Tag Archives: WCA

Dying dad deemed fit to work left with just £15 a week – but has the DWP done its duty?

Darryl Nicholson: Short-changed by the government.

Has the Department for Work and Pensions really followed its safeguarding rules for people whose health could be in serious danger here?

Is Mr Nicholson receiving “fit notes” from his GP, or has the doctor been told not to issue them any more because the patient has been classified “fit for work” and the government now lies about whether those letters are still necessary?

I’d like answers to these questions but of course the DWP does not comment on individual cases.

And there are now so many individual cases that it is impossible to keep informed about them all, let alone comment on them.

A dying dad told he was fit for work by the Department for Work and Pensions was left with just £15 a week to live off after his benefits were cut.

The 47-year-old, who could only have two years left to live, has stage three emphysema. Darryl Nicholson also has bronchitis asthma, anxiety and depression.

He was receiving Employment Support Allowance (ESA) but after attending a mandatory work capability assessment the DWP deemed him fit for working.

Darryl, who tragically lost his wife to cancer, underwent a mandatory reconsideration which was rejected and he is now awaiting a tribunal.

While on ESA, Darryl received £474 per month directly into his bank account. But after being put on to Universal Credit his money has been halved, receiving just £236 per month.

After paying £48 for his phone bill, £60 per month for electric and £10.37 for gas, Darryl is left with around £15 per week for food.

Source: Dying dad deemed fit to work by DWP left with just £15 a week after benefits cut – Birmingham Live

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URGENT: Advice to ESA claimants found ‘fit for work’ on getting GP ‘fit notes’


Remember when it was revealed that the Conservative government had told doctors they no longer need to provide “fit notes” to claimants of Employment and Support Allowance who have been told they are “fit for work” after taking one of the Tories’ rigged “work capability assessments”?

This should remind you.

The advice was false, of course. Claimants need “fit notes” when they are contesting the decision, and to make sure Job Centre “advisors” cannot make unreasonable demands of them.

Frank Zola has written an article detailing advice to ESA claimants whose doctors may be inclined to follow the government’s false advice. It is valuable advice – perhaps crucial in a country where the benefit system is weighted in order to bring about the death of sick and disabled claimants by benefit deprivation.

Here’s part of it:

Caution: You may wish to seek independent support from an Advice Agency or Law Centre before acting on any of the consent based suggestions below.

When Employment Support Allowance (ESA) or Universal Credit claimants are required to undertake a Work Capability Assessment (WCA) and found fit for work (FFW), their GP or Doctor treating them is usually sent a letter, known as an ESA65B (pdf) [1], informing the GP/Dr that they no longer need to issue ‘fit-notes’ [2] for “ESA purposes”.

Unfortunately receipt of the ESA65B letter often results in GPs refusing to continue issuing ‘fit-notes’ [3], even when they should be issued when the claimant has requested a Mandatory Reconsideration (MR) of its FFW decision or appealing to an independent Tribunal against after an MR, or their health condition or disability gets significantly worse or they have a new medical condition. [4] Or when needed to ensure a Jobcentre Work ‘Coach’ cannot impose unreasonable work-related conditions on an ESA[4], Universal Credit (UC) [5] or Jobseekers Allowance (JSAc) (contribution based) [6] claimant.

If your GP/Dr did get an ESA65B letter and you are asking the DWP for a Mandatory Reconsideration or appealing to a Tribunal against the FFW decision, or your health condition or disability gets worse or you have a new medical condition or disability. You could provide a copy of or send your GP or GP practice links to ‘A short guide to the benefit system for general practitioners‘ and this letter of 5 April 2019 as they advise GPs when they should continue issuing ‘fit-notes’.

You can read the rest here. If you are among those affected by this issue, you most certainly should.

It may save your life.

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DWP’s letter to doctors means MORE people have been wrongly denied benefits

Sarah Newton: The Conservative minister for disabled people once said there was no “hostile environment” for benefit claimants. Her capacity for inaccuracy, thus demonstrated, seems to be proved again with this case.

The duplicity in the latest attack on the sick and disabled by the Conservatives is enough to make anybody ill – including the doctors it targeted.

