DWP

We need a whistleblower for housing benefit, not DWP.
Anyone know of any?

speye.wordpress.com/2016/12/29/tories-to-cut-hb-from-half-a-million-pensioners/

I tried to phone them today because the letter also says they want bank statements.....not printouts. Now the problem is that neither of us get paper statements. We opted to save trees and have e-statements. Needless to say they were still on holiday.

Oh well ...maybe tomorrow.

At least we're still able to borrow from Peter to pay Paul. It's a difficult juggling act and the slightest slip will bring all the balls tumbling down but there will be people going through this who are in an even worse financial situation than we are.

I live in the East Riding where the LHA for a one bedroom property is £69 a week. Goodness knows where they got this figure from because there is absolutely no where to rent at that price.

vampirequeen If memory serves me correct, the banks charge £5 for a statement.
What are people supposed to do? As we say: what are they? bastards.

Are there any onebedroomed properties in the East Riding?
There aren't many in Hull.

I saw on one website someone complaining about pensioners and their triple lock.
I still have bank statements from when the triple lock came in.
I have gained £108 a week on my state pension, and my private has gone down by £100 a month. My direct debits have gone up by over £50 a month, so the triple lock does nothing for me apart from keep me just above the income level where I could claim benefit of any sort.
I am so pleased I don't have to pay rent.

vampirequeen, does your online account give you the option to request to see transactions from date A to date B eg 1 Dec to 31 Dec.
If so, a printout of the results should look the same as a statement.
It does with my bank, anyway, so hope yours is the same.

My online account gives me access to statements so I've printed them off and have labelled every credit whether it be ESA, pension, PIP etc. Hopefully that will stop them asking the next obvious question.

There are very few one bedroomed properties in the East Riding and the rents for them are actually higher than we pay for our two bedroomed property so even if we wanted to move we wouldn't be able to afford the new rent.

DWP is sick, and not fit for purpose.

kittysjones.wordpress.com/2016/12/31/jobcentre-tells-gp-to-stop-issuing-sick-notes-to-patient-assessed-as-fit-for-work-and-he-died/

So I'm not ill because my body fails to make some chemicals that my brain needs to function but rather because I take meds that, to some extent, help to replace the missing chemicals.

Hmm.....Take the meds and have some of the chemicals my brain needs or take no meds, have no chemicals replaced and miraculously recover.

What was the GP thinking? Why wasn't he/she up in arms about it and shouting from the rooftops about it? When did the GPs begin to work in conjunction with the DWP in declaring sick people fit for work?

They don't have any choice. And if go does declare not fit, then DWP ignore it! It's only advisory and they're not bound by medical opinions

I don't understand the point you're making, vq.

There's no suggestion that the man should have stopped seeing his GP and not be treated for his illnesses. There are plenty of conditions which can be treated with medication, so that a person is fit to work.

The GP wasn't being asked to work in conjunction with the DWP. He was being told that it had made up its own mind about the man's fitness to work (rightly or wrongly) and the GP was being told that fit to work notes weren't needed.

There's plenty wrong with the current regime, but confusing facts won't win any supporters.

If the man asked for notes declaring him unfit for work, and the GP refused despite believing that he was, in fact, unfit for work, then the GP was colluding with the DWP in pretending that the man was not unwell.

Providing notes which were then ignored by the DWP would be one thing. Refusing to provide notes, which could help the man to make his case, is quite another.

If you read further down the article you'll find it says:

“Behavioural approaches try to extinguish observed illness behaviour by withdrawal of negative reinforcements such as medication, sympathetic attention, rest, and release from duties, and to encourage healthy behaviour by positive reinforcement: ‘operant-conditioning’ using strong feedback on progress.”GordonWaddell and Kim Burton inConcepts of rehabilitation for the management of common health problems. The Corporate Medical Group, Department for Work and Pensions, UK.

