Tory DWP chiefs know paraplegic miners can’t work – but still make them take reassessments
Alan Cummings.
A DWP spokesperson has apparently claimed that the PIP reassessments were because it is a “dynamic” benefit in which payments are intended to be adjusted according to claimants’ needs.
But these people were being reassessed for Employment and Support Allowance, not PIP.
In addition, they are paraplegic, and have been for more than a quarter of a century. Common sense would imply that their conditions are unlikely to change.
The spokesperson said the government had announced that people with the most severe health conditions will no longer have to go through any reassessment process in order to continue receiving ESA, and details will be announced “in due course”.
It seems to This Writer that the ESA reassessment of these seriously injured miners is merely another attempt to get people off benefits – in this instance, before conditions are changed to allow them to continue receiving those benefits indefinitely.
A union boss has accused a government department of acting in the spirit of Scrooge by forcing miners who were horrendously injured in a pit disaster to “jump through hoops” for their entitlements.
Durham Miners’ Association secretary Alan Cummings cited the case of two former Wearmouth Colliery miners who, he said, had been required to reapply for their entitlement by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) .
Mr Cummings, said the DWP made the men go through a”labyrinth of form filling”, despite having had no prospect of working since being made paraplegics in the accident over 25 years ago.
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Look to the American overlords who seem to run this country. Look to the latest g4s gaffs. Question. Just how many company’s here doing anything that is actually British. We are a worldwide wide joke. Westand amegia arm. Just about everyone on this planet within a mobile phone has an arm processor. First thing may did was sell them. To the bloody Americans. Same people who had nazI scientist put them on the moon. Obama makes me puke
aktion t4 at its best https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww800PzlJ6Y
Had a phone call yesterday from a constituent who has been summoned again for a his apparently annual PIP assessment in the period between Xmas and New Year. It seems oppression never rests. The heartlessness of Capita in hanging this worry over the individual’s head at this time of year must have given them a real boost of sadistic pleasure. The poor man says he has been called for assessment a number of times in the past and though they’ve passed him fit for work he gets reinstated on appeal. Why do these idiots continue to inflict this degree of worry on people?
Sadly my elected role is too minor to provide help though I advised him to speak with our MP and that one particular researcher would be most helpful. Hopefully he will be able to enjoy Xmas despite this callous summons.
Are there no lawyers reading this blog who can comment on the legal implications of these acts? I thought that there were old established laws concerned with causing harm and hardship that are there to protect people from this sort of thing.
It’s bad enough having to go through the process but when there is a good chance of some small minded person with power disregarding all medical evidence and arbitrarily deciding a person can walk and getting away with it even if ultimately a tribunal will correct them. So it costs the taxpayer more for the 2 idiots and a judge to reach a conclusion that should be decided by the claimants doctor for free and is likely to give the claimant and their family mental health issues and debts. There is no reasonable argument to support this behaviour other than an attempt.to make disabled people deteriorate so they die faster or alternatively it could be a plot to eventually press criminal charges on the staff who implement these acts of cruelty and bullying which are not official policy and so forfeit their large pensions which are more unsustainable than the benefit payments. I do hope so.
Are outsourced companies paid per head for assessments? Are DWP staff targeted and rated per assessment?
It seems that the attacks on the most vulnerable to give the rich tax breaks are continuing.
dynamic?? Now that’s not a word I would readily associate with the DWP lame brains.
I have schizophrenia, an incurable illness, but am assessed over and over again. After yet another assessment earlier this year the DWP arbitrarily decided I did not qualify for PIP. All the evidence that had previously been accepted as proof of my entitlement was ignored. Unable to appeal the decision until the DWP carried out a ‘mandatory reconsideration’ I was left without the money I use to feed myself. The stress and worry of months fighting the DWP caused my mental health to deteriorate to such an extent that I was eventually sectioned under the mental health act. At the time I was hospitalised I was so malnourished my internal organs were beginning to fail.
After a eight month battle the DWP finally carried out the mandatory reconsideration, reversed their decision, and reinstated my entitlement to PIP.
I know at some point, on the whim of a DWP decision maker, I will be incorrectly declared fit for work and made homeless and destitute. I am forced live in state of constant fear which makes any kind of meaningful recovery from mental illness impossible.
And I bet they never repaid the money you had lost due to the false decision either. Did they?
More tyranny from the British Nazi Party!