Dad had no idea what was going on at his DWP assessment. Still, he was declared ‘fit to work’ and our benefits stopped
Dad had no idea what was going on at his DWP assessment. Still, he was declared ‘fit to work’ and our benefits stopped
30 comments
😡
After reading this I looked up suing the DWP, but there isn’t a lot there.
>My endless worry is that my dad will be declared “fit for work” and lose all his benefits, and I’d lose mine too. It’s already happened once. The DWP sent someone round to assess him. She was going through her questions, “Can you get yourself dressed in the morning?” “Can you do up buttons?” while Dad was sitting in the corner in a beanie, so frail, so gaunt, asking who this person was and what they were talking about.
>She judged him fit for work, our benefits were stopped, he wasn’t entitled to his free meds. It took a year for the appeal to come round, and I’ve blanked most of it, it was so traumatic. I remember it in flashes – crying down the phone, sitting in Citizens Advice, meeting my MP to ask what work my dad could possibly do, going to the food bank. When the appeal date came round, it took me an hour to get Dad to the magistrates court, even though it would be an eight-minute walk for you or me. The magistrate took one look at him and said, “Obviously he can’t work.” Our appeal was upheld, our benefits reinstated, but I live in fear of it happening again.
This is obviously not an isolated case, nor even an aberration.
Sounds like the person doing the assessment isn’t fit to do the job
you have to appeal apparently, they cancel stuff they know isn’t valid to cancel
The system is working as its designed too, its a horrible system but its what the public has wanted since 2010 and its what they got. The cruelty the average Brit goes in for just appals me, the basic lack of human decency and morality is just sick.
Remember Stephen Smith? 64 year old man who weighed just 6st. Could hardly do anything by himself yet was declared fit for work. Shameful.
Government should not be wasting their time punishing people who receive very little. It would be wise to chase down money stolen by phoney PPE contracts and money sent off to tax havens
I suffered with a mental health condition for a long time that affected my work.
I can remember DWP under Labour and as it changed under the Tories.
I went from seeing an empathetic psychologist, who said some stuff to me that was so kind and reassuring I still remember them to this day.
As the Tories changed the system, well first I had to travel twice as far to a new office.
Then I would see a nurse. Then the nurse became someone from a private company. It became a tickbox exercise, not an assessment.
Being told you’re fit for work when you arent fucks you up mentally. You feel pathetic. The government is basically telling you to get over whatever problem you have because its not a real problem.
I still panic to this day when I see the DWP return address on an envelope.
This is what Tories do. Create these situations that are so relentlessly cruel that people avoid them. Its the same goal with the Rwanda Solution theyre pushing. They know it will be intolerable and cruel and thats the point. To discourage people from asking help, by making asking for help so painful.
This kind of practice has been going on for years. My mum had to fight over nursing care for my great aunt who had severe dementia. A panel who had never met her decided she was well enough to pay for it. My mum won on appeal when doctors let it slip that they had to put her medication in her food because she refused to take it. In order to hide that scandal they agreed to cover her care. Like, she couldn’t even speak, would strip naked, steal things from other patients, would hit and bite people. They will do anything to throw people off social care. They will do in and then put people through the ordeal of appealing, hoping they give up.
Channel 4 did a documentary a while ago on one of the subcontractors finding people jobs, it turned out the owner of the company literally lived in a castle! She charged the government a fortune while her company forced people into jobs they didn’t want, the whole scheme was a massive failure and it was found more people found jobs who didn’t take part in the scheme. Despite the scheme being an obvious scam she kept her millions.
When I first got onto ESA it took over a year for the assessment that’s supposed to decide if you get full pay. I was living on £55pw that entire time. Of course now UC has replaced ESA and UC pays £300 per month less for the exact same severity of conditions. At least back when it was ESA your housing benefit was safe if the DWP ignored your evidence.
PIP took 14 months for me to get my assessment. Then a few years later they tried to cut my PIP for no reason and court had to rule I was still entitled. Then they forced me to reapply because they give fixed terms of entitlement and tried to say I wasn’t entitled anything and had to again appeal. They’re still fighting me against mobility portion but I at least get the bulk value of Enhanced Daily Living.
The DWP tortures vulnerable people. It harasses disabled people. It ignores the law. It ignores its own rules. The DWP under Tories this past 12 years had helped kill 80,000 to 120,000 people due to the changes. That’s before Covid. God knows what that did to that number.
The DWP colluded with the police to sanction disabled protesters. The government made Citizens Advice sign a gagging order to silence their complaints about UC. I, as a disabled person, have no voice and no recourse to the worsening situation. The British public has spoken and said they support the eugenics attitude.
I could write a diatribe against the ‘fitness for work’ scheme and those involved, but the following interaction from my previous “assessment” has forever changed the way I perceive the people who conduct them:
>**Person conducting my Assessment:** It says here you tried to kill yourself on [date] by [method].
>**Me:** Yes that’s correct.
>**Person conducting my Assessment:** That was a while ago. **Why haven’t you tried since then?**
If you’re not dying or at least missing a leg, you’re aggressively discouraged from claiming benefits. The questionnaire is surreptitiously worded to shame you out of claiming.
