Disability benefits: PIPs should be for 'really disabled'

I hope these reforms are not retrospective. I was only awarded mine last month. Sort of thing they would do to ensure everything was 'fair'

I swear the tories would euthanise the disabled if they could get away with it.
 
Energize said:
They are always cutting the wrong benefits, instead of punishing disabled people they need to stop this whole child benefit nonsense where we throw money at people for having kids regardless of need. It's disgusting that people earning £50k can be getting child benefit but disabled people are getting money taken away,
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Could do with a cap on payments limited to two kids tbh... Means test it too so it only gets paid to the very poorest and start giving out contraception/family planning advice after their first kid.
 
Cromulent said:
Having suffered from many different mental health conditions I know how disabling they can be. I know PIP is for the extra expenses that disability causes people. But taking it away from people with certain mental health conditions isn't going to help them.
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I think it is fine to just give it to people who actual physical disabilities, most of the population will suffer from depression or anxiety at some points in their lives, I don't think it is a good enough reason to be receiving disability benefits and people with those conditions who are unemployed should be encouraged to find work.
 
dowie said:
I think it is fine to just give it to people who actual physical disabilities, most of the population will suffer from depression or anxiety at some points in their lives, I don't think it is a good enough reason to be receiving disability benefits and people with those conditions who are unemployed should be encouraged to find work.
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Spoken like someone who has never had a severe mental illness. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2011. For two years I was convinced that certain people were trying to kill me. That lead to me carrying around knives which got me put into hospital because I was a risk to myself or others. Working was just not an option in that case and the benefits were my only source of income. I'm better now and have set up two companies and have spent my time educating myself in comp sci and am just about to start learning about electronics.

Crippling anxiety and depression can also stop people from being able to work. Unfortunately both are looked down upon by the general population. It is not easy to get on disability benefits. You need a doctors note and supporting evidence plus you need to attend an interview with a government appointed health care professional who assess whether you really should be on the benefit. If you pass all of that I think it is fair to say that you should get the benefits.
 
Cromulent said:
Spoken like someone who has never had a severe mental illness. [...]
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I was talking about anxiety/depression, most people will experience one or both of those

Crippling anxiety and depression can also stop people from being able to work. Unfortunately both are looked down upon by the general population. It is not easy to get on disability benefits. You need a doctors note and supporting evidence plus you need to attend an interview with a government appointed health care professional who assess whether you really should be on the benefit. If you pass all of that I think it is fair to say that you should get the benefits.
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And you won't pass all that if they change these rules, which are fair enough IMO. We're still spending too much public money and we still need to reduce that spending where we can.
 
adolf hamster said:
You walk out of uni with £20k's worth of debt its understandable people dont want to end up doing a job they could have skipped uni for and not had the debt to pay off.
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Don't hit the earnings threshold and you don't have to. Going to university doesn't give you the right or entitlement to a well paid job.

Apart from medicine...
 
adolf hamster said:
You walk out of uni with £20k's worth of debt its understandable people dont want to end up doing a job they could have skipped uni for and not had the debt to pay off.
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probably best to figure out if your degree is going to help with that before spending 50k or so getting it
 
adolf hamster said:
You walk out of uni with £20k's worth of debt its understandable people dont want to end up doing a job they could have skipped uni for and not had the debt to pay off.
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Any job > no job.

If you are too stuck up to do a temp job between getting on your career ladder, then you don't deserve the benefits to help you get there.
 
dowie said:
I was talking about anxiety/depression, most people will experience one or both of those
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Most won't experience them to a clinical level though. Feeling anxious in a new situation is natural. Feeling so anxious you can't leave the house for weeks on end is not. Same with depression.

dowie said:
And you won't pass all that if they change these rules, which are fair enough IMO. We're still spending too much public money and we still need to reduce that spending where we can.
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I won't get into an argument over what they should cut to save money but targeting people with disabilities is a really poor way to save money.
 
