General Election - Restore Unconditional Benefits for the Severely Sick
+ THE WELFARE REFORM BILL - MENTAL HEALTH - CW BLOG
March 4th, 2010
CARERWATCH ARE FIGHTING TO RESTORE UNCONDITIONAL BENEFITS TO ALL PEOPLE WITH SEVERE AND ENDURING ILLNESS. IN PARTICULAR CARERWATCH WANT THE THREAT OF SANCTIONS AND CONDITIONALITY under ESA REMOVED FROM PEOPLE WITH SEVERE AND ENDURING MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES. THIS CAN BE ACHIEVED BY ALLOCATING THEM TO THE ‘SUPPORT’ GROUP.
We are asking all Prospective Parliamentary Candidiates to support this campaign and thank all those who are supporting us - sign here
See the candidates who have signed to support us.
Please e-mail your local candidates and ask them to support us and sign here
There are six million carers and we hope they will all look carefully at this list of candidates who are supporting our campaign before they vote.
This is not a broad campaign tackling all the problems in the new Welfare Reform Bills - it is just an emergency action to protect the most sick and the most vulnerable who have been caught up in these reforms.
Come and help with this campaign
The story so far
On 12th November 2009 the Welfare Reform Bill passed in to law.
Incapacity benefit was replaced with ESA (Employment Support Allowance). This new sick benefit is all about getting sick people back to work - a great aim. A million sick people will be reclassified as fit for work and put on JSA. The rest will all be put on a regime where their benefits are conditional on preparing themselves to go back to work. The only exceptions are people with less than six months to live or receiving certain invasive treatments. All other sick people will have to attend a schedule of appointments and activities and ‘conditionality’ is applied to them which means they lose their benefits if they are deemed not to be complying or trying hard enough.
We are not asking to reverse all these reforms. The two main political parties are determined on them. All we are asking is that they remember that amongst sick people there are people with severe and enduring illness who have serious problems to deal with every day and are too ill to be made to cope with this kind of bracing pressure. If they have a severe diagnosis there is no question of fraud. They should be shown the humanity of being given all the back to work help on a voluntary basis without the fear of sanctions which is what was described in the original design of the bill. All that needs to happen is that they are placed in the ’support’ group which was designed exactly for the severely sick where their condition is recognised and all help back to work is voluntary.
CarerWatch consider that the process of sanctions is a pseudo legal procedure and as with other types of law where people with severe mental illness can plead ‘not fit to plead’ they are a special case. They cannot be fairly sanctioned for failing to attend and comply and communicate because their behaviour may be part of their illness.
Fiona Bruce Says:
Disabled and ill people, whether physically or mentally, are already treated like second class citizens (this is the reality) and we have to live with all kinds of stigma, to then have someone else “controlling” your life, because that is effectively what will happen, would be a further impingement on an already severely restricted way of living. Being able to manage one’s own finances, to have enough money to do that (!) and make decisions about the care that is needed, AND who gives it, or have someone you choose and trust do that for you, gives back a small sense of control and over one’s life. Illness and disability take that away, we do not need the government removing it even more. Living with the limitations of illness and disability is a constant daily struggle, to impose further restrictions on us, when we are at our most vulnerable, is simply heartless, mislead and shows a massive lack of understanding of our needs
These reforms were carried out by NewLabour and the Tories. Thanks to all the people who spoke up against these reforms. Thanks to the LRC Labour Group, to Compass, to the Green Party, to the Lib Dems and in particular to the crossbench Baroness Molly Meacher who spoke for people with mental illness.
CarerWatch are delighted that the LibDems the Green Party and the Scottish National Party are officially endorsing this campaign.
Petition - Well done - we made the magic 200 which used to mean that No 10 had to publish a reply. Be good to see the reply. Unfortunately the number required seems to have inexplicably risen to 500! Let’s take it as a challenge! We’ve hit 300 now. Please keep signing and getting every one else to sign - quickly - before they move the goal posts again! The petition was created by Joanne Moran from Bury Autistic Parents Society and reads:
‘We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Abolish Workfare.’
Parkinsons Disease Society and PDS and PDS
listen (you and yours 12pm)
So what do we do now?
+ LibDem DWP spokesperson Steve Webb supports CW campaign
March 4th, 2010
Dear CarerWatch,
Thank you for your email regarding the CarerWatch manifesto. I am happy to confirm that the Liberal Democrats are supportive of these three campaigns.
Specifically,
3) Regarding the ESA, we are very concerned at the Government’s heavy-handed attempts to move as many people off benefits as possible. We believe that people must be supported back into work where this is suitable for them, and at their own pace, but we certainly do not believe in coercion. We think the work capability assessment is too harsh and we would not want to see people with serious mental health problems pushed back into work before they’re ready. We favour a ‘partial capacity benefit’ that would allow people to do some work when they were able to, without losing benefit entitlement, as a much fairer way of supporting those with fluctuating conditions such as mental health issues..