People claiming Employment and Support Allowance because they are too unwell to work, but who have their claim turned down by assessors from the private company hired by the Department for Work and Pensions, are entitled to receive the benefit while they await their appeal hearing.

But they need ‘fit’ notes from their doctors, to prove they are too ill to work – and it has emerged that “ministers” (we don’t know which) have ordered changes to the standard letter sent to GPs, in order to make them think these notes are not necessary.

It’s clearly a scam to undermine the law; sick people can’t receive the benefit if they don’t have a note from their GP, so the government has told GPs to stop providing these notes.

Amazingly, the DWP has claimed that the removal of references that made it clear to GPs they may have to issue a medical statement if their patient wished to appeal against a WCA decision was not intended to dissuade GPs from issuing fit notes.

In that case, why change the letter at all?

And why are we told that the wording was changed by agreement with the British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners (although it is significant that there appear to be no formal minutes of the meeting at which this agreement was made)?

According to The Guardian:

The standard letter, called an ESA65B, is sent automatically to the GPs of all claimants who fail a WCA and are declared fit enough to work. Until 2017 the letter advised GPs that if their patient appealed against the WCA decision they must continue to provide fit notes.

However, on ministers’ orders, the letter now states that GPs “do not need to provide any more fit notes for ESA purposes”. It does not mention the possibility that the patient may appeal, or that a fit note is needed for the patient to obtain ESA payments until the appeal is heard.

And what has been the result? Back to the Graun:

Advice charity Z2K said the effect of the revised letter could be devastating. “We have seen how our clients, who are seriously ill, suddenly have zero income, become reliant on food bank vouchers and loans, and face a very real threat of homelessness.”

There was national outrage over the case of Stephen Smith, 64, who was deemed fit for work despite suffering from multiple debilitating illnesses, having his weight plummet to 38kg (6 stone) and being barely able to walk. Smith won his appeal after waiting 12 months for a hearing.

Prof Helen Stokes-Lampard, the chair of the Royal College of GPs (RCGP), said the lack of clarity over when GPs should issue fit notes could put patients’ finances and health at risk.

The reason for the change is obvious – it is well-known that 72% of claimants who appeal against their Work Capability Assessment decision are successful.

As readers of This Site know, the Conservatives like to persecute people with long-term illnesses and disabilities to their deaths. So they are trying to make it impossible for claimants to survive long enough to win their appeals.

It seems former minister for disabled people, Sarah Newton (ah, so that’s her name! I had forgotten it already) may have ordered the change. She certainly protested to the Work and Pensions select committee that the change had been to make the letter “simpler and clearer”.

Committee chair Frank Field’s acid reply was that the wording was “not having its desired effect”.

Do you think the DWP will change it back?

Source: ‘Misleading’ DWP letter causing ill and disabled people to lose benefits | Society | The Guardian

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Campaigners against disability discrimination need to watch Cressida Dick’s ‘knife crime’ comments carefully. Here’s the reason

Cressida Dick: She made her comments on the radio station LBC.

It is bad enough that Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick has admitted there is a direct connection between an increase in knife crime and a fall in police numbers.

It shows that police representatives were right to oppose Theresa May’s cuts to the police service, that were imposed when she was Home Secretary and have led to a shocking increase in crime during her term as prime minister.

Mrs May was warned – and did nothing. She doesn’t care about your safety.

But we knew that already. Tory policy since 2010 has demonstrated that the safety of poor people simply isn’t of any concern to them.

We only have to look at the behaviour of the Department for Work and Pensions towards people with long-term illnesses and/or disabilities – and there is a connection, because the language used by the Tories to excuse their behaviour on both issues is the same.

Look at what Mrs May said about knife crime – I’m using a BBC report but I’m sure any mainstream news outlet will have used her words:

There is “some link” between falling police numbers and a rise in violent crime, Metropolitan Police chief Cressida Dick has said.

[Ms Dick said:]”I agree that there is some link between violent crime on the streets obviously and police numbers, of course there is, and everybody would see that.”

The commissioner was speaking a day after Prime Minister Theresa May said there was “no direct correlation”.

“No direct correlation” is what Iain Duncan Smith said when he was told that suicide among benefit claimants had increased alongside the increase in the number of rejections of claims after he changed the rules to make it harder for people taking a “Work Capability Assessment” (WCA) to qualify.

