I Daniel Blake

Its exactly the same as the situation I found myself in when my daughter died.
Within 5 weeks I was sent for a medical, where it was decided that as I wasn't rocking or shaking, and had my grandson living with me that I was fit to go back to work.
I could barely get out of bed. My hope was that I may not wake up. My face was covered in huge pimples, and I was barely functioning.
Sent off to the job centre, expected to write a bright and breezy cv, and told I could commute up to 90 mins each way, although they accepted that I may need to look at doing different work. (As if that would make any difference)

I agree. We watched it a while ago.

Misadventure

Bloody hell MissAdventure commuting 90 minutes each way is flipping ridiculous even for people who are fit and well. Sorry for you.

I remember how the woman at the agency looked at me in astonishment when I first started job-hunting in London (I was 51) when I said "I am not prepared to travel more than 5 stops on the Tube". She found me a job though!

The health care professional who did my medical assessment wrote that I coped with the assessment well (i cried all the way through it) and that I can get in and out of the bath with no problems.
They wrote to my gp and asked them to 'support me' by not letting me have another certificate.

MissAdventure - this is awful.
I haven't watched I Daniel Blake as I think it would be too distressing. I know there are terrible things happening without watching this.

Thank you all.
I' just want to let people know some of what it is like, as I had no idea myself until I found myself caught up in a nightmare.
Its humiliating, demeaning, and not fit for purpose, because its assumed that you don't want to work.

I saw this film a couple of years ago and it was incredibly upsetting. Sometimes when I'm listening to the radio late at night, the shipping forecast music comes on (Sailing By) and although it is lovely, it takes me right back to that film. It seems with the introduction of Universal Credit, nothing has changed either - only got worse.

missAdventure, what a dreadful time you had, so sorry to read about your experience.

I confess to not having had the strength to watch the film. I have loved ones facing trial by benefit system. I worked for 40 years with so many people in 'the system'. they never had an easy time, but I'm ashamed to live in a country with a government that seems to focus on making life impossible for those in greatest need.

I watched this and got quite upset.. it was certainly an eye opener of how easy it is to find yourself in that situation.It made me count my blessings that's for sure.Oh and the acting was great .

Could anyone please tell me what channel this first aired on , so I can get it on catch up

It’s on BBC Ailsa
It was very well portrayed, written, and acted and showed the sheer frustration and harshness of the system
I think what you experienced was horrendous MissA l
I think a lot may depend if you live in a big city or a quieter smaller town, people seem to get away with more here and there are definitely people who are fit to work but know how to work the system while others who are honest and could never be able to work are hounded
It certainly portrayed so well the fear and frustration as you are passed from pillar to post with no concern that not everyone knows their way round a computer or the ins and outs of form filling, it was so very very harsh and very sad

I found out yesterday that when you are filling in the UC claim form there is no save facility. So if you are in your local library completing it ( because you have no computer at home) and you have to stop for whatever reason ( to retrieve some information from home for example) you lose all you’ve inputted and have to start again next day. I completed my self assessment tax form last week - no prizes for guessing if it had a save function. I sometimes can’t help but wonder ......

If we didn't know better, we'd see the problem identified by maryeliza as conspiracy, rather than incompetence.
My autistic grandson has to work a certain number of hours in his zero hour job. He's called in to work at an hours notice, by a message that only works on Smart phones. Yes we clubbed together so he could have one. How on earth he was supposed to by a Smart phone is beyond me and was certainly beyond him.

Oh that is so wrong Iam64

I had not seen this film until the other night.

Sadly, I know so many people in similar positions and that includes a woman who can hardly walk even with crutches who has been told she is fit for work. Perhaps, yes, she is technically fit to work at a desk but she still has to get there and be able to function normally in terms of breaks and comfort. She was injured severely and is in a lot of pain all the time. That would be enough to deal with.

My heart goes out to you MissAdventure, and to your grandson Iam64.

Theresa May was asked by Andrew Marr at the weekend if she had seen the film. She said no.

It should be compulsory viewing for all MPs.

Not an extreme case at all travelsafar I know several people who are/have been in this boat and none of them have had an easy ride through the system. There has been a 'happy ending' for a few, but only because friends/relatives/neighbours have rallied round, found them work through contacts. and kept them going with practical support (food. money, clothes, etc. ) and help with CVs, computer stuff etc.

I think this aspect of living in a village or small town is what makws their situation slightly better than those who live in a big city where people neither know nor care about their neighbours.

I don't think it was a great film, but a must-watch for everyone nonetheless.

Claiming benefits is soul-destroying. But this is the reality of claiming benefits.

For those of you who find it all "too upsetting" to watch, please spare a thought for those for whom this is real life.

Since the introduction of Universal Credit, where benefits can only be claimed and sustained online, the situation has become much worse than is depicted in the film. UC depends on almost daily access to a smart phone or computer and this year not a single one of my homeless clients has either. If, for any reason, you miss an appointment then your claim is cancelled and has to be resubmitted - meaning that once again you are subject to the minimum five week wait period. It is an inhuman system.

Well said grannyactivist. I think of those people I worked with at the Church.
We should not put people into categories but apart from the odd one, there were no " scroungers". They were people where a combination of factors and circumstances had contributed to their struggles.

Poor housing, the worst schools,financial difficulties, bad choices, addiction and so on. We had a couple of battered old laptops that sometimes worked.

Thank you BlueBelle I'll go search for it...

travelsafar - I think your OH has got it wrong - it is not an extreme case at all. It is how so many people are forced to live. The benefits system is bonkers! As a SW I used to have to ring up on behalf of people in extreme poverty and I would be on the phone for ages, tossed from one department to another. No way could that person have afforded to be on the phone that long. And half the time I had to tell the benefits "adviser" that they had quite simply got it wrong!

There seems to be a complete blind spot as regards IT - so many benefits need a computer and computer literacy - sadly many people at the bottom of the heap have neither.

I have a friend who is paying back a large sum of money in benefits that she was allocated as a result of a mistake on the part of the benefits agency. She told them at the time that she thought they were getting it wrong, but they insisted they were right. And who is having to pay for their mistake?

Oh, by the way, she has terminal cancer.

At CAB we are being financed to set up a support service for universal credit, to help people to make online claims, set up bank accounts or passwords etc, but the service won’t start till April. Fortunately the government has now decided to delay the transfer of people on legacy benefits to UC, so at the moment there are not too many new claims.
I saw a client today who has been waiting months to get ESA in place, because of failed bureaucracy. Daniel Blake is not an isolated case.