a sickness and disability into greater dependence on health and social care services.
This is yet another cut that disabled people were not anticipating. Since writing the WOW petition the government has attacked us yet again. This is why we ask for a cumulative impact assessment of ALL of the cuts that effect sick and disabled people. I urge you in your good conscience to please sign our petition so that the consequences of the cuts to benefits and the services they rely on can be fully recognised and hopefully, some of the damage may be undone.
The Benefits Uprating Bill. See how your MP voted. (scroll to the bottom of the link to find the list)
This income based benefit is given to people who have been through the ordeal of the flawed Atos work capability assessment and have been found unfit to work. They are too ill to "make work pay". Around 500,000 sick and disabled people depend upon this essential benefit to pay for their most basic necessities. The work related activity group includes people with progressive and chronic physical and mental illnesses, diseases and disabilities. Their benefit will not rise above 1%. The government claims to have protected disabled people in the ESA support group. This higher premium benefit is more difficult to receive because of a restrictive and narrow set of criteria which excludes all but the most severely disabled and terminally ill with short life expectancies. On closer analysis however, this too is subject to the real terms cut. It is made up of a basic allowance of £71.00 which is now capped at 1% and the support group component of £34.05 which is exempt and will rise with inflation. Essentially a benefit cap of 1.4%. This brings the total number of sick and disabled people effected by the cut to just under one million. Let's be clear. The government are not protecting disabled people.
A rise of one per cent equates to approximately £1 per week. Or one loaf of bread. This week the managing director of Waitrose has warned that the price of basic food items could rise as much as five per cent in 2013, or even higher across the whole market. The cost of utilities is also set to rocket further. For someone already battling with illness, at home needing to heat the house throughout the day these costs are simply not affordable. Disabled people are being forced to choose between food and heat, some are cancelling hospital appointments because of transport costs. This, at the same time as the very richest people in the UK who are earning over £150,000 receive a 5% tax cut.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has calculated that the minimum amount a single working age person needs to participate in society is £16,400 a year, or an hourly pay of £8.38. The average wage in 2012 was £26,000. "A disabled person in the support group will receive £5,486 a year, or £15 per day. Less still for those who have work related conditions attached to the benefit who receive a daily amount of £14.12. Barely enough to survive yet alone participate equally in society. To suggest that it's unfair that benefits have risen with inflation when working incomes have not risen at the same rate misses the point entirely. There is no fair comparison to be made. Disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty and only a small loss of income can tip people with a sickness and disability into greater dependence on health and social care services.
This is yet another cut that disabled people were not anticipating. Since writing the WOW petition the government has attacked us yet again. This is why we ask for a cumulative impact assessment of ALL of the cuts that effect sick and disabled people. I urge you in your good conscience to please sign our petition so that the consequences of the cuts to benefits and the services they rely on can be fully recognised and hopefully, some of the damage may be undone.
The Benefits Uprating Bill. See how your MP voted. (scroll to the bottom of the link to find the list)
07/01/2013
Song Of Life - Work Capability Assessments Cause Suffering
Work Capability Assessments cause suffering for the mentally ill
...It is a sobering statistic that 1 in 4 of us will experience a mental health problem in any given year. It is often quoted, but it is not a cliché; it is based on sound evidence obtained from several studies.
The impact of mental health problems are often exacerbated by the social and economic environment. Periodic hospitalisation may have impact on housing and jobs and on maintaining contacts in the community. All these problems can create instability. It is a time when help within the community can be of greatest benefit to maintain that stability. Financial problems can be acute because of periodic or long term inability to work. Financial help is a vital part of care in the community, enabling people with mental health problems to lead as stable life as possible.
The government should think again about the way in which WCA has been set up and is operating...
04/01/2013
Trapped in a Cycle of Work Capability Assessments and Appeals
Disability claimants pushed to the brink by 'faceless' benefits system
Charities express anger at near-continuous work assessments that patients with incurable conditions are forced to endure
His neurosurgeon's assessment is that he will find it "very difficult to return to any form of paid employment", a conclusion that Dalley, with some regret, views as accurate.
