Budget - tougher for DLA claimants

easy

sh1305 wrote: »

Not always:
How do you prove that you need constant supervision? How do you prove that you need reminders to do things such as changing clothes, getting dressed, etc?

Look, why panic about this?

2. We have no idea what form the e-assessment will take. You seem to assume that a decision will be made purely on the basis of a single meeting with a medic. I think it's very probable that medical history/social services reports etc will also be taken into account
2. it's 3 years away, and in political terms that's eons. The policy could be replaced by then any way
3. We might all be dead and buried by then.

Stop worrying. Live your life NOW.

Indie_Kid

easy wrote: »

Look, why panic about this?

2. We have no idea what form the e-assessment will take. You seem to assume that a decision will be made purely on the basis of a single meeting with a medic. I think it's very probable that medical history/social services reports etc will also be taken into account.

They don't do this with ESA - I seriously doubt they'll do that with DLA.

easy

sh1305 wrote: »

They don't do this with ESA - I seriously doubt they'll do that with DLA.

But they are very different benefits, for a very different purpose.

If you are so concerned, then why not write to Maria Miller, who is the Minister for Disabled People, and to the PM?

Indie_Kid

Doom_and_Gloom wrote: »

Ah yes I forgot about that. My dad regularly hooks up his computer to the TV screen even though his vision isn't that bad - his vision is fine for driving, as long as he wears his glasses, he just likes to use the net and play his games on a bigger screen :rotfl:.

I do this and it's so much easier!

Doom_and_Gloom

easy wrote: »

Exactly. There is technology out there to help with all sorts of disabilities. Thats what DLA is for, to cover the extra expenses that one incurs in over-coming one's difficulties.

Yes I agree this is what it is for. However these technologies/adaptations are usually very costly and take a long time to save up for. In the mean time you have to find other ways to do things normally. If these things break they costs a lot to repair/replace.

Hopefully these medicals will make it more obvious of the help people need but I can see some people being told they are fine even though they aren't. After all haven't they said that X% of people are going to be taken off of DLA? If that is the case I can see a lot of problems. They should have said they are looking to see if anyone is well enough to come off of DLA and how some may get their awards changed (up or down).

I do find it annoying though as it took 6 months of fighting for my DLA. I finally got it indefinitely to be told by the government that I'm going to have to go through a medical in 3/4 years anyway. I do however realise they can check at any time which is fair enough even though I'm unlikely to get any better when it comes to them doing so.

24skins

easy wrote: »

Those people who are screaming about having to be assessed by a medical professional are, to my mind, only worried because they are frightened of being 'found out'.

My son has severe autism - I'm concerned that he may have to go through a lengthy, confusing medical 'test' which may be to his detriment and, frankly a waste of time when he had the support of six medical professionals in his last DLA claim - that's all.

jenniewb

agal wrote: »

I found this on a disability website;

.........The clear intention of the government is to reduce expenditure by 20% via this policy, which suggests that a minority of current claimants are expected to lose their entitlement

*This* is what worries me, like someone already mentioned, it seems to say they already know how many people are apparently defrauding the system, yet they have no actual facts to back this up. What I think has happened here is they have decided to reduce the budget and instead of reducing the allowance for every fair claim (even if they did re-interview everyone and find a far smaller cut) they have just decided to swipe 20% from whomever they can regardless. This is what comes across. I see a doctor interviewing shy and complex strangers, some of who will be scammers and will have rehersed their lines many times over. I see the scammer with the full dictionary of (invented) health problems being awarded the allowance whilst the guy who is too shy to talk and too embarrassed by his condition to discuss with a total stranger being the one who loses out.

Fair?

BLT wrote: »

I confess to issues with this. If you can work and obtain a full time income and carry out a job as a surveyor then why should you get state support. Is the DLA means tested in the way that other state benefits are?

If an able bodied man and a disabled man are both doing the same job, then this implies that there is no need for a disability living allowance, presupposing there is no need for personal care.

Both require transport to work and have to buy cars, both have the same income, ergo there should be no entitlement to DLA.

I have a disability. I used to have a job, I liked my job. I had to lie to get my job as several years of admitting my mental health issues on paper saw me never get an interview. It was only when I lied and said I was fine but needed time off (actually to see my therapist, psychiatrist and CPN) for babysitting that I got my job.

I progressed to a better job some years later. I stupidly ticked the box that asked if they could contact my GP- I assumed it was if I had an electric shock or something. But what they did was ask for my medical records. They found out about my long term mental health condition. They discussed it with me and I explained it didn't interfere with my job. Funnily enough, less then a month later they announced staffing cuts due to the recession. I had my hours reduced and could not afford to live on those hours. I did try for a few months. I had another break down when my bills were just through the roof and I was unable to pay back people for things.

I had to leave my job. Gutted? yes, but it was made very clear to me that
1. Part time work is very difficult in London on minimum wage (if not impossible) if you live alone and have debts.
2. Disclosing your mental health condition will at best have you relegated to a pretty grim position (the one no one wants) and at worst have your CV Binned before its even been read.

Its all very well saying "all disabled people can and should work" but in reality few employers will allow this, few employers have patience for the bad days when the condition worsens and it is very hard to catch someone out when your health has declined to a level where you are either submerged in a mental health condition (in survival mode) or are just too low to care anymore.

easy wrote: »

As a long-term recipient of DLA (who also works), these proposals don't worry me at all.

