Record Numbers Not Working Due To Ill Health

I am 63 with terminal cancer. I would love to work but the palliative chemo I’m on just knocks me for 6. By rights I should have been able to retire at 60 but it’s now 66. I’m unlikely to even claim my pension.

More likely the items on television and in newspapers about benefit fraud by people claiming to be too ill to work who are filmed, for example, on the golf course. These people exist. Personally I think it’s wicked to pretend to be ill when you’re not.

Galaxy

Why do you think that is a good thing? My dad was self employed I remember him being diagnosed with pneumonia and pleurisy, he had 2 days off. There was nothing positive about that.

If they were self employed they would think twice about pulling a sicky! No work, no pay.

My friend’s husband took redundancy last year but when he did work he was home more than he was at work. Slight sniffle or cough and he was off for a fortnight. Another time he was off for months because he was a bit fed up at work but he claimed he had depression. he wasn’t that depressed because he could still enjoy a social life, build himself a workshop and completely revamp his large garden.

We all get fed up from time to time. It is very unfair on employers, especially small businesses.

The Covid pandemic has definitely altered the work-forces in many countries. Work from home has created less healthy socialization, less productivity and creativeness, worker laziness/anger, interfered with school advancement, marriage breakdown, mental health issues surfaced… hasn’t been good.

On the other hand you can counter all those points to the positive side. Has been good for some.

We’re living in a new era, our countries/ economies/commerce are changing, new world order is in flux, war, climate change is also contributing to suffering circumstances.

I won’t live decades longer to watch the transformation of civilization, and I’m relieved about that. Let’s blame exhaustion.
But my younger family…? 🙁
USA Gundy

I’m still working full time, even though I have arthritis in all of my joints including my back, apparently caused by type one diabetes (32years) Hydradentitis supporativa, CAD, and a suppressed immune system ( side effect of one of the meds I take) I’ve had covid twice. There are lots of people out there who know how to play the system. Personally, I wouldn’t know where to start! My husband is working full time too, coming up for retirement next year. Both our sons are working full time, one holds down 3 jobs. Personally, I’ve never wanted to stay home, I’d be so bored 😑

Ikiesgranma

I am 63 with terminal cancer. I would love to work but the palliative chemo I’m on just knocks me for 6. By rights I should have been able to retire at 60 but it’s now 66. I’m unlikely to even claim my pension.

Ikiesgranma - are you claiming all the benefits you are entitled to? My SIL passed away in 2021 with cancer but while she was very poorly she was able to access various benefits.

Sending love ❤️

Germanshepherdsmum

More likely the items on television and in newspapers about benefit fraud by people claiming to be too ill to work who are filmed, for example, on the golf course. These people exist. Personally I think it’s wicked to pretend to be ill when you’re not.

You are right - it’s wicked, if you receive money for it that’s fraud and it leads people to accuse others of “skiving” &”lying” Not all disabilities or conditions are visable

Ikiesgranma I am so sorry to read this. I do hope you’re getting your full entitlement. I send you my very best wishes and a big hug. 💐

Primrose53

Galaxy

Why do you think that is a good thing? My dad was self employed I remember him being diagnosed with pneumonia and pleurisy, he had 2 days off. There was nothing positive about that.

If they were self employed they would think twice about pulling a sicky! No work, no pay.

My friend’s husband took redundancy last year but when he did work he was home more than he was at work. Slight sniffle or cough and he was off for a fortnight. Another time he was off for months because he was a bit fed up at work but he claimed he had depression. he wasn’t that depressed because he could still enjoy a social life, build himself a workshop and completely revamp his large garden.

We all get fed up from time to time. It is very unfair on employers, especially small businesses.

There is a difference though, between 'pulling a sickie' and taking time off because you are genuinely ill, and if people can't take genuine sick leave they will get worse (and not only that, but it's not fair to expect people to 'power through' illness, particularly when older.

Your example of your friend's husband, however, sounds very like the colleagues of mine I mentioned upthread. One of them was considering applying to be a magistrate when off sick for a year. Surely if you are well enough to do that you can go back to work?

