UK doctors with long Covid say they have been denied disability benefits

11 comments
  1. A thought that freaks me out is, how much is this going to affect people from wanting to work in healthcare and start turning away from careers as doctors, nurses, care workers and other roles

    Also this I assume would encourage Tory privatisation and would that have a knock on effect to the quality and quantity of health staff?

    I’m being purposefully simplistic and a little exaggerating but the thought still rings in my head

  2. If an actual doctor cannot get PIP despite knowing the system inside out, what hope do regular disabled people have?

  3. Doctors denied benefits, teachers having to rely on food banks, nurses unable to afford to put fuel in the car. This country really is fucked.

  4. I find it hard to have sympathy for Consultants in the NHS, as it is these people who have milked the NHS for all they can. Earning between 80 and 90k a year

  5. *“ Claimants win about 70% of cases taken to appeal. It is not unknown for an appellant who was assigned zero points by a Pip assessor to be awarded maximum points at tribunal when the full extent of their medical circumstances are considered.”*

    Incredible. Fuck this system.

  6. The ONS’ latest numbers [1] show 2 million with long covid and 1.4 million are severely impacted and unlikely to be able to work. Its an astonishing number, before Covid hit there were 250k with ME/CFS in the UK and that is basically 10x that number now due to Covid. Just astonishing levels of increase in life long disability removed from the workforce and on PIP. Amount spent on researching the condition is a few million and most of it should never have been funded as its research into areas that wont work (like exercise and CBT which were already determined to be BS with ME/CFS). Cost to the tax payer is going to be many billions every year in lost productivity and PIP payments. Huge costs to families and a loss of quality of life.

    [1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/prevalenceofongoingsymptomsfollowingcoronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/1june2022

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