However, shortly before Christmas, Dalley had his third Atos work capability assessment in as many years. He points out that since 2009, he has been caught up in a near-continuous process of persuading benefits staff that he cannot work. He was twice ruled fit for work and he twice appealed against the decision at a tribunal, where judges on both occasions found him not capable of working and reinstated sickness benefits.
Charities have expressed anger at the number of people with long-term, incurable conditions who are caught in a similar cycle, being forced on repeated occasions to prove that they are not able to work, despite supplying medical evidence that indicates that their condition is permanent and will not improve.
Fact Check - Is spending on disability benefits being cut or going up?
"Across the UK, more than 1,000 people have died only months after being told to find work." Ian Lavery, PMQs, December 19, 2012
"What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that the actual money that we are putting into disability benefits over the coming years is going up, not down." David Cameron, PMQs, December 19, 2012
Back in April this year, Full Fact factchecked the claim that over 1,000 people had died after being enrolled in the government's Work-Related Activity Group (WRAG). The claim advanced yesterday by Ian Lavery at the House of Commons first appeared on the Daily Mail as a result of a Freedom of Information (FoI) request sent by the Daily Mirror to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). The articles stated that between January and August 2011, 1,100 claimants died after they were placed in the WRAG following their assessment.
However, Full Fact concluded that being placed in the Work-Related Activity Group is not the same as being found "fit for work" given that the DWP makes clear that in the WRAG "the claimant’s capability for work is limited by their physical or mental condition and it is not reasonable to require them to work."
In response to Ian Lavery raising this issue during PMQs, the Prime Minister said that "the actual money that we are putting into disability benefits over the coming years is going up, not down."
Are disability benefits really increasing?
"What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that the actual money that we are putting into disability benefits over the coming years is going up, not down." David Cameron, PMQs, December 19, 2012
Back in April this year, Full Fact factchecked the claim that over 1,000 people had died after being enrolled in the government's Work-Related Activity Group (WRAG). The claim advanced yesterday by Ian Lavery at the House of Commons first appeared on the Daily Mail as a result of a Freedom of Information (FoI) request sent by the Daily Mirror to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). The articles stated that between January and August 2011, 1,100 claimants died after they were placed in the WRAG following their assessment.
However, Full Fact concluded that being placed in the Work-Related Activity Group is not the same as being found "fit for work" given that the DWP makes clear that in the WRAG "the claimant’s capability for work is limited by their physical or mental condition and it is not reasonable to require them to work."
In response to Ian Lavery raising this issue during PMQs, the Prime Minister said that "the actual money that we are putting into disability benefits over the coming years is going up, not down."
Are disability benefits really increasing?
02/01/2013
How and Why The WOW Petition Started
We are an ever increasing group of ordinary people who are sick, disabled, carers, and the parents of disabled children, who all feel driven to act against the extraordinary pressure placed upon us by the UK coalition government's ideologically driven Welfare Reform Act.
The petition was the result of a democratic process. It did not come from one person, rather it evolved from the desperation of many. Together we asked anyone who was concerned about the impact of welfare reform to share ideas and suggestions. Some of them created draft petitions and together we worked on and amended them until they satisfied the needs and wants of the majority as best we could within the limitations of the e-petitions website. There was a vote and a winner was chosen. Actress and comedian Francesca Martinez supported our campaign and submitted the petition on behalf of all UK sick and disabled people.
The fitness to work test is not fit for purpose. The British Medical Association which represents GPs voted unanimously for it's immediate end because it is so detrimental to the health and well being of their patients. Those people who have worked and paid National Insurance contributions are having all of their benefits stopped after just 365 days because they have small savings or a partner who may only work part time. Many who have been through the flawed assessment process have long-term or debilitating conditions that will deteriorate and cannot be cured. They are being left high and dry without a penny in financial support and with no support to help them back to work. It's clear that the government has no intention of supporting those people towards re-employment. The result is that they are yet further isolated and removed from the work place. People are saying they feel like a burden on their families, that it's unfair when they've worked and paid their insurance contributions to support them in times of hardship, in some cases, for many decades.