These are the corrupt people who wanted Brexit (while not paying taxes in this country - note the newspaper owners) which led to several job losses. King Charles wasn't paying tax on his off-shore windfarm interests - so much for loyalty to his subjects and claiming leadership on climate change (I believe he has very recently offered to pay some). Now the people with mortgages are paying 3-4 times as much as a year ago. The stress must be killing the families.

bylinetimes.com/2020/12/09/brexiters-fled-britain/

I’m sure there are lots of people who would love to work but can’t. There are also lots of people playing the system! The man who has the allotment next to my husband is on long term sick due to his bad back but will spend many hours digging and potting. He’s also a keen runner and recently did the Manchester Marathon.
I work with a girl who is regularly off for weeks at a time with anxiety but during that time will post pictures on Facebook or instagram of her on nights out with her friends, holidays, days out with her son, getting her hair and nails done. It’s infuriating. There’s a pattern to her time off. Her bouts of anxiety usually start when she’s expected to work a full weekend. My manager is unhappy but won’t get rid of her because the company insists they are sensitive to ‘mental health issues’ so she gets away with it.

Unfortunately, or fortunately if you are genuinely ill, certain sick benefits are gateway benefits that open a raft of other benefits and there is no benefit cap either. Those that would have just claimed the long term income support until their children left a school may have found a way to move over to disability payments if they are artful enough which will inflate figures.
There are an awful lot of people who would love to go back to part time work or working from home but the system is awful that you are thrown into poverty very quickly.
There are another group of people who may look great but aren’t and there are people who would have been pensioners by now but their bodies haven’t lasted long enough. Then there was Covid…why is anyone surprised?

I know people who are too ill or in too much pain to work and they are all genuine. I also took early retirement due to ill health. All of us would have preferred working to being ill. Given how hard it is to claim PIP etc, how much evidence is required, barriers put in the way and hoops to jump through, I'm sure there are more people who have been unfairly turned down for support than are actually scamming sickness benefits they are not entitled to.

Well said house plant queen.

Would anybody nowadays 'waste' a doctors time by booking an appointment because of a bit of neck ache or back ache? Who writes this advice? Have they tried getting a GP appt recently? Obviously both these things can be severe and very debilitating but with so much pressure on GP's I would worry I was taking up time that could be spent on someone who was seriously ill.

If you are unaware of the benefits system it is easy to judge. I know someone who runs a food bank and he says people who have to go onto that system are visibly shocked how much paperwork and little money you have to endure. He see the end product, people without a basic need food. Volunteer or get into conversation , malingering may be a tiny amount of society. The others who are sick don’t need judgement from healthy people. Be kind as you don’t know what’s around the corner.

Cossy

Germanshepherdsmum

More likely the items on television and in newspapers about benefit fraud by people claiming to be too ill to work who are filmed, for example, on the golf course. These people exist. Personally I think it’s wicked to pretend to be ill when you’re not.

You are right - it’s wicked, if you receive money for it that’s fraud and it leads people to accuse others of “skiving” &”lying” Not all disabilities or conditions are visable

Once again, can I point out that fraud in the disability benefits system is very low.

It is low , but makes a great headline to news for people who don’t have a clue about the real world

Totally agree with GSM and others. And breeeaaaathe.....

Anyone else seen the film 'I, Daniel Blake'?

icanhandthemback

Unfortunately, or fortunately if you are genuinely ill, certain sick benefits are gateway benefits that open a raft of other benefits and there is no benefit cap either. Those that would have just claimed the long term income support until their children left a school may have found a way to move over to disability payments if they are artful enough which will inflate figures.
There are an awful lot of people who would love to go back to part time work or working from home but the system is awful that you are thrown into poverty very quickly.
There are another group of people who may look great but aren’t and there are people who would have been pensioners by now but their bodies haven’t lasted long enough. Then there was Covid…why is anyone surprised?

You're right. The whole system needs an overhaul. But if anyone can come up with a way of making it fair to those who are ill as well as those working whether they like it or not, I'd like to hear their ideas. I agree that there are many older women, who would have been retired until recently, doing manual work that is too much for them (and that applies to men in heavy industry too). Nobody with a terminal or life-limiting condition should have to struggle by in a country as rich as ours, and nobody should have to go to work ill, or go through repeated humiliating assessments.

