You think 'good times' should be funded by the tax payer?
Poll: The official I voted/election results thread
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You think 'good times' should be funded by the tax payer?
Soldato
By your Doctor, and then confirmed by an adjudication officer like it used to be, although I believe more stringent guidelines would have to be followed. In fact the money that goes to ATOS would be better invested into GP surgeries with extra staff to enable them to assess people for work capability and also provide a better care in general.
We never used to have to pay a large outside corporation millions to assess disability claims.
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Soldato
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That is part of the privatisation of everything. I expect more prisons and lots more Govt. offices. They sneaked news of a privatisation(GPSS) just before the election in an Energy bill. Now the UK relies on a foreign company(Spanish) to pipe fuel to military bases and airfields. When they have sold everything and still get a poor but expensive service such as the train fiasco what will they do then?
The problem is 'your doctor' is not independent. Their income depends on keeping their patients happy (GPs being private companies after all).
You need someone who is independent to do the assessments, not someone whose income depends on giving either party the answer they are hoping for.
we all know what answer the government was hoping for with each atos assessment.
It's more one sided than your average gp.
a lot of people don't even see the same gp everytime they book an appointment these days? I wouldn't say there's any loyalty other than to give an honest report
I agree that a GP really isn't the best person to make the assessment. They do not want a breakdown in relationship with a patient, not because somehow their income depends on it as Dolph would suggest, as that is simply not true. It does however make it very difficult to manage them if there is a conflict and the GP role is much more of a patients advocate. A GP is also not trained in occupational medicine and therefore doesn't have the training to actually assess their ability to do various work. Lastly and frankly most importantly a GP just doesn't have time to do this work. It's hard enough to see and deal with the work they do at present let alone dump another load of work on them.
doctors dont want to say no to thier patients though.
of all the people getting DLA or whatever its called now they don't have a real medical condition but they keep getting letters from the gp for "anxiety" etc.
so anxious they cant work, but perfectly fine going out drinking, going to house parties going out normally in the day time etc.
Soldato
You would think so. The idea is to cut DLA though, by X amount, regardless if that is actually possible or not without effecting genuinely sick/disabled people.
So it turns out the reason for Chukas dropping out of the leaders race was that he was too much of a champaign socialist even for the Labour party
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...r-bar-named-rattled-leadership-contender.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...r-bar-named-rattled-leadership-contender.html
Soldato
The political class is all the same these days surely? Not sure why anyone would expect anything different, they are all completely out of touch with how most people live.
Commissario
You would think so (at least for most conditions).
But given the DLA have managed to totally ignore multiple, very explicit and plainly worded letters from senior consultants in the past, I wouldn't like to bet on it being that simple.
My mother had her DLA removed (and not reinstated for over a year), because they couldn't read their own doctors notes and completely ignored several increasingly plainly worded letters from her consultant. IIRC her consultant couldn't believe that it had been removed given how obvious her problem was to even lay people, and anyone with reasonable medical training should have understood the medical terms (and was by all accounts very annoyed that they were ignoring the medical evidence). I've heard of a lot of similar cases since then.
It's also worth noting that there are some long term conditions that might make you unfit for work where there simply isn't a specific consultant in most areas, and if it's something they can't actively assist you with you may not see them very often, if ever.
There are some conditions like CFS/M.E. where it's known there is something wrong*, but the only real diagnosis at the moment is via elimination, and very little in the way of treatments that have actually been shown to work (and some that work in some cases but make it worse in others).
*IIRC in both groups of illness there are markers that appear to show up in very specific tests when done under research conditions (no quick and easy test, as one involves looking for specific proteins in spinal fluid and has so far only been used in initial research).
Caporegime
What's a Cognac locker?
A secure locker in a bar to store your half drunk £4k bottle of cognac for another day.
Don't confuse condition with ability to work, because ability to work depends as much on the individual as the condition. Likewise don't confuse a hospital consultant with an expert in occupational medicine.
Onr of the biggest problems with our welfare system's approach to disability is that it confuses the two, and fails to provide enough in work support to the disabled (or makes the system so complex and demeaning it isn't worth the hassle and grief of trying to claim) for those who work through their disabilities or make adaptations off their own back, and gives far more to people who don't work, many of whom could actually do so with the right support and a good employer, which has the effect of trapping people on benefits at a time when the benefits of work (socialisation, increased feeling of worth etc) would be significantly beneficial.
For the record, I am certainly not defending the current atos setup, but nor would I support a return to the even more trapping incapacity benefit.
Caporegime
Ah, a sensible anti-binge drinking measure then.
Well it looks bad when he's buying £4k bottles of cognac when he's banging on about food banks and "Cost of living crisis"
Soldato
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Caporegime
Well it looks bad when he's buying £4k bottles of cognac when he's banging on about food banks and "Cost of living crisis"
Agree, can't see it going down well in places like Barnsley.