Medication is described as a negative reinforcement and therefore giving up the medication would lead to a positive effect on my health i.e. the ability to work. Hence the previous post.

Obviously this is total rubbish but it would serve the DWP purpose which is to get me off ESA and PIP as without my meds I would spiral downwards until I killed myself. Win, win situation for the DWP. If they can get me of ESA and onto JSA instead they save money but if they can get me to die they save even more money.

Thank you vq for pointing out that there is more to that article.
I had seen the news item before and hadn't realised that this article gives a good deal more information, most of it quite horrifying.

No, he wasn't colluding, FarNorth. He was told that the notes were no longer needed, because the DWP had already made up its own mind and, in effect, wouldn't take any notice of them anyway.

vq, That is Kitty Jones' spin.

There are many people, such as T1 diabetics, who would be dead without insulin but are, nevertheless, capable of having a normal life, including work, with medication.

There is no suggestion in the DWP's actions that people should not seek medical treatment and be given appropriate medication, which might or might not enable them to work in some capacity.

The article contradicts itself anyway. It states that this man was working, despite his lung condition. It was redundancy rather than ill health which caused him to give up work and was the root of his anxiety and depression. Therefore, he was not unfit to work before being made redundant.

"Behavioural approaches try to extinguish observed illness behaviour by withdrawal of negative reinforcements such as medication, sympathetic attention, rest, and release from duties"

Surely 'withdrawal of negative reinforcements such as medication' means take away my meds and miraculously I will get better. My illness isn't a 'behaviour'. It's a condition which makes it impossible for me to work. If my meds were withdrawn and I was forced to return to work then I would die. I'm not being dramatic in saying this, just stating facts. I have a condition which, if I was forced to stop taking meds and/or go back into the world of seeking/being in work I would deteriorate rapidly and the outcome would be suicide. That's if I didn't starve to death first as having agoraphobia would make it impossible for me to attend appointments and therefore I would be sanctioned.

Medication as negative reinforcement?
What do they see as positive reinforcement?
Arbeit macht frei.

So DWP trumps the medical profession. How absurd and dangerous. That must break all sorts of rules and laws. I presume nothing will happen until the law gets involved, with someone bringing a court case.

Physically there is no reason why I couldn't work but mentally I'm totally incapable. If the assessor doesn't understand the nature of mental illness then they will find the victim claimant fit for work.

The man in the article had been working despite his physical condition but when he was made redundant he developed a further condition. Anxiety and depression changed his ability to work. Telling him he was fit when his doctor had diagnosed that he wasn't was the reason he died.

You don't actually know why he died. The article says it was from a heart condition, which could have been pre-existing. If he had lung disease, that wouldn't be surprising.

I do not dispute that the whole system needs changing, especially the WCA. However, in this case (from what the media is reporting) it was his redundancy which cause anxiety and depression. Logically, if he had found another job or not been made redundant in the first place, he wouldn't have been anxious and depressed.

Anxiety and depression are natural reactions to redundancy. If everybody were signed off, nobody would work again after redundancy.

The publication Kitty S Jones quoted was first published in 2004, having been commissioned by the DWP in the Labour years.

You can download the whole pdf here:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/concepts-of-rehabilitation-management-of-common-health-problems

Jones has cherry picked some quotes without context.

Gordon Waddell is a psychologist, specialising in disability. What he did in the publication was draw together research from across the world about keeping ill/disabled people in work and helping those out of work to return to the workplace.

His main argument is for better occupational health services and for all stakeholders (employers, government, unions, individuals, medics, etc) to work together in a better way.

The Labour government did actually implement some of the recommendations, but they were abandoned by the coalition in favour of a punitive approach.

Yes, the WCA needs changing, but just abandoning it won't work. There is ongoing research on how other systems could work better, for example:

www.benbgeiger.co.uk/index.htm

www.stop-pip.org/

More examples.

Ben Baumberg also blogs here:

www.rethinkingincapacity.org/