DWP Failing Vulnerable Groups - No Longer fit for purpose

[lewi]

The Department for Work and Pensions is broken it employs overpaid people with low emotional intelligence, this system is no longer fit for purpose.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...emos-thinktank

Amber Rudd’s department should be stripped of its responsibilities for “harder to help” groups such as the ill or disabled, a new report claims.

Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/news/dwp-should-...redit-failing/

Meanwhile...

More than 17,000 people have died while waiting to hear whether their claim for disability benefit had been successful, it has emerged.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a8727296.html

Conservative Austerity has caused 'social murder' declares university.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politi...urder-13785540

[andy1033]

Its disgusting, having gov pushing people to commit suicide, when there problems are not things they created.

No wonder, suicides went up in uk, with the internet, and the uk gov, being the heartless people they are.

No one should be pushed into a situation, where they think there only option is suicide, but lots of people including gov people, like trying to do this.

I am not saying what they do is easy, but when they actively out of sadistic thirst, try and destroy people and push them to suicide, its disgusting.

[lewi]

Personal Independence Payments probe ...

The welfare benefit replaced Disability Living Allowance in June 2016. Since then Public Services Ombudsman Marie Anderson has received a "significant" number of complaints. She said the proposed investigation would be the first under the Ombudsman's own initiative power, which allows for a probe when there is "suspicion of systematic maladministration".

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/n...-37735147.html

[lewi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Sn_7mi3tL4

[lewi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlCBiFbtqAI

Tory MP about to spend lots of taxpayers money on a tour that will show her the pains the poor endure.

Tory MP embarks on anti-austerity tour, Heidi Allen’s party. It is proving emotional. Visits to the poorest corners of Newcastle, Glasgow, Morecambe and Cornwall beckon, but they have started in London and Leicester,Heidi Allen admitted that her patience with her party’s acquiescence over the welfare cuts, which started under George Osborne and the universal credit system, now being rolled out by Theresa May, had reached breaking point.

“I have absolutely had enough,” Allen said, eyes reddening, in front of a group who spelled out how the reforms were turning the screw on some of the country’s poorest people. https://www.theguardian.com/society/...austerity-tour

[lewi]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...ts-study-shows

Mentally ill people more at risk of losing benefits, study shows. People with mental health conditions such as psychosis, anxiety and low mood are at far greater risk of having their benefits stopped than those with physical ailments, research shows. Benefits claimants who have a psychiatric condition are 2.4 times more likely than those with diabetes, back pain or epilepsy to lose their entitlement to disability living allowance.

A DWP spokesperson said: “One of the reasons we introduced PIP was to ensure that invisible and non-physical conditions were given the same parity as physical conditions. And that is why under PIP fives time more people with mental health conditions receive the highest possible support than under DLA.

[lewi]

Disabled people are going hungry being forced to use food banks, what about those who do not have family to help them back and forth to these food banks? God forbid but be aware people are only one accident away from being left disabled, leaving you exceptionally vulnerable to these abominations calling themselves politicians who decide your fate from that moment on.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...-social-fabric

Disabled people are going hungry. Tears are not enough.

Not since Margaret Thatcher have we seen such an all-out assault on our social fabric, nor one that has caused such harm.

This month it emerged that the rollout of PIP is costing the public purse £4bn more than ministers estimated, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility. This is the perversity of austerity: ministers have probably spent more trying to remove benefits from disabled people than it would have cost to give them the support they needed. Cut billions from disability, housing, in-work and child benefits, and deep poverty is the all-too-predictable consequence. Take the disability benefit system. The result of austerity has been a benefit system stacked against the claimant, where disabled people are re-evaluated by outsourced staff with next to no medical training, frequently falsely turned down for benefits, and then forced to battle the lengthy appeals process to get them back. Others, like Marie, are simply left to live in destitution without them.

With the Brexit crunch ahead, Britain is on the brink of significant change. But austerity surely requires just as much soul searching from the political class. Not since the era of Margaret Thatcher have we seen such an all-out assault on our social fabric, nor one that has caused such harm. The impetus on MPs like Allen now is not simply to bring attention to the damage of the last decade but to come to terms with what has brought us here. That requires a recommitment to the welfare state, and an economic redistribution in which those on the bottom rung are granted the dignity of a decent income, home and opportunities. At the very least, politicians must take responsibility for the crisis their policies have created. Tears alone will do little to help the disabled people now going hungry.