After academic reports proved that there was indeed a correlation, he fell back on claims that “correlation doesn’t imply causality“.

Doesn’t it?

It certainly implies that opportunities have been created.

And let’s not forget that Iain Duncan Smith was wrong; when he said the words quoted above, we had already known for nearly two years that WCA assessors had been putting suicide in the minds of benefit claimants by asking, “Why haven’t you killed yourself?”

It’s many years past time we got tough on these homicidal Tories.

For those of us who campaigned against their campaign of hatred against people who are sick and/or disabled, it seemed there simply wasn’t enough public interest because opinion had been whipped up against benefit claimants by the Tory-complicit mainstream media.

Attitudes to knife crime seem different – so let’s make the connection and point out that Tory policies deliberately attack the innocent.

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‘First do no harm’: Public to lobby Parliament over DWP assessments

Activists are to lobby Parliament next month in a bid to persuade MPs to impose stricter rules on the assessors hired by private firms to judge whether people claiming sickness and/or disability benefits are faking it.

The First Do No Harm lobby on February 13 aims to expose the continued harm caused to disabled people by the Tory government’s work capability assessments (WCAs), concentrating on the repeated failure of assessors hired by the Department for Work and Pensions to collect and pay proper regard to further medical evidence, as needed to judge a claimant’s eligibility for sickness and disability benefits.

It has been organised by Labour’s Treasury and work and pensions teams, through shadow chancellor John McDonnell and shadow work and pensions secretary Margaret Greenwood, after campaigning by the disabled people’s grassroots group Black Triangle and other disabled activists.

The aim is to push for the principle of “First Do No Harm” – a concept that should be at the heart of any true medical professional’s moral code – to be included in the benefits assessment process, through a framework that “treats disabled people with dignity and respect”.

This would introduce new “safety protocols” to ensure that the health and lives of disabled people are not put at risk by unfair decisions on eligibility following a WCA.

The lobby also aims to push the Conservative government to bow to years of pressure to carry out a cumulative assessment of the impact of its social security cuts and reforms on disabled people.

And it will call for an end to the government’s sanctions and conditionality regime.

The lobby is due to take place on Wednesday 13 February between 1pm and 6pm, with the briefing from 2-3.30pm, in the Palace of Westminster’s committee room 15. The committee room can be used for one-to-one meetings with MPs or further discussions on the issue from 1-2pm and then from 3.30-6pm

You can read more details in this Disability News Service article – and then you are invited to help out.

While the lobby has been organised by Labour, it is hoped that MPs from all parties will attend – especially Conservatives. And they’re only likely to do so if their constituents demand it.

It doesn’t matter if you are sick, disabled or able-bodied – if you want your MP to attend the lobby, get in touch – for example, by using the website WriteToThem, saying you wish to seek an appointment on the day of the lobby.

One more thing: Spread the word via Facebook, Twitter, and any other social network you use.

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Labour’s Laura tackles Tory liars over ‘kill yourself’ scandal that is STILL happening after FOUR YEARS

Laura Pidcock MP.

It is nearly four years to the day since I published evidence that private contractors carrying out the Work Capability Assessment for the Conservative government were asking ESA claimants why they had not killed themselves. But Labour MP Laura Pidcock has raised concerns that it is still happening.

It should be plain to everybody that one does not ask why a person who has confessed to suicidal thoughts has not acted on those thoughts.

But that is clearly what happened to Abi Fallows, as described in my December 2014 article. We know it did because she recorded it.

I wrote at the time: “Abi Fallows described the interview on the I bet I can find a million people who DON’T want David Cameron as our PM Facebook group after reading Vox Political‘s article on the hidden cost of the Coalition Government’s benefits policy.

“‘At my last Atos ‘assessment’, when mentioning depression, the ‘assessor’ asked me why I hadn’t killed myself yet,’ she told astonished members of the Facebook group.

“She said the assessors’ attitude seemed to be that she couldn’t be depressed if she had not already killed herself.”

The resemblance between her words and those of Ms Pidcock – as quoted in this Canary article – is uncanny. The Labour MP stated: “Constituents have told us that they are concerned that some assessors are not specialist qualified mental health professionals. They tell us that they feel they are being judged as ‘not genuine’ – i.e. if you really were suicidal you would have killed yourself by now. This has caused great distress.”