People with mental health conditions find it especially difficult to endure the fitness to work test and many are being refused the benefit. We understand that three quarters of them will not have access to any form of treatment, and it's unsuccessful in three quarters of cases. To have to endure this harsh assessment year after year after year, only to be repeatedly found fit to work and go through the back logged appeals process cycle, is too stressful for some. People have committed suicide. There is a sense of fear from everyone. In April legal aid will be stopped. Even now it's exceedingly difficult to find a specialist welfare adviser. We know that professional advice helps people overturn wrongful decisions. This all coincides with the implementation of the new benefit Universal Credit and the change over from Disability Living Allowance to the new Personal Independence Payments. 500,000 are expected to lose their disability benefit, and with it their independence and dignity. People are saying that they will lose their mobility cars if they can move just 20 metres. Without their specially adapted cars they won't be able to leave their homes, attend hospital appointments and contribute to society at all.
If we can reach a hundred thousand signatures it would signify powerful public dissent which the media should pay attention to and ask the government why they won't. We will continue to correspond with backbench committee MPs and media and hope to make it general knowledge that government policy was forced through and not based on evidence, not supported by sick and disabled people and is causing immense suffering. This is a moral and human rights issue at heart.
Anyone can become sick or disabled without a moment's notice, and they do. Turn away and one day, you may find that these cuts are falling not only on us, but on you and your family.
I've
never felt so worried about my future or so completely insecure as I currently do.
That's why I supported the petition. Will you?
The petition was the result of a democratic process. It did not come from one person, rather it evolved from the desperation of many. Together we asked anyone who was concerned about the impact of welfare reform to share ideas and suggestions. Some of them created draft petitions and together we worked on and amended them until they satisfied the needs and wants of the majority as best we could within the limitations of the e-petitions website. There was a vote and a winner was chosen. Actress and comedian Francesca Martinez supported our campaign and submitted the petition on behalf of all UK sick and disabled people.
Another petition, called Pat's Petition after Pat Onions who is blind, and a carer, attempted to reach the 100,000 signatures required to potentially trigger a debate in the House of Commons. It was hugely successful and achieved just under 63,000 signatures with no funding or publicity. The deadline was drawing near and on social media an increasing sense of excitement. The target was in reach, but there was also a fear, that the pressing concerns of sick and
disabled people would be fobbed off or flippantly dismissed. If
Pat's Petition didn't succeed we had to do something to help ourselves
and within our limited means. It mattered that ordinary members of the public
cared and took notice. In fact the success of Pat's Petition has lead to an upcoming Opposition Day Debate and MPs will have to discuss the impact some the cuts to benefits and services are having on disabled people's daily lives.
We feel threatened by further welfare cuts since Pat's Petition ended. We dread the latest hate mongering headlines towards welfare claimants in the tabloid press, which invariably means the government is attempting to convince the public that it can target welfare claimants yet again for further cuts, conditions and sanctions to their essential social security. We again call for a Cumulative
Impact Assessment of all of the changes and cuts to benefits and
services before it is too late.
We
are sharing our stories with other sick and disabled people who are
finding their quality of life is being severely degraded. Sick and disabled people do want to work but the truth of the matter is, there is a woeful lack of real opportunity to fulfil our potential. People with illness and mental health problems are stigmatised and discriminated against by employers. When they do seek work that they feel they can cope with they discover the reality is that no one wants to employ them. Even during periods of economic growth employment opportunties are in short supply. To force these people into an overcrowded job market with the intention of 'helping them' is an ideological idea doomed to failure. The work
programme is not a viable solution for sick and disabled people. It begs the question, if the government are prepared to pay private companies to find placements for disabled people, why are they shutting the Remploy factories down where disabled people had permanent jobs? Only recently, a law was introduced which allows jobcentre staff with no medical training to force sick people to sign up for the work programme under the
threat of losing their benefits. These people have already undergone the
harsh work capability assessment. Even Atos has determined that they are not
fit to work. Can the government be so certain that their health will not deteriorate
even further as a result of being made to work? Is this fair treatment for a sickness benefit? We are afraid that ESA is becoming too much like jobseekers
allowance. We are sick, battling pain, exhaustion, chronic illness and mental distress on a daily basis. We feel we are now being vilified and punished too. We are not too lazy to
work.