[lewi]

Lewell-Buck also called for an end of policies that have severely impacted disabled people and created a disability culture based on ‘downright cruelty’, and described the Work Capability Assessment that determines the level of Employment and Support Allowance disabled people receive as the ‘most damning policy of our time

https://rightsinfo.org/mp-rebukes-go...-and-disabled/

[lewi]

Cuts to disabled people's bus passes...

https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/...r-says-2452367

[lewi]

The DWP request all medical evidence to prove disabled people are actually what they say they are, disabled. With the need for xrays and often embarrassing information regarding mental health or operations or treatments the DWP have no issues breaking into the doctor patient confidentiality clause to suit their perverted needs but the question remains what do they do with your information once they obtain it? Auction anyone?

[lewi]

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.co...n-assessments/

Disabled activists are hoping to use a parliamentary meeting next month to persuade more MPs that action must be taken to prevent further deaths caused by the government’s much-criticised fitness for work test.

The First Do No Harm lobby on 13 February aims to expose the continued harm caused to disabled people by government social security reforms.

And it will focus on the repeated failure of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to ensure that the “further medical evidence” needed to demonstrate a disabled person’s eligibility for out-of-work disability benefits is always collected, particularly for claimants with mental health conditions.

Although the lobby has been organised by Labour’s Treasury and work and pensions teams, through shadow chancellor John McDonnell and shadow work and pensions secretary Margaret Greenwood, activists hope that MPs from all parties will attend. McDonnell told Disability News Service: “Disabled people have had enough of the continuing austerity, attacks and discrimination. “The lobby will brief on the plight of disabled people and lobby for reform to protect against this harm.”

The lobby is the result of campaigning by the disabled people’s grassroots group Black Triangle and other disabled activists. The aim is to push for the principle of “First Do No Harm” to be included in the benefits assessment process, through a framework that “treats disabled people with dignity and respect”.

John McArdle, co-founder of Black Triangle, said assessors working for government contractor Maximus are asking for further medical evidence “in far too few cases”. He said: “Time and time again, decisions on fitness for work are made without adequate medical evidence. That needs to be addressed by DWP ministers.

[lewi]

This seem to me all out war on the disabled, what a horrific system, it seems designed to silence and stamp out any voice that dare oppose.

The UK politicians have created a monsterous system and im sure they are all very proud watching it crush the weakest in society.

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.co...ed-protesters/

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is refusing to say which police forces have passed it video footage and other information about claimants of disability benefits who have taken part in anti-fracking and anti-austerity protests. DWP’s attempt to hide its links with police forces has caused fresh anger among activists, who have this week called on disabled people to complain to their MPs, as well as police forces and DWP itself.

They have also called for disabled people to support those activists affected by such police actions. There was widespread anger last month when Disability News Service (DNS) revealed that Lancashire police had admitted passing information to DWP about disabled people taking part in peaceful anti-fracking protests near Blackpool, in an apparent bid to have their disability benefits removed.

[lewi]

8,000 people have died within six months of being rejected for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) ... DWP Horror !

These vile assessors and the policy makers should be Jailed.

Financial abuse Murderers.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politi...after-13961046

6 FEB 2019

This should be front page news...

[lewi]

A step in the right direction, however having uneducated people looking at the information provided becomes a problem if they have to make decisions based on complex medical information on patients they simply do not understand. Plus unsure if it the information sending process is secure and not open to abuse from hackers.

It is part of the effort to streamline its data sharing with NHS organisations for the administration of health related benefits. The department has indicated that it wants to move away from manual processes to an automation of routine requests – for information such as diagnosed conditions and hospital stays – and a digital channel for the more ad hoc questions – such as how a condition affects a patient day-to-day.

https://www.ukauthority.com/articles...quest-process/

It has issued a procurement notice for support on an alpha and pre-beta project, aimed at giving its own agents quick access to verified medical information and making its processing as easy as possible for medical staff.