Make sure you appeal, I know it shouldn’t be this way, it’s horrific and can take ages so doesn’t help you right now,
But when you appeal it goes through a different service and they are much better x
But at least the DWP assessor got to feel powerful for a second
It makes me want to burn it all down honestly when I read stuff like this.
A dreadful situation. But he has COPD, would I be making too much of an assumption to guess he might have been a long-term smoker? Even if he wasn’t, most people in his situation are.
A lot of people on here the other day were claiming that smoking is just fine because tobacco tax pays for all the social downsides.
Tell that to anyone who ends up caring for a relative with COPD.
Anything we can do to rid society of the cancerous scourge of tobacco should be done, regardless of taxes or personal “choice”.
The options are:
* Waste billions endlessly on assessments, fraud and still have needy people go without
OR
* UBI
My father had a degenerative illness. He was unable to walk around the house without a walker, he had to wear adult diapers, he was unable to chew his food.
The DWP did an assessment, they left the room and said on the phone ‘I’ve got one, he’s a liar’. My father could hear him. He broke down in tears, left the assessment early and refused to go back. He ended up vomiting down himself due to his upset, nearly choking in the process.
We ended up having to go to get legal representation who contacted the hospital and his doctor. They then had to get the doctor to sign a lot of paperwork, agree to appear in court (he never needed to) and we had to pay for a second opinion from a private medical centre.
Then and only then, did they decide he was unfit to work still, but they would reassess him in 1 year. I still remember the horror of being told that.
He ended up overdosing and taking his own life due to the misery he was living in. I will always factor in the DWP as a large part of that.
We ate through all my parents and my savings to pay for that ordeal. I can never forgive or forget what happened.
My mum was declared fit for work, she had type 2 diabetes, codp, liver failure, osteoporosis, couldn’t walk without holding on to a wall to get from one room to another, and had a double cataract which she was on wait list for an op, and hadn’t worked for 35 years. She was classified clinically vulnerable-
Even if she COULD have worked, there would have been no one willing to hire her with zero skills to offer and so many ailments an appointments to attend.
I had to go with her for her “interview” to make a decision for her proof of being able to work, she had to be carried in to the room. I filled out her paperwork to demonstrate proof, as she couldn’t read the pages.
We had to go through 2 appeals to “prove” she couldn’t work. It was inhumane and disgusting. This went on for over 18 months and stressed her out terribly.
She died about 9 months later from an accumulation of her illnesses. I hate that her last years were filled with worrying about this crap. Fuck the DWP: not fit for work itself.
Miss you ma 🙁
Edit to say; we didn’t even ask for a luxury life of money, she was penniless when she died, I was her carer (and full time working single mum) we just wanted to know she had a roof over her head, we covered a lot of bills ourselves, if something needed fixing we’d cover it because the council refused or were so slow to help. None of it was about sponging off the system or getting away with not working.
He seems like a geniune case and shit like this should never happen to people like him or his daughter
The work shy tossers gaming the system are the problem, we need to weed out people like them.so.we can pay more money to people like him and his daughter
I’d have thrown a few quid their way myself because I’ve been there.
As for the shirkers and layabouts with made up
ailments
Fuck them.
And I’d wager they’re a fair few of them on Reddit
Doctors should be giving fitness for work assessments. Absolutely nobody else.
You have a condition, a health professional has seen you about it. That health professional knows the condition, knows you, and knows whether you’re fit for work.
This happened to my dad. He had presenile dimentia and wasn’t aware of what was happening. They sanctioned him endlessly and the letters kept arriving long after he’d died.
This Government really is evil. People are basically living in fear their benefits and livelihood is just gone like that.
They actually punish people by withdrawing benefits for weeks at a time as well
The staff need to be real medical professionals, not ‘assessors’. My daughter was seen by a young woman with zero medical training who deemed her fit for work despite needing to be horizontal for 23 hours per day. We waited 18 months for a tribunal and she passed out several times during it, as she can’t sit up that long. Was awarded full benefits and enhanced rate, I was so, so angry afterwards, because it took a toll on her.
The waiting room had one woman who had been to her doctor because she was so unwell. Her GP told her she needs to eat every day, not every other and diagnosed her with scurvy. Another had worked all her life and assumed the system would look after her.
At what point are the people who sign off in these fit for work assessments liable?
They’re obviously lying.
If they’ve been instructed to lie, then that’s surely criminal in addition.
What would be needed to sue them, personally, and the companies they work for into destitution?
I’m no die hard labour supporter but having experienced the DWP during one of the worst times of my life I’m left absolutely, utterly disgusted by the conservative party. For all the insulting nonsense uttered by politicians and DWP correspondence; there is little to no help provided getting vulnerable people who can into work, nor any compassion shown to those who cannot.
My brother didn’t even get an assessment he just got a letter one day that basically said “you’re not visually impaired enough we’re cutting your benefits”
We had to get all of his medical records and someone from a charity to come and help us prove that he indeed was visually impaired enough for the benefits he was claiming.
I’m autistic and need help at home due to executive dysfunction but because I’m ’high functioning’ I get nothing.
It’s so unfair. I’m being punished for being intelligent and able to work.
dwp is looking for people on the brink of death, so they dont have to pay out for long