I hope this is helpful, and thank you for taking the trouble to get in touch.
Best wishes,
Steve Webb MP
Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
+ DWP own report says staff know the system is failing
March 3rd, 2010
The DWP report issued today says their own staff can’t administer this rotten system and can see it is making the mentally ill more ill.
We told them it was cruel. Any one can see it is inhumane and counter productive for the very ill. Why do all these people have to suffer before the government can see how inappropriate it is to treat very sick people like this.
+ If you don’t want to be called a bully - don’t act like a bully
February 22nd, 2010
CarerWatch say that if Gordon Brown wants to show that he is not a bully what better way than to support our campaign to restore unconditional benefits to the most seriously and enduringly sick people.
Then they could have peace of mind and undertake work related activity when they feel able without fear of being bullied.
+ ESA claimants must now obey orders
February 19th, 2010
ESA claimants must now obey orders
Benefits and Work site
Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants can now be ordered by private sector personal advisers to carry out activities in addition to attending Pathways to Work interviews. If claimants fail to follow orders their benefits will be cut.
From 10 February a personal adviser can tell an ESA claimant who is not in the support group that only the activity which the adviser specifies will count as a work-related activity. If the claimant fails to carry out the specified activity within the required time without good cause their benefit will be sanctioned.
The specified activity must be recorded in the claimant’s action plan and it cannot be a medical or surgical intervention of any sort. There is also a requirement that the specified activity must be reasonable having regard to the claimant’s circumstances.
The new regulations do not give examples of the kinds of activity involved but it might, for example, be attendance at a course on CV writing or interview skills.
Any decision to sanction a claimant’s benefits must be made by a DWP decision maker, not the personal adviser, and carries the right of appeal.
+ Back to work benefits row
February 1st, 2010
+ Government panic and introduce mental health co-ordinators
January 20th, 2010
CarerWatch suppose that we should be pleased that the government have taken note of our campaigning about the incompatible disjunction between mental health and ESA.
These new advisors are obviously meant to speed the implementation of boot camp rather than challenge the premise of it for mental health claimants but at least the government will get feedback from these mental health advisors as to the disaster it is generating rather than all the mental health claimants being lost throughout the system.
+ Letter to the Disability Charities
January 7th, 2010
Subject: Tide Turns on ESA Medical Assessment
From: “Carer Watch”
Date: Thu, January 7, 2010
To: macmillan.org.uk
mind.org.uk
rethink.org
parkinsons.org.uk
nas.org.uk
Hi there
The newsletter from Benefits and Work today suggests that the government is finally seeing sense and having a rethink on the ATOS assessments for ESA.
Carerwatch hope that the Disability Charities can get together on this and work together to get the ‘conditionality’ removed from people diagnosed with severe and enduring illness.
Up to now people with schizophrenia and bi polar have been our focus but the cases we are seeing of people with severe physical illness and limited time to live being required to go through back to work hoops are absolutely appalling.
Hopefully the disability charities can agree some sort of common policy and statement on this soon.
Carer Watch
A campaign group for carers across the UK run by independent, unpaid carers.
+ Is the tide on ESA beginning to turn
January 7th, 2010
Benefits and Work describe what is happening to severely sick people.
Newsletter from the wonderful benefits and work site
benefits and work
Incapacity benefit to ESA transfer date revealed
Welcome to 2010, we hope you had a peaceful Christmas and that the New Year has got off to good start..
In this edition, we have the news that a firm date has finally been given to start the transfer of incapacity benefit claimants to employment and support allowance.
We also have the welcome news that the tide may finally be turning against the harsh work capability assessment for employment and support allowance. Two reports were published in December 2009 criticising the new assessment procedure and the press have finally begun to take an interest.
Read the full article…
+ Asking all prospective candidates
January 3rd, 2010
Let’s make this a Happy New Year
CarerWatch are asking all prospective candidates in the General Election if they support our campaign to restore the right to unconditional benefits to people diagnosed with serious and enduring illness, some with only months to live.
How the righteous and over zealous people who brought in this legisalation could have over looked their duty of care to very sick people and how the disability charities could have let them do this is a mystery.
Now all we can do is fight to get it changed so that seriously sick people once again get care and respect from the DWP.
CarerWatch are delighted to name the first parliamentary candidate to endorse our campaign as
Joseph Healy
Green Party Parliamentary Candidate for Vauxhall
I am pleased to see that some disability organisations realise that they were taken in by the government. Good also to see that govt are reconsidering draconian tasks. However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, i.e. how many claimants will not have their income cut. I recently visited a disabled woman who works in a Job Centre Plus for the DWP and she told me that their office was full of claimants, some of whom had only months to live, because of the ridiculous rule that anyone with over 6 months left had to come in and sign once every few months. She said that their offices were clogged up with people clearly unable to work and desperately ill because of government red tape.
Cheers
Joseph Healy
Parliamentary Candidate for Vauxhall
government at last begins to realise what it has done