[lewi]

https://sputniknews.com/columnists/2...redit-scandal/

Iain Duncan Smith and the other chiefs who designed and implemented the welfare and service cuts should be criminally held to account for their crimes against society and the poor. For the billions of pounds overspent on his scheme he should be charged with criminal negligence and fraud. He has cost the public purse at least £13 billion and should be held to account for that. In every area where it has been piloted increased hardship, food bank reliance, rent arrears and despair has followed. In reality the smug and conceited mastermind of this disaster, former Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, should be arrested, charged with wilful deceit of the public and ordered to pay back the billions he has cost the taxpayer with his fanciful lies and distortions of reality.

Smith was in charge of the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) in 2012 when they estimated the administration costs of rolling out Universal Credit (UC) to be £2.2 billion. The ingenious idea was hatched from scheming and devious minds like Ian Duncan Smith who have never had to rely on social security benefits in their lives and don't have a clue what life on poverty and low income actually means. This absolute bam claimed he could easily live on £53 a week benefits until his £193 overnight hotel expenses claim charged to the public purse revealed £39 for his bloody breakfast alone. Some chance he could survive on £53 a week when he spends £39 on one breakfast. That would have left him with £14 for 6 days to live on. He is a rocket from a different universe to ordinary folk.

The claim for the above hotel stay and breakfast was apparently rejected by the Parliamentary authorities but Smith was the man who ushered in the Tory Bedroom Tax which was an Exocet missile aimed at the poorest families in society. Disabled families on housing benefit were penalised for having to use additional bedrooms to have carers stay with them or store essential equipment while large families were penalised if they did not make children share bedrooms. Only those on housing benefit were subjected to the bedroom tax. The billionaires and millionaires with hundreds of spare bedrooms were exempt as was the family with the biggest benefits bill in Britain, the Windsor family.

[elpressiedente]

These are natural issues when Socialism sets up to care for humans from cradle to grave.

Really nothing to see here. Move along and vote better next time.

[itsnotallrightjack]

The ingenious idea was hatched from scheming and devious minds like Ian Duncan Smith who have never had to rely on social security benefits in their lives and don't have a clue what life on poverty and low income actually means. This absolute bam claimed he could easily live on £53 a week benefits until his £193 overnight hotel expenses claim charged to the public purse revealed £39 for his bloody breakfast alone. Some chance he could survive on £53 a week when he spends £39 on one breakfast. That would have left him with £14 for 6 days to live on. He is a rocket from a different universe to ordinary folk.

Joe Average's breakfast: Aldi bread toast and boiled egg, cup of tea.
Ian Duncan Shit's breakfast: Quail's eggs, caviar, organic wholemeal toast, champagne, organic strawberries and whipped cream. Organic ground coffee.

How I'd love this git to be forced to live on UC for a year and have to go to a food bank and eat smart price pasta, rice and baked beans!

Disabled families on housing benefit were penalised for having to use additional bedrooms to have carers stay with them or store essential equipment while large families were penalised if they did not make children share bedrooms. Only those on housing benefit were subjected to the bedroom tax. The billionaires and millionaires with hundreds of spare bedrooms were exempt as was the family with the biggest benefits bill in Britain, the Windsor family.

I can see in the near future whole families squished into one bed flats sleeping 3 children in one bed like in the 19th century.

[lewi]

Incompetence or intended who knows anymore when dealing with these murderers ...

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.co...arding-policy/

The government’s “fitness for work” contractor appears to have no written policy on how to protect the safety of people claiming out-of-work disability benefits, despite years of evidence linking the assessment with deaths and serious harm. it emerged that ministers have omitted the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) from a new cross-government plan aimed at reducing suicides, despite ever-mounting evidence linking such deaths with the work capability assessment (WCA) and social security reforms.

Now a senior executive from Maximus appears to have admitted to a disabled campaigner that the company does not have a safeguarding policy, nearly four years after taking on the WCA contract, although it claims it is in the process of creating one. The admission came after the latest in a long series of serious safeguarding failures linked to the WCA process.This week, both Maximus and DWP did not deny that the company had no safeguarding policy. Maximus, which has a long history of incompetence, discrimination and alleged fraud in the US, would only insist that “any safeguarding issues which arise during an assessment are referred to the customer’s GP or the appropriate authorities”.