But, whereas I was lucky in that I enjoyed my job until I didn't, and at that point I could afford to leave and not claim benefits, many people can't; and for them, getting up every day and working at something that doesn't give them satisfaction, knowing that (some) other people are playing the system is galling, and yes, the fact that in many cases those who work are left not much better off - if at all - than on benefits must make it very tempting to play the system and get what they can.

The problem of those on long-term MH sick passing on their stress to already stressed colleagues is another problem that needs to be solved, I think. It is now sacrilegious to say anything about MH issues, but when people are studying with the OU, applying to be a magistrate, standing as a councillor and so on, (all possibly things that those covering the sick person's workload on top of their own might like to do) all the while getting a full salary because they are apparently too stressed to go to work there has to be something wrong. I understand that people need to do something as occupational therapy to get well, and am not saying that they should never have a holiday or a night out, but when the OT looks no different from an actual job my eyebrows raise a bit.

annehinckley

Anyone else seen the film 'I, Daniel Blake'?

Yes, and I also know people who have been unable to work and have suffered terribly. It is a disgrace that this goes on in a supposedly civilised country, and nothing in my previous post is denying that for a minute.

biglouis

Ive done the PIP forms for 2 relatives. I am good at filling in forms. One got the top rate and one the lower rate. The latter has just been upgraded on the form I helped him with a few months ago. There are "techniques" to filling in these forms so as to gain the maximum number of points. People who have illnesses and disabilities are not always best able to express how it affects them in the kinds of "technical" language expected by the form.

It’s not really true to say there is a ‘technique’ or technical language particular to the completion of PIP forms. It’s down to the realisation that just having the condition itself is not enough. PIP assessors are not interested in the condition itself, it’s how it affects the daily life of the claimant, and successful claims tend to be the ones where the claimant has given a full account of how their condition affects each activity assessed, and has provided medical or other evidence to support the claim.

I’ve volunteered at my disability charity, completing PIP applications/MR’s and tribunal applications on behalf of the membership since PIP was introduced in 2013, and I’m still astounded at the number of people who fill in the forms with the bare minimum of detail and expect that the assessor will know what the condition is and how it affects them. Same with the face to face - there’s an expectation that the assessor knows the effects of the condition and a failure to understand that no two people with the same condition will be affected in the same way so you have to account for yourself as an individual.

One of the biggest problems I’ve come across is that people are, understandably, sometimes too proud to divulge what they see as the embarrassing detail, especially when it comes to the help they need with washing, dressing and toileting. So they don’t tell it like it is, and they are turned down. It’s also important to say how you are affected on your worst days, how much help you need from someone else, whether you have aids or appliances to do certain things and to check you haven’t contradicted yourself anywhere on the form, because it will be picked up and challenged. An understanding of how mobility is assessed is also important because it’s not just a matter of how far you can walk in one go, but over the whole day, and whether you can do it repeatedly and reliably, safely and in good time. I always advise people to provide as much evidence. - medical and written statements from carers, care plans etc - as they can because without it, you are solely reliant on the assessors opinion, on which the DWP will base their award.

I am self employed and have been for many years, being too sick to work is never an option.

Rainnsnow

It is low , but makes a great headline to news for people who don’t have a clue about the real world

The Blair government, and the Coalition led by David Cameron deliberately launched a campaign to give the public the impression that fraud was rife in disability/sickness benefits. In Blair’s case it was because they were trying to justify a major overhaul of the system which would have left claimants worse off - they replaced sickness benefit with ESA, which was much harder to claim, and wanted to reform DLA. The coalition wanted to cut welfare drastically and what better way to do it than enlist the press and the media to photograph claimants on the golf course and in various other situations and then give the impression that this was ‘the norm’. They succeeded because they got the public support they needed. Same thing is happening now - this government wants reform but so far they’ve resisted claimant blaming. Personally, and from some of the comments I’ve read here, I don’t think they need to. Clearly there was enough damage done first time round to leave a lasting impression that a lot of sick and disabled people are scroungers. It’s clear that the system needs to be overhauled because it’s not fit for purpose. But not at the expense of genuinely sick and disabled people who cannot work and need support. Unfortunately they are likely to be the very people who will suffer, because they’re an easy target.