Billions to be cut from welfare services

Well said Dickens. For some, simply getting up to face another day is an act of courage in itself, especially people who have multiple health problems including mental health issues. Often they go hand in hand and, in situations like yours, there is the added stress of caring for the needs of another.

Any idea of keeping down a job in addition to all this would be a totally unrealistic expectation.

Not everyone, like GSM is good at taking their medication. We had a neighbour who was bi-polar and when he took his meds he was fine. But didn't like taking them and when he didn't he was a nightmare. Eventually his wife could no longer cope and left him.

DaisyAnneReturns

What if the symptoms of your mental illness stop you from doing the best to help yourself rafichagran?

It did at times but the medication helped. You also need to help yourself, I forced myself to go to work sometimes.

Surely the big question is where are these jobs going to come from? DH was an HGV driver for a supermarket but had to retire early because a combination of cancer and chemo made him unfit for any manual work or driving. There were possibly office jobs he could have done, but who would take on and retrain a man in his late 50s who had no qualifications and was likely to need a lot of time off for hospital visits?

While I didn't have health problems I did spend some months unemployed during which I attended various courses to "help" me get back to work. We learnt about looking for opportunities, writing a good CV and performing well in an interview. All the time we knew and our coaches knew that there were no jobs to apply for, but we carried on pretending it was going to get us somewhere. If you added health problems to the mix you had no hope.

What if the symptoms of your mental illness stop you from doing the best to help yourself rafichagran?

Germanshepherdsmum

If you really are unable to work, you are unable to work. Depression and anxiety, for which I have had to take medication for decades, and most probably always will, do not render you unable to work. If I had sat around at home rather than making the very real effort to get out of bed and go to work each morning I would probably have given in to the suicidal thoughts. If you are able to work, you should - I speak from experience. We should not be paying people to stay at home if they can work.

Your experience echoes mine exactly, decades of it myself, I take medication, but have cut down drastically.
I have always managed to work, gone in feeling alful some days. I have every sympathy for people who have mental heath conditions and some can't work for a time, but you must do your best to help yourself and work if you can.

Germanshepherdsmum

Thank you for that Delila. I also have intimate knowledge of the difference between ‘I must’ and ‘I CBA’. Do you?

Why do you paint yourself this way GSM?

Delila

You have intimate knowledge of your own depression GSM, no one else’s.

Very true.

DaisyAnneReturns

We know personal wealth is the only priority for the remaining "Conservatives", and that they will take from everyone from middle-income down.

However, there was little for sick and disabled in their Conference pronouncements. It is understandable that they will not make in depth pronouncements until the election is announced, the have access to the Treasury Civil Servants, and are set to release their manifesto.

Sorry, that should have read

However, there was little for sick and disabled in the Labour Party Conference ...

CvD66

It is always interesting to see the threads that bring out those informed subscribers with experience, knowledge or empathy of an issue versus those who appear to soak up certain media headlines, pick up the odd examples and generally give we, the maturer population, a bad name!
If you are prepared to expand your vision, watch any of Mike Leigh films: I, Daniel Blake has already been referred to.
I worked for Remploy for a number of years with people facing significant adversity in life, endeavouring to undertake limited work and get pride from doing it. But that form of work was over subscribed and has now been abolished. There are few employers who will willingly adapt to accommodate people with disability and many, many people on benefits who would prefer not to be there!
For those people who have been lucky enough to work throughout their lives, please don't be so fast to judge those who can’t, unless you genuinely know what you are talking about!

We have a Remploy chest of drawers, bought second hand many years ago. I remember when the factory was closed, by a Tory govt and was extremely shocked.

Near my home in France there is a village, built after WW1 to treat people who had been gassed. It has a doctor, a school, homes and other facilities and is now used for disabled people. Some of them who have been injured in accidents are there to be retrained, others live there permanently but have some type of employment. Everyone lives in the community, including medical staff. Some houses or flats are available as holiday lets.

The two major sources of employment are a company manufacturing garden furniture and fences and the other is a giant nursery. The nursery is divided in two - part is for growing houseplants where those being retrained are taught propagation and so on. The other, larger part, is used for growing bedding and herbaceous plants.

I've always thought that it is a good idea because the disabled people, whilst living within a community with people without disabilities are safe.

I wish I could change my username and tell you my own personal experience of dealing with my adult child's 'benefits' who has a severe disability

Needless to say, this taxpayer has to take unpaid time off work to deal with it all.

I will tell you how they will save the money too. They are stopping ESA and there is no helpline number or any number they answer the phone on so people or their carers have to apply for universal credit which is less money.

It is attack on people with complex and severe disabilities and health needs and no one with a moral decent bone in their body should defend it

MayBee70

And someone said on tv today that reappointing Cameron means that they are moving away from their ‘nasty party’ image .

I thought it meant more that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel?

Sorry, GSM, I don’t understand your comment,

foxie48

It's just another group to scapegoat isn't it? Find groups to blame so the focus is on them rather than poor government. Asylum seekers, the homeless, the sick , Boris was quite happy to let the old die during Covid, none of these people have value to this Conservative government because they consume resources and don't make money for anyone. It's really very shocking but what I find more shocking is that they think they speak for a silent majority.

It's really very shocking but what I find more shocking is that they think they speak for a silent majority.

Unfortunately foxie48, they do speak for a growing number who, if given the chance, are anything but silent.

