Another Tired Kicking For The Sick And Disabled By Rishi

Btw the 16 hour rule does NOT apply under UC and anyone on PAYE simply cannot play the system any more as there is a direct feed from HMRC every month into UC. It’s the amount you earn not the hours worked.

Dilys

I'm amazed at some of the comments on here. There are a lot, a very big lot, of people who treat the welfare state as life choice. Call them workshy, lazy of whatever phrase you wish, but there are a lot if them out there. And before you get on your high horse, I don't mean the genuinely sick and disabled. In fact the disabled and chronically ill work as and when they are able, but please acknowledge the fact that there are those who live very nicely on overblown benefits and won't change unless forced to!

Having worked in outreach for four years, in claimants homes, I can assure you very few people actually “live nicely” on “overblown” benefits. Most especially single people, care leavers and those living away from their parents aged 25 and under.

There are a small minority of families, and single people literally “fiddling” the system and living well.

For whatever reason some families are living such chaotic unstable lives, some with children not in school full time, or attending special units just a few hours a day, mum or dad absent for a myriad of reasons, including addiction or in prison, or having overwhelming mental health issues, many of these people grew up in deprived families, went to poor schools and simply didn’t have the life chances many of us take for granted.

I hate to use this expression, but there’s a whole hidden “underclass” of people that many “normal” people just never even know about.

These people are a far cry from the people the media portray, who are very much in the minority, who quite rightly should be called out, and heavily penalised for defrauding the system.

I speak as someone who worked within our welfare system from 2009 to 2022 and watched services being systematically cut, along with the introduction of benefit caps, leaving a whole cohort of people struggling.

Remploy was closed. The large special hospitals closed. The big factories and mills closed. The opportunities for unskilled work diminished. There will always be members of our society who need the security provided by the welfare state. I worry that vulnerable people will be easy targets

We have increasing numbers of people who are dependent on drugs/ alcohol so unfit to work. They get higher benefits as long term sick than people who find themselves unemployed. They often have physical as well as mental health related problems. Becoming sober is a real challenge to anyone especially those with poor life quality . No easy answers here but real anger and despair that this government shut down services that might support people then go after them so aggressively

Theexwife

There are genuine sick people but there are also those that can spend all day on social media but say they cannot spend all day on a laptop working from home.

There are also too many people only prepared to work 16 hours a week and rely on UC to top up there income.

I don't think the 16 hour rule applies any more. Eligibility depends on earnings, not hours worked.

I'm genuinely puzzled how many posters know so many who are faking illness.

I think I've met a couple in my working life, but that's about it.

If anyone knows, as they say they do, "loads" of people who are pretending to be sick when they are not - do they report them? Because, if there are that many - they jolly well should!

I only know two young people who are working spasmodically. One is quite poorly and her father thinks she has a particular autoimmune disease (from a medic in the family) but can't get a GP appointment for her until the end of May, to confirm the diagnosis and, more importantly, start treatment for it.

I don't quite know what's wrong with the other one, she does look unwell, but makes it into work as often as she can.

If I were Sunak, I'd be rather embarrassed to lunge into the rhetoric about sick-note culture without addressing any of the issues surrounding the lack of GP appointments, and the often very long waiting lists for any kind of treatment.

I thought he was more intelligent - but he's just turned out to be yet another populist politician. He must, surely, understand cause-and-effect?

I suffered with severe depression in the 70s - though oddly enough, I didn't identify it myself, I just knew that something was terribly wrong and even thought I might be going mad. However, there was a support network, timely appointments, and suitable treatment easily available. All which enabled me to get back on my feet quite quickly.

That's certainly not the case now.

There are genuine sick people but there are also those that can spend all day on social media but say they cannot spend all day on a laptop working from home.

There are also too many people only prepared to work 16 hours a week and rely on UC to top up there income.

Well, I’m definitely going to vote.

My grandmother was a suffragette. I won’t repeat history.

We must get this lot out or the alternative is unthinkable.

I'm amazed at some of the comments on here. There are a lot, a very big lot, of people who treat the welfare state as life choice. Call them workshy, lazy of whatever phrase you wish, but there are a lot if them out there. And before you get on your high horse, I don't mean the genuinely sick and disabled. In fact the disabled and chronically ill work as and when they are able, but please acknowledge the fact that there are those who live very nicely on overblown benefits and won't change unless forced to!

Very true Wiser. And the skivers need be sorted from the genuinely too sick or disabled to work. How to do that, when some have been successfully faking their sickness or disability for years, is another matter.

Germanshepherdsmum
Other benefits can be paid on top of carers allowance and of course some carers do work.

I was in receipt of carers allowance and income support for many years while providing 24/7 care for a close family member with a severe learning disability and complex physical problems.

The carers allowance was deducted in its entirety from the income support. It was still worth claiming as it entitles the recipient to a carer’s national insurance credit towards the state pension.

In my past decade of working, I came across too many people who could imo be said to be exploiting our long term sickness benefits. Confidentiality meant this assessment couldn’t be shared with the dwp

Doodledog, that sounds very annoying to be around.

