IDS - work is good for your health

Some work is good for your health. Some isn't. What's good for your health is being in control of your situation, and what's very bad for your health is being put under pressure whilst having no control.

www.amazon.co.uk/Status-Syndrome-Standing-Directly-Affects-ebook/dp/B007N3HEEM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1440405886&sr=8-1&keywords=marmot+status

Absolutely crun!

VQ, I dread going to the centre I help to run, all who use the centre have mental health illnesses , they depend on ESA and DLA , most don't have a carer . There will be mass panic , how much more can the vulnerable take from this vile government , I am in despair

I think getting the emotionally/mentally ill into some sort of work would be handled sensitively. Anyone with serious mental health problems would not be forced into work unsuitable for them.

I imagine depression and anxiety would be a fairly easy illness to feign by the lazy work-shy. We cannot afford to support those people.

The truly ill would have nothing to fear.

And for goodness sake, don't get your information from the Daily Mail.

Jingle, employers are not eager to employ people with mental illness , and you are so wrong to claim the truely ill have nothing to fear . It is not easy to feign mental illness , I suppose it is if one has a very stupid GP, CPN, Physciatrist and councillor, wonder how many attend surgeries who have all these

I agree with jingle there will always be those who are unable to work, but who would probably love to be able to do so, and there are those who will never work simply because it is not part of their make-up to do so. I think that everyone feels that those who are genuinely vulnerable need all the help they can get, but personally, I am a little tired of those who are able to work seem to find it difficult to do so. Yes, I know there is a shortage of jobs in some places, so there are exceptions to everything. There is no really easy answer to any of these problems.

Printmiss, can you explain how a person with a mental illness can deceive their mental health team ? Jingle thinks some can and do

The ones feigning illness will not have got as far as having a mental health team. Just a GP handing out pills and sick notes.

As I have already said, for the others it will be handled sensitively. The really ill will be cared for just as now.

Read the bloody posts properly ab.

I assure you to receive ESA one needs more than a doctors sick note jingle , and you are mistaken , many with mental illness are not handled sensitively by those who decide if they should receive ESA, it may make you feel comfortable believing it is so . In less than a year we have suffered the loss of two young people who were passed fit for work by the experts behind computers but with no medical knowledge who hanged themselves and a third who jumped in the river , that's how fit for work and sensitively treated they were . Must you be so aggressive jingle?

There used to be supported work placements for people with disabilities of all kinds - mental and physical. A great deal of that support has been withdrawn, as with many positive and preventive schemes.

I used to work for the Shaw Trust, who put into practice a government scheme to subsidise employers for employing disabled people. I believe it still exists, but I am not sure how it is funded now. I was employed to go around to the work places to talk to both employer and employee to make sure the placement was working well.

Many sick people are in a panic about the rules as regards benefits for those too unwell to work, especially those with mental health problems, as this is poorly understood. Their vulnerability to such stringent rules is huge - there will be suicides I doubt not.

I spent years working on the DSS to change the rules about what was then DLA, as people with head injuries who had subtle and not obvious disabilities were being denied benefit. They could not work because of problems such as memory, sequencing (e.g. putting your pants on before your trousers), concentration etc. - all things that made them unemployable. They did in the end change the rules - but it is these sorts of people with hidden disabilities who will find themselves in trouble.

If work is good for us, then we need to find ways of supporting and subsidising work for those who are sick and disabled.

Luckygirl, I really fear the harm this will do to those who do not have visible disabilities

However many suicides there are will not be known as IDS is trying to fix the figures at the moment for people who have died whilst being sanctioned.

voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/08/24/work-is-good-for-your-mental-health-says-well-known-iain-duncan-smith-he-should-be-worried-about-his-own/

This isn't the Daily Mail.

I think that you would have to be quite clever to feign long term mental illness.

I dont doubt there are some who manage it, but I would have thought that the numbers would be small.

Jen, some have not the foggiest

luckygirl so are you saying that previous governments attempted to implement changes to the rules? (I presume you are talking about some time ago re DSS changes). You are correct that we must find ways of supporting the genuinely sick and disabled and expose those who "work the system" because that does happen in a minority of cases.

I think I've said this before, I used to work in a drug and alcohol service and the more streetwise clients of that service used to run circles around the kind (often foreign) staff grade doctors when it came to getting forms signed off.

A very complex situation.

Do you have to fudge every response, soon?
You must be getting sore from sitting on the fence all the time.

I agree with grannyknot. Unfortunately some chancers do work the system very effectively. It used to infuriate me on behalf of the people I worked with who did have hidden disorders. They suffered because others gave them all a bad name. One tip I was given by one 'nice' man was - go to any appointments with chocolate smeared around your mouth. It certainly worked for him. Shame about all the others.
Just having a workplace, a routine, companionship and feeling that you're doing something useful is extremely therapeutic. Its a pity that some of the more imaginative projects lost their funding. We have some social firms up here which are a pleasure to deal with. How about expanding/encouraging the development of more?

Apologies lucky I should have separated out my statement of exposing those who work the system from your statement of supporting the genuinely sick and disabled.

jane it is a typical situation of the minority spoiling it for the majority who do deserve it.

I will say what I think to be the truth dj. No matter which side it is on, or whether that often puts me in the middle of opinions.

I read the vox link.

And I take issue with a line in it, for what it is worth. It says " He reckons they are all lying about themselves.."

A few people I know in life only do extremes. They seem unable to do their lives other than on stop or start. High or low.
They dont seem to be able to do a middle ground on anything at all.

Indeed it is a minority who make it hard for others - but the people who suffer under the system are not front page news; they do not make good documentaries with catchy headlines. The work-shy chancers are wonderful tabloid fodder, but how often do these articles or programmes make it clear what percentage of those on benefit are thought to be on the make illegally?

Whatever system of benefits exists, there will be dishonest people who will seek to take advantage of it unfairly. I do not think there will ever be a way of rooting them all out.

I met so many people who were embarrassed to be in need of benefit and would have given their right arm (if they had one, in some instances) to be in work and paying their way. For many it feels like a stigma.