Typical DWP: How much cancer do you need to have before qualifying for benefits?
Katie Larn: She didn’t have cancer “enough” to qualify for benefits, according to a DWP-appointed assessor.
Katie Larn told the BBC she thinks the assessor who carried out a home visit to determine whether she qualified for PIP had decided she didn’t look sick enough.
I wonder if the assessor worked for Capita?
She’d had one session of chemotherapy then, had not yet lost her hair and steroids she was taking had not yet taken effect, making her put weight on.
But of course, a visual assessment is known not to be worth anything at all.
The message is clear, although the DWP isn’t getting it after almost 10 years (yes, the image was originally about fibromyalgia. It applies just as readily to cancer).
The worst of it is that the DWP would probably try to suggest the assessment was correct, as Ms Larn’s condition is now in remission.
It’s the equivalent of suggesting somebody must be a witch because they’ve managed to hold their breath longer than the time they were held underwater on the ducking-stool.
But that’s DWP policy for you: If you died, you needed benefit but now you don’t. If you live, you didn’t need it then and don’t now.
The Conservatives (and the Liberal Democrats who helped them set up this system) have thrown people living with sickness and disability right back into the Dark Ages.
A mother of three said she was told by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that she “didn’t have cancer enough” when she applied for benefits.
Katie Larn was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma last year, and after starting treatment she applied for Personal Independence Payments (PIP).
The 29-year-old was told she did not qualify for support after a home visit.
Source: Leicestershire mum ‘didn’t have cancer enough’ to receive benefits – BBC News
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Was the Hunter Killer home visitor in any way medically qualified to assess?
Well done Mike for continuing to remindind us that the Lib Dems were (and are) complicit in this cruelty. We need to keep remind people of this especially now as the Lib Dems are trying to re- invent themselves as ever so nice and tolerant and middle-class.
My husband, having chemotherapy which was weekly for 9 months and necessitated over night stays in hospital every time, couldn’t get benefit because he was told his treatment was making him ill and unable to work and not his cancer. Seriously. Utterly appalling.
That is genuinely shocking.
These people are Not qualified to do this job..Experienced Doctors are needed for accessing people.
Talk to any Work Capability apologist, and they will tell you that disability benefit awards are decisions based on ‘functionality’ (what you are able and not able to do) rather than according to a certain diagnosis, such as cancer – which, like much deviant (s)tory policy, ‘sort of’ sounds ‘Right’ (re: bedroom tax).
[What they don’t tell you is that this policy was designed by insurance benefit company claim deniers (UNUM, who were banned and fined millions in the US and whose people then moved on to France and the UK).]
‘Problem here is they seem to have reverse-ferreted that bias – the dis-functionality is blamed on the treatment and therefore cannot be assigned to the illness!? WTF! We were told the decisions were based on FUNCTIONALITY not cause, FFS! How can this be logical? Two words: Corporate Manslaughter. Get their names and postcodes.
I am french they said I can not claim universal credit because I can’t claim on my french passport go home office for permission to you can stay Nd claim or do work here Nd give us tax I was claiming 12year they are joke.so many people commit suicide in this country . when these law children grow up they Will take revenge to this country maybe they become rebel. Fight against this government for revenge they playing new generation life Nd feature criminal terrorist theive don’t wt they become because of this government parents commit suicide .
Look right if don’t have a job why would u keep having kids then complain you don’t have money answer me this if couldn’t support the first child why have more kids
Rachel – ‘Not sure what point your drivelling blaming hateful words are trying to make (who’s ‘having kids’ – the cancer sufferer with three children?), but of course you didn’t stop to think that some people get ill AFTER they make a major commitment in life. And this can happen to anyone, at any time, without them causing or even deserving it. Please stop giving out your hate, or keep it to yourself. Nevertheless, I sincerely hope you never have to suffer a serious health issue in order to understand the meaning of these words.
Even people who are working are having problems with UC.
My own Capita assessment happened soon after I had been through seven weeks of intensive chemotherapy (as an inpatient at Addenbrookes), and I was able to demonstrate that moving between the living room and the bedroom of my small bungalow was enough to get me breathing hard (both lungs had been attacked by large tumours). Not even they gave me any trouble when I was in that state! Check out yesterday’s post about my experience with cancer: https://aspi.blog/2019/08/13/the-big-c-my-story/
Hi Katie all I can say is don’t give up fighting iam fighting the DWP myself I’ve been fighting them for the last 4 years my court date was adjourned because I argued with the judge and also I brought up about the DWP used someone else’s medical records against my own I’ve had a spine injury for the last 4 years while doctors refused to send me for a MRI scan but I got one in the end what proves my spine is out of place and I’ve got annular tears inside also a annular bulge ( spine out of place) and I’ve got DDD = is Degenerative disk disease on the disks in my spine and they said I was fit for work and that nothing was wrong with me I’ve been to Newcastle RVI they will try a injection but if that fails I could have a risky operation I’ve been in contact with a solicitor about making a case against my old doctors because he put down soft tissue damage on my medical records
I was lucky, I went to see a welfare advisor attached to the hospital I was getting my treatment from, and strongly advise anyone wanting to apply for PIP or any other disability benefits to do the same – if you have a Macmillan nurse they can point you at one. I have pre-chemo new tablet treatment for my secondary cancer so i keep my hair and feel reasonably well at the moment, so I would have been refused if assessed like this. because the hospital also provided a form confirming that what I had was incurable, and the treatment, however long it keeps me going, is only palliative care , and I recieve maximum PIP. though the adviser stressed that becaise of the DWP rules, even if I expect to be kept alive for a few years at least, fingers crossed , if they complete the form as if you had only 6 months to live you then get the PIP. not happy about it, but it is the only way for someone who has an unknown amount of time to live, like me, to get round these stupid Capita assessments. one of the miraculous new medicines is prolonging my life beyond their stupid cutoff points, but they have no room for that in their rigid assessments. I’m not fit enough to work , but I need to live…
It should be noted that the assessors are not qualified to carry out a medical exam, they have a limit as to how many people they allow to pass same as when you go for your driving test.. And of course they get a bonus, the more people they deni benefit the greater there pay…