[lewi]

Government policies already seem to be aimed at assisting people to die by forcing them into the work, no need for secretive rooms with death workers.

https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2019/02/06...-living/<br />

Disabled people look to doctors to help us live, not to help us die, writes Jane Campbell Many terminally ill and disabled people oppose assisted suicide.

Not a single organisation of, or for, disabled people, or one representing people with long term health conditions has campaigned for assisted suicide to be legalised. We recognise that Section 2 of the Suicide Act 1961 provides essential protection for all suicidal people, including terminally ill and disabled people. If you believe that terminal illness or disability is sufficient reason to desire suicide what does it say about your perceptions of terminally ill and disabled people? Are we really so different from you? “But it’s not about you,” is the challenge we hear most frequently. Those seeking to change the law claim to do so only for patients deemed to be terminally ill, with strict criteria to be met before an assisted suicide can be considered.

Proponents of a change in the law believe that a line can be drawn between terminal illness and disability, that a binary test can be devised to decide who can have an assisted suicide and who cannot. Thus it becomes a treatment option for some, but not for others.

But terminal illness and disability do not exist in a vacuum. We all have views about them. Often these views include widely held perceptions involving loss, decline, and fear of the future. It is hard to be positive as a disabled person, especially when the media is full of stories of abuse, neglect, cut-backs, and overstretched resources. Even when medical and social care are at their best, our fear of the future remains.

Given this context, it is unsurprising that some patients develop suicidal thoughts, which perhaps will be endorsed by family, friends, and members of the medical team. A change in the law would thus permit the focus to switch from preserving life to ending life. It is harder to think of a more fundamental change in the doctor-patient relationship.

For disabled people this is profoundly worrying. We know that it can take years to adjust to illness and disability. A person’s outlook can be revolutionised with the right health and social care, but this can take years to put in place and remains elusive to many. Would it be right to grant an assisted suicide to someone who feels that they are a “bed blocker” and is tired of waiting for the right support?

We rely on the medical profession in our darkest hours. You seldom see us at our best. You often see us when we are in crisis. Yet we depend on you to do all that you can for us. Whether you admire us or pity us you do your utmost. Many of us, myself included, are alive now because of the skill of the medical profession, advances in drug treatments, and improved devices. We are immensely grateful. We want you to keep asking yourselves, “How can I improve this person’s health and quality of life?” Now is not the time to give up on us to vote neutral on assisted suicide.

Not Dead Yet UK is a UK based network that is part of a global alliance of disabled people who oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide.

[lewi]

People suffering from a range of conditions ranging from serious heart conditions to loss limbs are having mobility cars snatched away from them and sold in private auctions. The government hopes to save £2bn as a result of the switch from DLA to PIPs ....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35476904

Nearly 14,000 disabled people who rely on a specialist motoring allowance have had their cars taken away from them following government welfare changes. Figures seen by the BBC show almost half of those having to be reassessed for this support under the changes lost their Motability vehicle. Many had been adapted to meet their owners' needs and campaigners warn it could lead to a loss of independence. But the government says the new process is fairer and people can appeal.

More than 650,000 people currently use the Motability Scheme, which allows disabled people to lease a new car, scooter or powered wheelchair using their government-funded mobility allowance. The scheme also helps towards the cost of adaptations - such as a hoist for a wheelchair or hand controls - that the individual requires.Until recently, anyone receiving the highest rate of the "mobility component" of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) was eligible for the scheme. However, as part of Department for Work and Pensions welfare changes, the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) began replacing DLA.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a7678926.html

Under DLA, most people completed their own application form and did not have to reapply once entered into the scheme. With PIPs, everyone - new applicants and those already in receipt of DLA - will have to attend a face-to-face assessment by government-hired private companies, and only those scoring 12 points or more will qualify for support - currently £57.45 per week.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a7678926.html

Muscular Dystrophy UK says 900 cars are being taken away every week, as more people are rejected for PIP. More than 50,000 disabled people have had specially adapted cars and other vehicles taken away as they move over to a controversial new disability benefit, according to the charity that runs the scheme.

Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/news/benefit-cha...-adapted-cars/

Tens of thousands of disabled people have been forced to give up their adapted cars due to a change in how benefits are paid. Motability, a charity that provides cars for disabled people in exchange for their mobility benefits, says 75,000 have lost out under the switch from Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to the new Personal Independence Payment (PIP).