Chronic Illness Re Assessment

The news reports said “tens of thousands of people”!

There this will restricted to set criteria of their own devising.

It will not be just all progressive conditions such as MD. Were we
not told there are 70,000 MD sufferers .

Will be interesting.

Cynics are saying this is not done from motives of kindness and
charity but is a direct result of the mounting numbers of
people appealing their ESA decisions and the quoted 65 % success rate
of those appeals.

Hopefully we’ll be included in their stupid list

http://oldsite.musculardystrophyuk.org/news/news/no-more-esa-retests-for-progressive-conditions/

This is from benefits&works page:

The announcement that some claimants will be spared repeat work capability assessments for employment and support allowance (ESA) has been the big news of the last fortnight.

Below we’ve set out what we know so far.

There’s also news of an updated version of one of our ESA guides and a request for someone who is just beginning the personal independence payment (PIP) or ESA assessment process to share their story with Radio 4 – which we’ve now had to remove because of the deluge of responses the programme received in just a few hours..

Plus, the unsurprising revelation that the introduction of PIP and changes to ESA have failed to produce anything like the savings the DWP predicted

WILL REASSESSMENT EXEMPTIONS APPLY TO PIP?
No.

Exemptions will only apply to ESA and universal credit (UC). It won’t affect PIP awards in any way.

WILL EXEMPTIONS APPLY TO WRAG CLAIMANTS?
No.

Exemptions will only be for some claimants in the ESA support group or UC equivalent.

Damian Green’s statement on 10 October was absolutely clear that only claimants “who have already been placed in the ESA Support Group or UC Limited Capability for Work and Work Related Activity categories following a WCA” will be considered for exemption from reassessment.

WILL CERTAIN CONDITIONS BE AUTOMATICALLY EXEMPT?
It’s possible that certain conditions will automatically entitle claimants to be exempt from reassessment. But Green argued when he made his original announcement on 1 October that:

“It’s the severity of the condition that matters, because indeed there are some people with MS that can work, but we know that it’s a degenerative disease so there will come a point when it may well be that they can’t work.”

On 10 October Green added that only claimants “who have the most severe health conditions and disabilities” would be eligible. He defined this as claimants with:

severe,
lifelong,
often progressive and incurable conditions,
with minimally fluctuating care needs,
who are unlikely to ever be able to move closer to the labour market and into work.
So, the likelihood is that there will be a list of conditions which may allow claimants to be exempt from reassessment. But it will still be for a Maximus health professional to assess the severity of the condition and for the DWP to make the final decision.

This may require say a physiotherapist to decide how severe a claimant’s autism, Huntington’s disease or congenital heart condition is. (These are all conditions that have been suggested as possible grounds for exemption).

It will then be for an entirely non-medically qualified DWP staff member to decide if the health professional got it right.

It’s a system that’s guaranteed to produce some very poor decisions, in keeping with the rest of the WCA.

HOW WILL THEY DECIDE WHAT THE CRITERIA FOR EXEMPTION ARE GOING TO BE?
It’ll be the usual . . . the DWP will consult and then do what they want anyway.

Green has said that:

“Over the coming months we will work with key stakeholders, including disabled people, disability charities, our health assessment provider, the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments, medical professionals and others to develop a set of criteria, set out in guidance, to switch off reassessments for those that are eligible.”

DOESN’T THIS ALL SOUND STRANGELY FAMILIAR?
Yes, if you’ve ever claimed incapacity benefit (IB), then it probably does sound familiar. Under IB, some claimants were exempt from being assessed at all, let alone reassessed.

Exemptions included:

people in receipt of disability living allowance (DLA) care component at the highest rate;
people who were registered blind;
people with severe learning difficulties;
people with a severe mental illness.
We’ve reproduced all the old exemptions in an article in the latest news section.
WHEN WILL THE NEW SYSTEM BEGIN?
Definitely not this year.