So she tackled now-former Tory Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey, asking, in a written question, “what steps she has taken to ensure that (a) work capability assessment providers do not ask claimants with mental health problems why they had not carried out their suicidal ideas and (b) the conduct of assessments does not increase the risk of suicide and self harm among claimants with mental health problems.”

The response from minister of state Sarah Newton seems to suggest that no such steps have been taken. It explains: “All healthcare professionals (HCPs) carrying out WCA assessments were given face to face training on exploring self-harm and suicidal ideation in May 2018. The training which was quality assured by the Royal College of Psychiatrists was designed to enhance the skills of HCPs in sensitively exploring self-harm and suicidal ideation.”

Unfortunately, as Ms Pidcock herself complained, that does not answer the question. She did not want vague comments about training in sensitivity; she wanted to know that assessors had been banned from asking what is potentially an extremely harmful question.

And the Royal College of Psychiatrists has distanced itself from Ms Newton’s claim, saying its contribution could hardly be described as quality assurance: “The College’s role has been limited to assessing the written training material sent to them by the Centre for Health and Disability Assessment to ensure that it is factually correct.”

We don’t know what that material is. We don’t know what it says. And we don’t know what readers are intended to draw from it.

Ms Pidcock is quoted as saying: “The minister has not answered the specific question. MPs on the Work and Pensions Select Committee put it to Newton in December 2017 that this was a standard question on the assessment. Although some discussion of suicidal thoughts may be appropriate in order to safeguard vulnerable people, she has not answered whether this particularly direct question has been removed.”

We must, therefore, draw the only logical conclusion: The question is still part of the assessment and government assessors are still drawing the attention of people with mental health issues to suicide.

And the Conservative government is doing its best to hide these facts because the Conservative government wants to attract suicidal benefit claimants to suicide.

It gets them off the benefit books and the Tories know they can dodge the blame for it.

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Did McVey quit the government to avoid questions on disability deaths cover-up?

Runner: Esther McVey got out of the DWP before she could be made to answer some very difficult questions.

Remember when Esther McVey quit the government last week, claiming it was because of Brexit, and I suggested she was running to avoid having to answer the criticisms of the Department for Work and Pensions raised by UN inspector Philip Alston?

It turned out that she had already exchanged words with the special rapporteur on poverty – but now it seems I was not wrong after all, as Ms McVey’s departure allowed her to avoid answering questions on a possible link between the hated Work Capability Assessment carried out by private contractors on behalf of the DWP and the deaths of benefit claimants.

This issue is whether the government showed key documents linking the deaths of claimants with the work capability assessment (WCA) to Dr Paul Litchfield, the independent expert hired to review the test in 2013 and 2014.

Dr Litchfield carried out the fourth and fifth reviews of the WCA but has refused to say if he was shown two letters written by coroners and a number of secret DWP “peer reviews”.

In the light of recent revelations, it seems reasonable to ask whether this is because he was asked to sign a ‘gagging order’ – a non-disclosure agreement requiring him not to say anything embarrassing or critical about the Conservative government or its minister.

Dr Litchfield published his two reviews in December 2013 and November 2014, but neither mentioned the documents, which all link the WCA with the deaths of claimants.

Disability News Service raised the issue in July, prompting Opposition spokespeople to send official letters demanding an explanation. Labour shadow minister for disabled people Marsha de Cordova’s was written on July 25, and Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesman Stephen Lloyd’s followed on August 2.

Neither had received a response by the time Ms McVey walked out, as DNS reported.

I think we can safely conclude that the four-month delay – so far – indicates Ms McVey intended never to respond. The disagreement over Brexit provided a handy excuse to do a runner.

Will Amber Rudd be more forthcoming?

The evidence of her time at the Home Office suggests the opposite.

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Calls mount for Universal Credit to be axed as McVey admits people ‘will be worse off’

Serious face: Esther McVey tries to hide the fact that Universal Credit will drive even more people towards poverty and desperation – for no good reason.

Long-term readers of This Site will be pleased to know that Mrs Mike was recently awarded Personal Independence Payments, at a rate that means she receives more than she did on Disability Living Allowance.

