Should the poor and disabled be given NHS fitness trackers?
Is this a good idea?
Even if it is, considering the Conservative government’s clear hatred for people who are sick or disabled, would Tories ever allow it?
Fitness trackers should be prescribed on the NHS to stop a further widening of health inequality, a new review has warned.
Some of the poorest communities and disabled people could be left behind by the technology revolution in medicine unless action is taken, according to the report by the Social Market Foundation.
It warned that there is a growing risk that some vulnerable groups would not benefit from the innovations because they lack the skills or technology that others enjoy. Those most at risk are on the lowest incomes, who are also most likely to be in poor health or to have a disability.
Source: Call for poor and disabled to be given NHS fitness trackers | Inequality | The Guardian
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Who the hell would be tracked it’s getting to much like Germany was liked in thirty’s next we b burning books to stop us learning aktion t4 rolling along without much of a ado culling the stock through their beliefs that it better this way nazi thoughts from the past jeff3
Here’s an excellent response from Ekklesia’s Bernadette Meaden: Ekklesia | Brexit is a distraction – we need social justice http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/28200.
I think they would be used as a tracking tool to deny sickness benefit if someone was deemed to be ‘too active’, despite their pain or fatigue level. I’m sure a box (do they have a fitness tracker and what are the results) would be added to the forms sent to GP’s by the DWP re benefit claims. People would be scared to exercise if the info was available to the DWP so, in theory, their conditions and fitness levels could worsen.
The question I asked on FB & Twitter is: Fitness OR Tracking !
NO!!!! Because the Tories will use any evidence to disallow claims. Plus do you want something that can report back everywhere you are and what exactly your doing. You’re literally wearing a tracking device, do you honestly think Tories will not abuse this?
Do they mean trackers like the ones used by the UK based American Health Insurance Companies which gives them an excuse not to pay up?
Well the Government have accessed Sainsbury’s CCTV to check on “potential scroungers” in the past so why not go the whole hog and record the vitals of the disabled 24/7 to prove that they are faking?.
They could even make it compulsory for ESA and PIP entitlement.
That would be the final straw for most sick and disabled people. It’s the equivalent of being tagged by a court order as an offender, but you will never ever, be free of it. It will show every move and every location. It shows when you sleep and when you rise, when and where you walk and how far, down to the number of steps taken! This is the ultimate in total control over literally every moment of your life.
No doubt it will be sold as an aid to “help” GPs, and the DWP “big brother” in the surgery, and the IAPT worker in every Job centre. In reality it will be a shackle for the poor, the final act of enslavement of the working class. Add in a microphone, and it’s total surveillance.
My thoughts exactly Florence. Anything you may do that is perceived as too “healthy” will “prove” you’ve no recourse to sickness/invalidity benefits. Anything you do that is perceived as unhealthy – a visit to the pub perhaps? – and your incapacity will be deemed a cause of your own actions, again negating eligibility to NHS treatment or state benefits.
All the above. Appalling idea.
No, no, no. Absolutely not. For all of the above reasons. And probably more, but these’ll do for a start.