Our eldest son was starved of oxygen during premature birth and is lifetime disabled with cerebral palsy. He was swapped from DLA to PIP last year and someone came to the house to interview him. He was awarded the highest level same as he had with DLA.
My beef is with the idiots running ESA. For the third time in three years he's being re-assessed by them involving a fifty mile round trip to convince their 'healthcare professional' that he hasn't made a miraculous recovery in the last 12 months. I presume they get paid every time they do an assessment, there's no other reason to keep going over the same thing every year.
 
Cromulent said:
Most won't experience them to a clinical level though.
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What do you mean by 'to a clinical level'?

You mean to the point where someone is housebound for months then probably not. But then again how people chose to deal with these conditions can have a big impact on how they progress.
 
dowie said:
What do you mean by 'to a clinical level'?

You mean to the point where someone is housebound for months then probably not. But then again how people chose to deal with these conditions can have a big impact on how they progress.
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Sorry clinical was the wrong word. I shouldn't have used that. What I should have said was an anxiety disorder. It isn't as simple as just being a bit anxious. There are more diagnostic criteria than that. But I do agree with you. It depends on how people act as to how they progress. Although it isn't as easy as people make out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety_disorder
 
dowie said:
I think it is fine to just give it to people who actual physical disabilities, most of the population will suffer from depression or anxiety at some points in their lives, I don't think it is a good enough reason to be receiving disability benefits and people with those conditions who are unemployed should be encouraged to find work.
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What an absurd statement. Most people do not experience a diagnosable mental health condition such as generalised anxiety disorder or panic disorder, both of which can leave someone unable to work, drive or potentially even go out and do general every day activities, trying to go back into work can greatly worsen these conditions. If someone is repeatedly incapacitated by panic attacks how on earth can you expect them to hold down a job?

There is an enormous difference between transient depression/anxiety as a result of environmental stress and a mental health disorder of the type disability benefits are paid for.
 
ron3003 said:
Our eldest son was starved of oxygen during premature birth and is lifetime disabled with cerebral palsy. He was swapped from DLA to PIP last year and someone came to the house to interview him. He was awarded the highest level same as he had with DLA.
My beef is with the idiots running ESA. For the third time in three years he's being re-assessed by them involving a fifty mile round trip to convince their 'healthcare professional' that he hasn't made a miraculous recovery in the last 12 months. I presume they get paid every time they do an assessment, there's no other reason to keep going over the same thing every year.
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I was awarded ESA in 2007 and have never been reassessed. I have a long term heart condition. I don't know how they decide who gets reassessed and who doesn't. It all seems very inconsistent. Anyway, I thought that they recently announced changes to reassessments of long term disabled.
 
Energize said:
What an absurd statement. Most people do not experience a diagnosable mental health condition such as generalised anxiety disorder or panic disorder, both of which can leave someone unable to work, drive or potentially even go out and do general every day activities, trying to go back into work can greatly worsen these conditions. If someone is repeatedly incapacitated by panic attacks how on earth can you expect them to hold down a job?

There is an enormous difference between transient depression/anxiety and a mental health disorder of the type disability benefits are paid for.
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Thank you for saying what I was unable to put into words.
 
Pawnless Endgame said:
That article covers physical disability and mental, but what about sensory loss? I get the lower rate for both care and mobility due to having 1 eye only, and about 10% sight left in that eye (-27 prescription.. so blind without it!) and hearing aids for severe hearing loss. I've not yet had the PIP letter, but it's only a matter of time. A friend who is on DLA for eyesight loss has had his PIP letter about 6 weeks ago.
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I help out at a charity shop locally & as well as a load from CS (Community Services) we get sent loads from the job centre that are either told flat out, or coerced, that they have to "volunteer" or lose their money (as if being on it wasn't depressing enough...).

We had one young woman pushed into coming in. She'd been refused at one charity because insurance wouldn't cover her. She's blind in one eye, 10-20% vision in the other eye. Also suffers from dizzy spells/passing out. Apparently she has to constantly keep proving she has these well documented problems over & over, it's ridiculous.

DWP/capita/atos don't care about people, they just want them off of the books or busy out of sight, so that each advisor can get their bonuses.
 
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