More disabled to suffer under UK budget travesty.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/disab ... 90818.html

The article you linked to is dated 11th June 1993.

yeah, wrong linkey lol. I have A LOT of pages open right now digging up details on all this DLA messing about.

http://www.disabilityaction.org/news/it ... 10-budget/

That's more like what I was aiming for.

I think all the discussion about the emergency budget has been blown way out of proportion. The government doesn't plan to introduce medical assessments for DLA until 2013, the 20% VAT is only 2.5% more than we're already paying and the welfare cut is just a 2% reduction on the usual yearly raise of 5%. All in all, it doesn't seem too bad at the moment.

A government appointed doctor came to visit me at home in 1997 and wrote "Mr. X lives at home with the ambiance of a single man living alone", while nothing about my physical problems were mentioned in his report at all. It took me 4 years of appeals and a tribunal hearing to eventully be heard and be awarded DLA I think that process destroyed a big part of me.

3 years of anxiety now until my next review, so for me it does seem bad.

This is my biggest issue with the review. The people charged to carry it out are provably incompetent. Second is the fact that JSA (which is where the greater part of fraudulent job-dodging goes on) seems to be left alone, even though extra effort in the early months of a JSA claim are usually the best time in which to get someone working again. 3 years of waiting for the inevitable doom which will be followed by the months of appeals and tribunals will put vast amounts of stress on a vulnerable sector of society in exactly the same way as the corrupt and expensive mess that is ESA (replacing Incapacity.) Many of the people who have been forced through THAT wringer are exactly the same people who will now be forced to go through a very similar intrusive and destructive process AGAIN, continuously fighting to prove things that, if they are diagnosed, are often proven by the existence OF that diagnosis.

The good news is that if the government is putting the assessments off, it might mean that they're just paying lip service to all the disgruntled tax payers and don't really mean to go through with it. This seems to be reflected by the over-zealous exaggeration of the facts by the media esp. the BBC.

I can only hope pressure on this government makes them rethink the harm that can be done by continual reassessment of those who have either [or both] physical or neurological conditions that are never likely to improve.

I read a guy on Twitter say his reassessment would always be the same "Ah yes Mr. Carter, I see your arms haven`t regrown yet." For me, I try to get on with my life with a positive outlook most of the time, yet I come crashing down when I have to dig up painful memories from my past and form filling doesn`t help.

I don`t have an official diagnosis for ASD and now in my head I am thinking I cannot possibly speak to my GP about that because they will think I am totting up reasons I can no longer work and continue to claim DLA.

I know where you're coming from. I spent four years stuck on unemployment benefit and spent most of last year jumping through hoops to get ESA. I hate the way they make you dredge up all the things you want to forget about instead of leaving you to get on with your life.

Fortunately, I got the decisions I wanted and things have been rosy ever since.

Lets hope they leave us at peace.

on a brighter note

Protesters Shut Down A4e Edinburgh Office
http://www.indymediascotland.org/node/19721

well, you wouldnt expect them to leap directly from point A- point F though, logically the move towards a new political paradign that will harm many people has to be taken in small steps, it takes time to manipulate public opinion into accepting (even demanding) that changes be made. So in a sense, it is IMO quite appropriate to lean towards overstatement; in the sense that to stop the gradual, insidious deforestation of some woodland, you need to regard each tree as the wood itself, if that makes sense.

the problem with overstatement is it can be presented in a certain way that spreads panic amongst the targetted, actually incapaciating them from being able to coordinate themselves rather than empowering them calmly towards effective resistance. (i expect this phenonema to be cleverly expoited by faux-liberal media)

I hope your right about the 2013 thing - i think its something they would want to do right now, but dont quite feel they could get away with at the moment, so their biding their time, seeing whether the time will be ripe in a few years.

http://www.scope.org.uk/node/16645

The charities are all concerned, and rightly so. The genuinely disabled haven't got a hope in hell, whilst the skilled benefits scrounger will easily fool ATOS employees. Can we also assume that the unemployed disabled will now face TWO assessments, one for ESA and one for DLA? Inside sources at the DWP suggest so. Sources that also inform me that people undergoing appeal are now being paid not just BASIC rate, but a REDUCED rate, in a clearly cynical attempt to force them to accept DWP decisions. Also, I can't help but notice that ATOS are in print as saying they will be training their "professionals" in dealing with Autism and other learning disabilities so that they can better administer "testing"..which is a clear admittance that THEY ARE NOT NOW. So those with learning disabilities who have been ruled against by ATOS have been treated with discrimination.

Also I can't help but notice that the newspapers are often referring to this budget as part of a "WAR on benefits". Since when exactly were the disabled "the enemy"? Should we be forewarned and take up arms perhaps? Should the taxpayers and the government be "at war" with their own people? Why are news articles filled with examples of the MAXIMUM benefits someone can claim.. people with 7 or 8 kids. Why are there no articles about the people living in sh***y flats on 60 quid a week, who by far outnumber the ones who breed for cash? The amounts given were set by the government, not by the people who claim them by the way, and this budget is a reversal of the statements beforehand that the government would make work worth more, instead of cutting benefits.

And STILL nobody has said where exactly all these extra jobs will come from, when the market is flooded with people with jobskills, work experience and no costly requirements.

err... what do these fraudsters say exactly? ill be a fraudster for a day, if it helps them make a fair(er) descision

btw. do you have any thoughts on whether to tape medical interviews? inform them beforehand by post, tell them on the day or do it covertly?



ahh.. the 'home counties' mentaility. Its sad that people who live in privelige become detached from the rest of society,so their very wealth, instead of making them happy and content seems to breed insecurity and fear. They are SO scared of losing what they have, they dehumanize the poor inner-city folk. I think this is fuels all the horrendous sterotypes about benefit fraud and single mother 'baby-factories'.

I didnt really get it before, but i stayed in a posh village for a few days shortly after the election and it was a revelation - like stepping into a different world. divide & rule - these people are so scared that when their clamouring to clamp down and punish the workshy, thieving proles that the bigger picture doesnt even occur to them - that THEY actually have the most to lose from this ideology in the long run, when their own class starts to shrink.

The standard advice to disability claimants is to fill in forms as if every day was the worst day of their life. Wellness in any form counts against you. The medical is an extension of this mentality, and subsequently any coping strategies that might make you appear a little better or more "normal" should be discarded. Attempts to better yourself will only reduce your chances.

I have stated this before in other threads, but its always relevant: According to the ESA medical review points system, which is freely available online, a diagnosis of AS on its own should earn the sufferer a minimum number of points. It requires 15 points to "pass" an ESA medical. AS will garner a minimum of 45 on even the lowest severity. The triad of impairments and the DSM-IV diagnostic requirements mean that someone with AS MUST have some of these points, or they are not AS. This is by the DWP's own paperwork, and not guesswork or my "opinion". Likewise ATOS employees HAVE LIED AND FALSIFIED DOCUMENTS relating to disabilities claims, and they DO wilfully ignore medical information and fail to fill in their own paperwork correctly. These people will be "doing" the new DLA medical.

Thus, regardless of what the genuinely disabled claimant is like, it is possible to "fail" an ATOS medical. A talented fraudster however will easily "present" more obvious signs of disability, exaggerating things that the real disabled will often downplay or hide out of pride and a desire to not be presented as utterly useless.

It would appear that the "best" way to "pass" is to act up to every debilitating stereotype accorded to AS, at least until ATOS stop breaking the law.