Unfortunately, she has now heard that her PIP claim will eventually be mutated into Universal Credit, leading to an awkward conversation in which she asked whether we would have to write the forms all over again, and expressed her fear that she would lose money, in the strongest possible terms.

When you hear statements like the following, from Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey (and pay attention to the Labour Party’s comments too), you can certainly understand Mrs Mike’s concerns:

Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Margaret Greenwood has hammered the point home: “Now that Esther McVey has admitted that people will be worse off under Universal Credit, this Conservative Government has no excuse for pushing ahead with [its] shameful programme.

“This exposes Number 10’s claim this week that no family will receive less money under Universal Credit as fiction. The evidence shows that millions of people will be worse off.

“The Government must stop the rollout now, before millions of families are plunged into poverty and put at risk of homelessness.”

Eoin Clarke posted on his Tory Fibs Twitter feed: “Massive moment in British Politics. Today, the government admitted Universal Credit will leave people worse off. Going ahead with it is now nothing other than sadism.”

Journalist George Monbiot Tweeted: “When a politician like Esther McVey says they have made a “tough decision”, they invariably mean tough for other people, not for … them.”

And Labour’s Ian Lavery pointed out that the rollout of Universal Credit makes a mockery of the Tories’ appointment of a minister for suicide prevention, as the number of people attempting to kill themselves will soar. This is a strong assertion that Tory policies push people to suicide, in the face of the DWP’s protestations that they don’t.

He wrote, in a letter to Theresa May: “This rollout will lead to increased suicides and the unnecessary deaths of yet more people who have been forced into desperation by the welfare reforms of the past 8 years.

“I ask you to look at this situation urgently and do all you can to avoid implementing such an ill-thought out and damaging policy simply because of an ideological belief.”

Speaking as he sent the letter he added: “If the government continues to push forward this nonsensical and vicious agenda, they will have blood on their hands.”

Tory ministers already have blood on their hands, of course. John McDonnell has backed calls for Iain Duncan Smith to be prosecuted for failing to act on coroners’ reports, warning that Tory benefit cuts and conditionality were leading to deaths.

And what does “sadistic” Mrs May have to say about all this?

She’s not budging.

Asked by the SNP’s Ian Blackford to reconsider all the government’s social security policies – and in particular to scrap the work capability assessments that have driven half of all female claimants of sickness and disability benefits to attempt suicide – she dug her heels in.

“It is important that we get the assessments right,” she incanted robotically at Prime Minister’s Questions. “It is right that we are encouraging people into the workplace and wanting to ensure that people who are able to be in the workplace are given the support that enables them to do that. That is what we want to do. It is right that we maintain assessments. Of course we look at the impact and quality of those assessments. That is work the Department for Work and Pensions does on a regular basis. It is important that we are undertaking those assessments.”

“It is important.” “It is right.” “It is right.” “It is important.”

Important for whom? Right for whom?

For the super-rich, who have benefited from huge tax cuts while the rest of us have suffered from cuts to services and benefits? Assuredly.

Certainly not for the thousands upon thousands of perfectly decent people that Mrs May, Ms McVey, Mr Duncan Smith and the others have driven to attempted suicide and to death.

But then, Tories don’t count them as people, do they? To a Tory, they – and you, and certainly Mrs Mike – are stock.

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Tory minister for suicide prevention: ‘Like curing malaria with the plague’

Jackie Doyle-Price: The new minister for suicide prevention supported all the policies that have pushed people to take their own lives – and joked about suicide as well. Is that what the Tories think this issue is – a joke?

It was an easy mistake to make. When I heard the Conservative government had appointed a minister for suicide prevention I thought, “Does this mean they’re finally accepting responsibility?”

Alas, I was mistaken.

But you only have to look back over the last six years of Vox Political‘s output to see the Tory record, going back to my report on the Bedroom Tax-related death of Stephanie Bottrill. Her inquest found that stress and pressure placed on her by the Conservative-led government of the day contributed to her suicide.

You would also be well-advised to revist my article about ‘chequebook euthanasia’ – the idea that the Conservative government consciously drives benefit claimants – especially people with long-term illnesses and disabilities – to suicide in a way that means they can then deny any connection with the death.