I know that I am entitled to my DLA benefits, I know that any medical test I take will confirm that I am entitled to them. So what is to be frightened of?

Those people who are screaming about having to be assessed by a medical professional are, to my mind, only worried because they are frightened of being 'found out'.

I think the reason it worries me (and perhaps others?) is the degree of the cuts. I think alot of genuine claimants will be refused and alot of scammers will continue to get the allowance. Its like an interview of performance where if you fail in comparison to someone who has had a few 'run throughs' with their mate before hand, has had someone push them down the stairs to create a damaged leg, has taken too many pills to create disorientation or whatever other tricks they try, its easy to see how a false claimant will overide this. Seeing as this is how they make their cuts, this is where the problem lies. 20% is a minority yes, but its also a great many people. And I don't for a second think it will weed out the scammers at all.

I agree, something needs to be done yes, but I think an interview for anything other then a physical problem such as amputations or similar is a bad idea. They must be able to come up with something better then that! I'd even say to invite them to one of my appointments with my psychiatrist, therapist, cpn or mental health hospital and witness how things are there, to read my notes or to see the medical side of my history.

As far as I have been explained by my CPN when I made the claim, DLA is given to those in lower paid work as well as non working. I claimed when I was working a minimum wage part time job. (And yes unfortunetly it did pay more to be on benefits!). I had been honest and I was awarded an amount accordingly. I use that money to pay my therapy bills (the therapy the poorly funded NHS will not allow me as an eating disorder does not count as being sick enough).

I think there is alot of confusion over DLA as its Incapacity Benefit which apparently pays more and I would have thought is more likely to be abused.

easy

Doom_and_Gloom wrote: »

Hopefully these medicals will make it more obvious of the help people need but I can see some people being told they are fine even though they aren't. After all haven't they said that X% of people are going to be taken off of DLA? If that is the case I can see a lot of problems. They should have said they are looking to see if anyone is well enough to come off of DLA and how some may get their awards changed (up or down).

They have said they hope to save 20% on DLA. That could be achieved. We all know that there are folk on DLA who are not actually entitled to it. One of my husband's relatives was in receipt of HR DLA mobility (and I believe also a care component),because of a back problem a few years back. We went round to see them one day. He was lying under his son's car, fixing it (he had given up work as a mechanic, as his back gave him trouble). Got up pretty sharpish when we arrived. It transpired he had spent the previous 2 weeks laying a new patio (including carrying the slabs round to the back of the house etc).

Strangely enough, he lost his DLA a couple of months later, and within 3 months of that, he found a job (which he had apparently been in too much pain to do when his DLA money was coming in)

There are plenty of people cheating like that, as well as those who remain on HR when their condition does improve. The current system isn't adequate at weeding out those claimants.

jenniewb

easy wrote: »

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There are plenty of people cheating like that, as well as those who remain on HR when their condition does improve. The current system isn't adequate at weeding out those claimants.

Come on! If someone wants to cheat the system, they will fake a health problem. They will find a way. An interview with anything other then a bone scanner wont prove them wrong! An interview will only weed out the weaker members of society (and perhaps those most in need) from the strong!

Trialia

I am on morphine due to chronic pain. I have two chronic, incurable and intractable health conditions that, when taken together, cause me to be disabled. I am currently on an indefinite award of LRC and HRM - and it took several times of being run through the mill every year by the DWP to get this.

I am 24 and look healthy. I've learned to be pretty good at pretending I'm okay insofar as I can, but I am in a considerable amount of pain every day, even with the morphine (it's a trade-off between pain and the other problems the painkillers cause) and, if I exceed my known limits by the smallest amount, it gets worse. I also have cognitive processing issues that mean sometimes I can't even concentrate and sequence thought for long enough to make a sandwich - flippant comments about takeaways aside. (I have an IQ of 137, so you can probably imagine how galling it is to know my own mind is not completely under my control!)

I also have a form of bipolar disorder that took years to diagnose and is very difficult to treat (I'm a rapid-cycler), along with previously-mentioned hypermobility Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and secondary fibromyalgia. ATOS, in my previous experience with them, are pretty clueless about all of these conditions.

For example, they look at "hypermobility" and think I'm bendy and it's always a good thing. Clearly having done no research whatsoever on what the condition actually means. There is so little proper funding for (H)EDS research in this country, so the NHS are lousy about it too, but if they bothered to talk to any of the charities that deal with HMS and HEDS, they might know better. This is quoted from a pretty comprehensive article on HEDS by a doctor (MD and PhD) working with the University of Washington, Seattle.

Subluxations and dislocations are common; they may occur spontaneously or with minimal trauma and can be acutely painful. Degenerative joint disease is common. Chronic pain, distinct from that associated with acute dislocations or advanced osteoarthritis, is a serious complication of the condition and can be both physically and psychologically disabling.

Now compare that with the NHS website's initial paragraph on HMS:

Joint hypermobility means that some or all of the joints have an unusually large range of movement. Someone with hypermobility is particularly supple and able to move their limbs into positions that other people find impossible.

It's almost no wonder ATOS don't know what they're doing, if that's the only reference they use...

But back to the main topic of the thread. All my conditions are invisible, and took years to diagnose, and I have very few health professionals now treating me because they can't really do anything. That doesn't help with DLA, and so despite being a genuine claimant, I'm dreading another reassessment. Sometimes I think I'd rather kill myself first than go through that again, given how awful their usual behaviour makes me feel for months afterward... And I'm sure I'm not alone in that.