Green says:

“The IT changes needed are expected to be completed by the end of 2017. In the meantime, we will be working to ensure these people are not reassessed unnecessarily.”

So it sounds like they will begin trying to exempt some claimants once they have decided what the criteria will be. But the system won’t start properly before late next year.

And if the DWP’s past record on IT projects is anything to go by, it could be an awful lot longer than that.

We’ll keep you posted.

Well now I’m just even more angry.

Please correct me if I’m wrong but, is this proof the MD Campaign supports these proposals? http://oldsite.musculardystrophyuk.org/news/news/government-announces-plans-to-tackle-disability-employment-gap/

If that is the case I won’t be posting here anymore, not if they’re supporting the tories in hounding people in the support group.

The yawning chasm between this paper’s (and the tories in general’) rhetoric & the reality of what the tories has done & is doing to disabled people is perhaps its most striking characteristic. The Emperor really does not have any clothes.

In fact, given recent government policy towards disabled people, it seems surprising that the disability employment gap isn’t even bigger. With the abolition of the Independent Living Fund, cuts to Access to Work & hundreds of people a week losing their vehicles/mobility help after a PIP assessment, it seems a distinct possibility that, far from being reduced, that gap could grow.

I need clarification on the campaign’s position because if it’s true & they are supporting the government in this, I’m off. I will not be part of this forum anymore. I am sorry but, I can’t be part of any body or organisation that conspires with the government against us.

EDIT: Brother reckons I may have the wrong end of the stick & I need to calm down but, I still would appreciate a comment on the campaigns position please because clearly the DWP have stated their intention to hound people even in the support group & that is abhorrent.

Thank you sir for taking the time to address my concerns. I wouldn’t speak for other people on their behalf but, I am certain the clarification is welcome across the board.

I now feel confident & assured that MD UK’s approach to this paper & it’s proposals is the correct one.

In this fractured relationship between disabled people & employers, employers hold virtually all the cards, & have it in their power to make a huge difference to the situation. They have so far shown little inclination to do so, but are nevertheless courted & praised, through the government’s Disability Confident scheme. Meanwhile, the government piles pressure onto sick & disabled people for not striving harder to get jobs that just aren’t there.

Before piling more pressure onto disabled people to get jobs, the government needs to a) ensure suitable jobs exist, & b) restore all the support it has removed that would make it possible for them to work, e.g. restore Motability cars, reverse the £4.6 billion social care cut.

Maybe MD UK (I didn’t know the name had changed either until me brother pointed it out, sorry) could point out that gaping chasm in their flawed plan as well as oppose the very real threat of hounding people in the support group.

When a tory government claim, they are going to “help” sick & disabled people into work, that usually signals further cuts to our lifeline of support & essential services are on the way & that the social security system is going to be ground down a little further.

Work & pensions secretary Damian Green has said & I quote “In the long run there is nothing more expensive than saying to someone, ‘Here’s a benefit you can have for the rest of your life and we will ignore you,’”

What he means, & what government believe is that work can cure what ails you. Well it’s good to see the staggering ignorance & lack of empathy is consistent & has been maintained between the appointments of Secretary of State. Heinous.

The tories genuinely seem to believe that the only indication of a person’s functional capacity, value & potential is their economic productivity, & the only indication of their moral worth is their capability & degree of willingness to work.

If the government genuinely wanted to “help” sick and disabled people into work, I’m certain they would not have cut the Independent Living Fund, Access to Work funding & made the eligibility criteria for PIP much more difficult to meet in order to simply reduce successful claims & cut costs. This has also meant that thousands have lost their Motability vehicles & support.

A total of 45% or 13,900 people, were deemed as not needing the higher rate of PIP & therefore lost their vehicles after reassessment. And out of the 31,200 people who were once on the highest rate of DLA who have been reassessed, just 55%, or 17,300 – have kept their car.

This is the life of a disabled person living under the punitive rule of the toxic elite, the selfservatives.

And they dare to sneer at the UN who quite rightly point out the error of their ways.