I have worked at schools and colleges. Each seemed to have one or two malingerers. Unfortunately they are not the ones bothered by pressure to work reasonably. An example..one art teacher in a comprehensive who had very frequent sick days. One day when off sick he phoned another teacher during the teaching day to ask could he skip out of teaching to go and play badminton with him. At the same time my friend, an English subject teacher, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. ILEA decided to clamp down on absenteeism in London. Both were summoned for a special medical review. My friend was worried sick and attended the interview. The other teacher called in the union and somehow ducked the issue. So there are genuinely sick people and also skyvers.

lalta

i agree with everything said on here, but it makes my blood boil when i see people faking sick notes and i know loads of people working and claiming everything they can get pretending to be seperated so they can get seperate housing and live there and rent there original house out etc i own a business and pay taxes and think thats my money going to you doctors just give out sick notes without even checking they just do phone appointment and send fit note by text i does need to be sorted out as not fair on the genuine people who really need the help

I’m with GSM if you know what these people are doing and who they are then report them! I have done so in the past and would do again! I did check out the evidence very carefully first as it’s not nice to be reported then investigated.

Germanshepherdsmum

Is expecting those who can do so to work for a living nasty?

No it’s not!

The suffergetts fought to get women the RIGHT to vote. So we also have the right to not vote if that's how we feel.

I don't doubt that, zakouma, but if someone is in that state they shouldn't be able to sign off and claim a salary for months at a time, which is what my colleague did on several occasions. I'm in no way saying that they should be thrown to the wolves, but it should be recognised that a stressful job is not something they can do, and they should be helped to find something more suitable.

As it is, people like my colleague add to the stress of others, and in the end I took early retirement as I couldn't carry on doing her job as well as my own. She stayed on, but AFAIK still takes a lot of time off on full pay. She miraculously gets better again when her full pay runs out, and by an amazing coincidence that is timed to coincide with the spring, so she takes all the leave accrued when she was off sick, then it is the summer when our workplace was very quiet, so she clocks up time back at work then, which counts towards her right to sick pay when the cycle begins again. She did it for years. It's very unfair.

Oh, yes, let's do something about all those who are off sick. But let's not bother with silly stuff like looking at what's actually going on, why so many people are distressed and poorly - no, let's coerce, deprive and if necessary starve them and push them onto the street. Sorted!

Torricella4

My son has an extremely rare and, needless to say, complex mental illness. I have had to fight the powers that be every few years to prove that he is unfit for work and produced all the relevant reports from the various consultants he's seen over 20+ years. The last face to face 'interview' he had was with an unqualified person who when asked if she understood the diagnosis replied 'I know everything about mental illness' to which my son, quite reasonably said, 'That's interesting because my consultant psychologist says no one really comprehends these conditions'. Dear reader at this stage the woman had hysterics, shouted at me and stormed our demanding a security guard remove us from the building. My son left and had a full blown breakdown in the car park with a friend looking after him. I refused to leave demanding to see the manager of the center. After a year long inquiry my son received an apology and a pathetic excuse about the monster who put his therapy back years (she was having a bad day) and he was offered £50 by way of 'compensation', needless to say he refused this. So now we have an unelected prime minister threatening people such as my son whilst he accepts millions from a racist who is given NHS business to further line various pockets but hey folks at least he's not claiming PIP! What has this country sunk to, bring on the election, oh for PR..Thanks for letting me rant.

This is terrible. PIP is incredibly difficult to get. This rhetoric about scroungers and a whole generation who don't want to work is absolutely awful.

As I said, sometimes if a person is unwell mentally ( depression)
sometimes they can muster the sheer bloody mindedness to keep working. Its like wearing a mask. Other people are crawling about on their hand and knees wondering if they will be able to brush their hair that day. Through no fault of their own.

I have worked at schools and colleges. Each seemed to have one or two malingerers. Unfortunately they are not the ones bothered by pressure to work reasonably. An example..one art teacher in a comprehensive who had very frequent sick days. One day when off sick he phoned another teacher during the teaching day to ask could he skip out of teaching to go and play badminton with him. At the same time my friend, an English subject teacher, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. ILEA decided to clamp down on absenteeism in London. Both were summoned for a special medical review. My friend was worried sick and attended the interview. The other teacher called in the union and somehow ducked the issue. So there are genuinely sick people and also skyvers.

I totally abhor the rhetoric from Sunak about longterm sickness and how to reduce it.
Yes, some people will take advantage of the benefit system, that has always been the case (though is considerably less costly than tax evasion/avoidance).
The government should be addressing why there has been such an increase in longterm sickness and employing preventative and support strategies, instead of demonising genuine sufferers.
We can all cherry pick from personal experience to support our arguments, but the hard facts remain that our NHS and social care systems are under resourced (deliberate, or not, is a different argument). Where would these assessors come from? I would be horrified to think that a person with no medical qualifications could assess anyone's capacity to work.

Can anybody add any evidence to the assertion that a whole generation doen't want to work?

From the other side... I was disabled with 'ME' in the 90's. Truly unable to function. Was signed off and then sacked, on sickness benefit (as it then was). Because I was on long term sick - Doctors simply left me to rot. There was no treatment, no testing. Over 20 years and much trial and error, I have found some things that help, some to avoid etc. IF doctors had to continue to see the people they have signed for - maybe some incentive for them to bother trying to help get them functionning again. There were at that time doctors working for the benefit agency doing reviews to weed out the fraudulent - in actual fact they were the only ones I ever met who showed any interest!

I know! 😁

Germanshepherdsmum

Doodledog

Germanshepherdsmum

The reason carer’s allowance stops when you get your state pension is because it is meant to be compensation for being unable to work.

How many people are compensated by £81 a week? It's an insult to suggest that most carers were earning that before giving up work to care for a loved one.

Don’t shoot the messenger! I don’t make the rules. Other benefits can be paid on top of carers allowance and of course some carers do work.

I wasn't . I meant that the government was insulting carers, not you.