The majority of cuts have not yet been implemented. Sick and disabled people who cannot work to increase their incomes will not longer see their ESA rise with inflation when food and fuel costs will rise disproportionately higher than their benefits. The average wage according to the Daily Mail is £441 per week. That is quadruple the amount that sick and disabled people receive in benefit income. We are not "scroungers". No one would choose a life of poverty and illness if the choice was theirs to make.
Some people are now saying they have letters from their local councils. That they are having to pay council tax from their benefit income and they may also be hit by the charge for having an additional room. They cannot afford this extra payment but there is nowhere suitable for them to move to, and that to do so would move them away from family and carers and support networks.
The majority of cuts have not yet been implemented. Sick and disabled people who cannot work to increase their incomes will not longer see their ESA rise with inflation when food and fuel costs will rise disproportionately higher than their benefits. The average wage according to the Daily Mail is £441 per week. That is quadruple the amount that sick and disabled people receive in benefit income. We are not "scroungers". No one would choose a life of poverty and illness if the choice was theirs to make.
Some people are now saying they have letters from their local councils. That they are having to pay council tax from their benefit income and they may also be hit by the charge for having an additional room. They cannot afford this extra payment but there is nowhere suitable for them to move to, and that to do so would move them away from family and carers and support networks.
The fitness to work test is not fit for purpose. The British Medical Association which represents GPs voted unanimously for it's immediate end because it is so detrimental to the health and well being of their patients. Those people who have worked and paid National Insurance contributions are having all of their benefits stopped after just 365 days because they have small savings or a partner who may only work part time. Many who have been through the flawed assessment process have long-term or debilitating conditions that will deteriorate and cannot be cured. They are being left high and dry without a penny in financial support and with no support to help them back to work. It's clear that the government has no intention of supporting those people towards re-employment. The result is that they are yet further isolated and removed from the work place. People are saying they feel like a burden on their families, that it's unfair when they've worked and paid their insurance contributions to support them in times of hardship, in some cases, for many decades.
People with mental health conditions find it especially difficult to endure the fitness to work test and many are being refused the benefit. We understand that three quarters of them will not have access to any form of treatment, and it's unsuccessful in three quarters of cases. To have to endure this harsh assessment year after year after year, only to be repeatedly found fit to work and go through the back logged appeals process cycle, is too stressful for some. People have committed suicide. There is a sense of fear from everyone. In April legal aid will be stopped. Even now it's exceedingly difficult to find a specialist welfare adviser. We know that professional advice helps people overturn wrongful decisions. This all coincides with the implementation of the new benefit Universal Credit and the change over from Disability Living Allowance to the new Personal Independence Payments. 500,000 are expected to lose their disability benefit, and with it their independence and dignity. People are saying that they will lose their mobility cars if they can move just 20 metres. Without their specially adapted cars they won't be able to leave their homes, attend hospital appointments and contribute to society at all.
Too many cuts and changes are happening at once. Those mentioned are but a few of the better known benefit cuts. It is quite overwhelming and everybody is terrified.
People on twitter are actually reporting deaths and suicides. It's
heartbreaking. Some, that close members of their families are having to
go into care homes because their care is said to be too expensive. These are people with wives and husbands, and children.
Who will listen? Who will
help us?
If we can reach a hundred thousand signatures it would signify powerful public dissent which the media should pay attention to and ask the government why they won't. We will continue to correspond with backbench committee MPs and media and hope to make it general knowledge that government policy was forced through and not based on evidence, not supported by sick and disabled people and is causing immense suffering. This is a moral and human rights issue at heart.
