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Panorama and Didpatches, Work Capability Assessment. Options
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Naomi1
#1 Posted : Tuesday, July 31, 2012 7:17:31 PM Quote
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I've just watched the Dispatches and Panorama documentaries about the Work capability Assessment for Employment Support Allowance. They are both available on i-player if you missed them and want to catch up. There are well publicised stories in the media about benefit cheats who claim disability benefits and are then filmed dancing and running marathons. This programme showed the other side of the coin and how the new assessment makes it almost impossible to claim benefits even when people are clearly not fit to work in the opinion of their consultants and GPs. I found the content of these programmes extremely disturbing and I hope that I am able to continue in work for many years to come. I have had to go part time due to RA and I do want to hang on to my job. I know RA can be unpredictable though and if I become too disabled to work then God help me because I doubt whether the state will give me the support I would need in this situation. What do other people with RA think about this? Does anyone have faith in the current benefits system stepping in to adequately help people with RA who are too ill to work.
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RichC
#2 Posted : Tuesday, July 31, 2012 9:26:42 PM Quote
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Hi Naomi , i think you already know my answer to this ...that only the most severely affected will qualify for financial , Local Authority , and other assistance.

Unfortunately both the programs are too little too late with regard reforms , however , it may be the beginning of the end of ATOS.
It will probably be another company like A4E or G4S stepping in .
A bigger issue for the Government is the localism Bill , which will see people on means tested benefits having to pay part of their Council Tax ,... memories of the Poll tax and the fall of Thatcherite Britain :)
LA's will be expected to run their own Council Tax and subsidy programs from Next April . Pensioners are protected , Disabled Council Tax payers aren't.

Plus very limited legal aid help as from April 2013.

So it's a good bye from the Tories at the next election , but they will leave any future Government without any option to dismantle the reforms because they will be too embedded in practice.

R:(
"The difference between 'involvement' and 'commitment' is like an eggs-and-ham breakfast: the chicken was 'involved' - the pig was 'committed'."
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LynW
#3 Posted : Thursday, August 02, 2012 10:42:43 AM Quote
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Hi Naomi and Rich

I agree entirely with all your sentiments. I watched Panorama but haven't yet caught up with Dispatches. Very frightening times ahead for those of us in receipt of benefits. I was ill health retired by my government employer. It wasn't my decision, but I was too ill to work and it was taken out of my hands, be dismissed or take ill health.

For me the government has already made its decision and I just don't understand how legally they can now go back on that decision and decide 24 years later when I now have an added diagnosis and the original is considerably worse, that I am fit to work simply because they have changed the rules!

I could probably manage to move empty boxes for a couple of hours a day, providing I can do it sitting down! Anyone offer me a job?

Lyn x
My son, Ian, completed the BUPA Great North Run on 15th September running for the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society (NRAS). You can read his story at http://www.justgiving.com/ianlukewilson

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Dorothy-W
#4 Posted : Thursday, August 02, 2012 11:36:24 AM Quote
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hi folks, i caught dispatches but missed panorama didnt know it was on, i am so miffed at it,i had to give work up as my employer gave me an ultimatum, i had just lost my husband and got hit with r.a at the same time,dwp sent me to atos and was told fit for work then 2 months later got letter to say i was put on support group i do get angry at the system but i have applied for jobs since but as soon as i say r.a and part time in the same breath i get the look then offerd 4 hrs a week,sorry but i have stopped applying now where i live there are 300 at the moment apllying for 3 jobs in a new store so i have no chance, i too am worried about the future,my husband got full benifit and d.l.a. after alot of fuss/appeals etc,we fought for years sadly he got full benifits due to health in the may which by then felt an insult as he was in such bad health,i felt that their thinking was "its only for a short time let him have it", he died in the nov it really made life better for a short time. i have a friend of a friend on high rate dla etc and can run for a bus i cant, ah well rant over,goverment will do what they want anyway,wonder how things would be if it was them in our positons,i have agreed to work if they can find a job to suit me as yet nothing,dorothy
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