Resilience, in the face of illness, disability and mental health problems is heart warming and I admire such people immensely, but humans vary in their ability to withstand such problems - and it might not always have anything to do with strength of character that they cant. For example, if someone has an unsupportive family environment - or maybe doesn't even have a family; or perhaps has had a personal tragedy or 'drama', or is shunned because of their disability / sickness - it can be almost impossible for some to get up in the morning determined to 'soldier on'.

I have been praised by my GP for my ability to cope, not only with my own ill-health resulting from surgeries which have brought about life-altering changes, but also my disabled partner's multiple health problems. What he doesn't know is how close I have been sometimes to absolute despair. My 'bootstraps' have been pulled up so many times that there is a risk they will ultimately come adrift from the boots.

So I am not going to judge anyone because I don't know their circumstances nor what they have to face. Pain is debilitating, if you wake up with it day after day for months, or even years in some cases, it can completely engulf you and sap all your mental and physical energy. If you lie awake at night with deep depression - only falling asleep near dawn and then face the misery of yet another day just like all the other days with no relief in sight, it can be so overwhelming that it saps every last breath of physical and emotional energy - to the point where you give up because your reserves have gone. Some people kill themselves because they are depressed and can no longer cope.

So, realistically, just how much is this government going to save? Does anyone really believe their projections? How many employers are anxious to take on sick and disabled people? And how many of the sick and disabled can actually do the jobs that will be on offer? Most will be in the low-paid hospitality and service industries, won't they?

The Work Capability Assessments are to be scrapped and replaced with work coaches in Job Centres who are going to track the benefit recipients to see how much effort they are making to find work - if they are considered to be not trying hard enough, they face benefit sanctions.

Isn't this a bit like rearranging the proverbial deck chairs, only to find that the next morning they are all back in their original place?

Those cheering on these plans - do they understand that when a free-market, libertarian, 'Ayn-Rand' style government starts to make its spending cuts, it goes for those first at the end of the pack, the easy targets, those that have no clout and can't fight back. Eventually though, it will work it's way through the whole pack. And, like that woman on Question Time who'd championed the government cutting benefits for those she considered to be not trying hard enough - only to discover that her own benefits were also targeted cried to the government spokesperson on the programme... "but I didn't think you meant me...

Thank you for that Delila. I also have intimate knowledge of the difference between ‘I must’ and ‘I CBA’. Do you?

And someone said on tv today that reappointing Cameron means that they are moving away from their ‘nasty party’ image .

You have intimate knowledge of your own depression GSM, no one else’s.

Ziplok

Seems to me there are a lot of “experts” posting on this thread who seem to know exactly what it’s like to be in chronic pain or depressed and think individuals can simply, by some sort of mind over matter, lift themselves above it to function normally. I’m afraid the reality is very different for very many. You can only reflect on how you have coped or continue to cope, but you can’t possibly know how it is for someone else in similar situations. There are some very judgemental attitudes on here.

Well said Ziplok.

There are some very judgemental attitudes on here. Indeed.

30 years of working with the poorest and sickest taught me that compassion is important and that there are far more people who are desperate to work and support their families than there are people who are using the system unfairly.

The mark of a civilised state is how it treats those who are disadvantaged.

The concept of "Well, I did it, so anyone else can" is clearly nonsense as one individual's experience need not bear any relation to that of the majority.

Very good post CvD. To professionals those who 'could and should try harder' are easy to spot and I believe them to be in a minority. Maybe a preliminary screening could be introduced before the GP check.
A return to encouraging large employers to employ those with learning disabilities would be welcome. Those sorts of openings seem to have disappeared. All criteria for access to any kind of long term help have been tightened to the utmost. The disabled face life on the streets and now dare not even have tents to shelter in. And now their already meagre benefits are threatened.

Germanshepherdsmum

That’s sad growstuff.

The medication alone didn’t work for me Lucky. There’s no magic bullet. I had to, and still have to, pull myself up by my bootstraps.

Yes, it was very sad. I lost my career, my house, my child (temporarily) and about six months of my life, which I hardly remember. Fortunately , I do have "bootstraps" - it's possible to be resilient and have mental health issues at the same time. Eventually, I was just about coping (despite having no job), but then had a heart attack which could have killed me. Apart from being T2 diabetic (exacerbated by stress), I didn't have the usual risk factors for a heart attack, so it was concluded that stress and depression were contributory factors. I can't believe that anybody thinks anybody would go through all that for a measly £70 a week (or whatever it is).

It is always interesting to see the threads that bring out those informed subscribers with experience, knowledge or empathy of an issue versus those who appear to soak up certain media headlines, pick up the odd examples and generally give we, the maturer population, a bad name!
If you are prepared to expand your vision, watch any of Mike Leigh films: I, Daniel Blake has already been referred to.
I worked for Remploy for a number of years with people facing significant adversity in life, endeavouring to undertake limited work and get pride from doing it. But that form of work was over subscribed and has now been abolished. There are few employers who will willingly adapt to accommodate people with disability and many, many people on benefits who would prefer not to be there!
For those people who have been lucky enough to work throughout their lives, please don't be so fast to judge those who can’t, unless you genuinely know what you are talking about!

I hate the way that the welfare state is being dismantled. Groups of people being pitted against each other like foxie48 says. My problem is that I can't see Keir Starmer doing much about it.

It's just another group to scapegoat isn't it? Find groups to blame so the focus is on them rather than poor government. Asylum seekers, the homeless, the sick , Boris was quite happy to let the old die during Covid, none of these people have value to this Conservative government because they consume resources and don't make money for anyone. It's really very shocking but what I find more shocking is that they think they speak for a silent majority.

Well written post Cabbie.