We have seen such denials many times in recent years, embodied in the now-standard claim that “correlation does not equal causation” and “suicide is complicated; there are many possible causes”.

Sure, correlation does not necessarily equal causation. However, when half of all the women who have ever taken the Tory government’s Work Capability Assessment have attempted suicide – as The Independent has told us – I think it’s safe to say Conservative policies push people towards it.

But the announcement of Jackie Doyle-Price’s appointment to the new role said only that she would “help tackle the stigma” associated with suicide. And the only initiative announced was support in schools.

And her commitment to the role was instantly called into question when it was revealed that Ms Doyle-Price has consistently voted for the cuts in social security benefits that have been blamed for the multitude of suicides and suicide attempts.

Nursing Notes tells us: “According to the website TheyWorkForYou, Ms. Doyle-Price has consistently voted to reduce housing benefit, voted against raising benefits in line with inflation, voted against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability and voted forty-six times for an overall reduction in spending on welfare benefits.

“Statistics show that those with long-term physical or mental health issues are significantly more likely to be dependent on the state for assistance with housing and living costs.

“Social isolation, financial and health struggles are thought to be some of the leading risk factors for preventable suicide in the UK.”

The article quotes Vicki Nash, Head of Policy and Campaigns at Mind, who said: “Mind found that half of people with mental health problems have thought about or attempted suicide as a result of social issues such as housing issues, finances, benefit support, and employment. We need a benefits system that is supportive – not one that drives people into poverty.”

Damn straight, Keith.

The revelation that she actually made a joke about suicide makes it even worse.

https://twitter.com/MattTurner4L/status/1050070483876614144

This Site’s long-time friend and fellow campaigner for the rights of sick and disabled people, Samuel Miller, has raised a few pertinent points on this matter, especially the final one:

Was it? I don’t think so.

I think it was a signal; they appointed the least appropriate person for the job because they think the deaths and attempted deaths of hundreds of thousands of people are nothing but a big joke. They really are that repulsive.

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Theresa May’s snub to grieving mum shows Tories are engineering benefit-related deaths – and they don’t care

Theresa May: She couldn’t care less.

You know what I’m going to say about this.

The Department for Work and Pensions is adamant that we must not claim any causal effect between its decisions and any downturn in benefit claimants’ health – including death.

But that doesn’t work in this case.

Jodey Whiting was found ‘fit for work’ in the face of a wealth of evidence showing the opposite to be the case.

For a start, she had missed a work capability assessment because she had been in hospital undergoing treatment for a brain cyst – and pneumonia.

She had been taking 23 tablets a day, and morphine twice daily, for conditions including scoliosis and bipolar disorder.

She was clearly unfit for work.

But the Department for Work and Pensions’ decision-maker refused to reschedule the assessment and found Ms Whiting ‘fit for work’ instead. The DWP then rubber-stamped a refusal of her request for mandatory reconsideration.

She contacted Citizens’ Advice – and an attempt to secure a new work capability assessment was put in motion – but Ms Whiting took her own life days later.

The ‘fit for work’ decision was rescinded only a couple of weeks after her death.

Job done, you see. The Tories could afford to admit they were wrong because their victim had died and would not burden the benefit books any more. That is how they work.

And now they can’t even be bothered to fake sorrow for the death. Mrs May’s correspondence team failed to offer condolences and her spokesperson refused even to comment on the matter.

The lack of any decent human consideration, coupled with the callousness inherent in the way they treated the deceased woman, damns the Tories.

A disabled woman whose daughter took her own life after being wrongly found “fit for work” has vowed to continue her fight for justice, despite the prime minister’s office brushing off her request for a meeting.

Joy Dove wrote in July to ask for a meeting with Theresa May to discuss the tragic death of her daughter Jodey Whiting in February 2017, and the thousands of other disabled victims of the government’s “wrong decisions”.

But the prime minister’s correspondence team dismissed her letter and replied just days later to say that a meeting would not be possible because of “the tremendous pressures of her diary”.

The letter failed to even mention Jodey Whiting or her death or express any condolences.

Source: WCA tragedy woman’s mum vows to fight on for justice despite No 10 letter snub

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