Anyone can become sick or disabled without a moment's notice, and they do. Turn away and one day, you may find that these cuts are falling not only on us, but on you and your family.
01/01/2013
Stop the War on Welfare
On Tuesday the 18th December 2012 UK disabled and sick people, people with learning and mental
health difficulties, their families and carers launched a petition
calling for an end to the "war on welfare" being waged by their own
government.
The welfare budget, and particularly benefits going to sick and disabled people, has been heavily and unfairly targeted for cuts. It is said we can no longer afford the current welfare state. In reality however, as a percentage of GDP, the welfare budget is now lower than it was at any time during the eighties. While at the same time the combined wealth of Britain's 1,000 richest people increased by almost 5% to over £414bn.
In order to resist the government's cruel and failing welfare policies, sick and disabled people, together with their carers, families and friends, have combined using social media to produce the #WOWpetition. This calls for an end to the War on Welfare. Spearheaded by actress and comedian Francesca Martinez the WOW petition aims to get 100,000 signatures to end this War On Welfare by the government. We will be calling for a Cumulative Impact Assessment, an independent inquiry and if necessary, the repeal of the Welfare Reform Act of 2012.
We believe that every single person in the country has a reason to resist the War on Welfare. Some of us may be fortunate enough not to need the safety net our Welfare State provides, but this could all change for any one of us, tomorrow. It only takes an accident or a shock diagnosis to render us ill or disabled, and dependent on a system of benefits and services which is currently being dismantled.
The ‘Greatest Generation’ fought WWII believing they had secured this safety net for themselves, their children and generations to come. Don't let it go without a fight! We owe it to them. We owe it to ourselves to ensure a decent and dignified life for all who are sick and disabled, and to provide security for all our futures. The deaths of disabled people linked to the Welfare Reform Act and the Work Capability Assessment administered on behalf of the Government by the private corporation Atos are reported in the press with alarming regularity. We believe that in any humane society the Government would want to know if one of their flagship policies was in any way responsible for a ‘slow genocide’ of the sick and disabled. Please join Francesca and the WOW campaign in resisting the deaths and unnecessary suffering being caused.
SIGN THE WOW PETITION
The welfare budget, and particularly benefits going to sick and disabled people, has been heavily and unfairly targeted for cuts. It is said we can no longer afford the current welfare state. In reality however, as a percentage of GDP, the welfare budget is now lower than it was at any time during the eighties. While at the same time the combined wealth of Britain's 1,000 richest people increased by almost 5% to over £414bn.
In order to resist the government's cruel and failing welfare policies, sick and disabled people, together with their carers, families and friends, have combined using social media to produce the #WOWpetition. This calls for an end to the War on Welfare. Spearheaded by actress and comedian Francesca Martinez the WOW petition aims to get 100,000 signatures to end this War On Welfare by the government. We will be calling for a Cumulative Impact Assessment, an independent inquiry and if necessary, the repeal of the Welfare Reform Act of 2012.
We believe that every single person in the country has a reason to resist the War on Welfare. Some of us may be fortunate enough not to need the safety net our Welfare State provides, but this could all change for any one of us, tomorrow. It only takes an accident or a shock diagnosis to render us ill or disabled, and dependent on a system of benefits and services which is currently being dismantled.
The ‘Greatest Generation’ fought WWII believing they had secured this safety net for themselves, their children and generations to come. Don't let it go without a fight! We owe it to them. We owe it to ourselves to ensure a decent and dignified life for all who are sick and disabled, and to provide security for all our futures. The deaths of disabled people linked to the Welfare Reform Act and the Work Capability Assessment administered on behalf of the Government by the private corporation Atos are reported in the press with alarming regularity. We believe that in any humane society the Government would want to know if one of their flagship policies was in any way responsible for a ‘slow genocide’ of the sick and disabled. Please join Francesca and the WOW campaign in resisting the deaths and unnecessary suffering being caused.
SIGN THE WOW PETITION
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