The people that determine who is eligable for DLA and Incapacity benefits are a joke, my sister was awarded DLA and a carers allowance for my nephew who had eczema, yet i wasnt allowed it when my son was suffering quite severely with the treatments he had for his brain tumour. Theres a bloke lives down the road to me who got knocked off his bike on his way to work, he wasnt badly enough injured to warrent calling an ambulance but quit his job and got onto one of those no win no fee companies and is now looking at a payout of around 20k he's currently on incapacity benefits and spends his days doing what he likes, including spending 2-3hrs a day pumping iron in the gym and cruising about in the evenings in the taxed and fully insured car the government has kindly provided him with because his mother is on DLA for obesity. The system sucks.

So, you agree with the Department of Work and Pensions giving out guidelines to doctors, to make sure claims were genuine, Hazy?


BTW, why would the government give your neighbour a car?

Did he get a free 'phone too?

I just edited my post to include.. He was given the car because his mother is on full DLA due to her obesity.

As for the guidelines something needs to change cos genuine folk are missing out whilst others are making a mockery of the system.

was her disability 'obesity' though? or did it help cause obesity? or was she just disabled AND fat.

just cos someone is obese doesn't mean they dont suffer from other problems too? even...god forbid....ones that are not obesity related

I dont want to look judgemental but the whole family are large except for the son. The obesity caused mothers type2 diabeties. She only leaves the house twice a week, once to get her money and again to get her dressing changed on her ulcerated leg, but she gets a taxi when a car has been provided to her son to help with her transport needs.

I agree, the system needs an overhaul, but what it needs are staff who are properly trained.  When I first became ill, there was no way I could take public transport and had to attend an interview to get benefits. So had to pay for a taxi there and back (not cheap).  My husband had been made redundant while I was in hospital or I wouldn't have bothered.  I had medical forms from my GP as well as my consultant, and had to sit through a barrage of questions that went on and on and on.

Finally, when it became obvious to the imbecile that I was about to spew all over her desk, did the interview end, however I was then told I had to see another person to guide me back into work.  So, I gave her times when I would be available (on the days when I didn't have treatment) so what do I get?  A letter from yet another person giving me an appointment when I would be having treatment.  So, I rang and explained, AGAIN, when I was not available.  Another appointment letter arrived, again during a time when I was having treatment.  When I rang that time, they finally got their act together and realised that I was indeed, too ill to work.

Thankfully, my husband found work and I was able to stop benefits.  I really can't understand how people can get away with fraud - or even have the desire - as the amount received isn't worth the headaches.

Exactly!!

Does anyone have any evidence for this? Most of the argument pertaining to this subject seems to be based on "My mate down the pub" anecdote and urban myth. Rather a slender argument to base a turtle screw up of the welfare state as we know it. IMO opinion of course.

Personally I don't have any offcial statistics although for me the fact that most people know at least one person on incapacity who souldn't be says it all.

I don't know anyone on incapacity who shouldn't be. i'm not trying to be awkward - I absolutely don't.

Does anyone have any evidence for this .............???    etc etc. See above. ^^

 Yes to all of that. I think the biggest mistake was to close the local Jobcentres. I have the same problem as you suzy, if I have to go to the office in Plymouth, I have to get a taxi because there is no parking anywhere near the place and it costs me £25, if not I would just be stranded in the middle of Plymouth not being able to move due to breathing problems. We used to have a Jobcentre in our Market Town which was very officiant and people knew you and problems were sorted out on the basis that they knew you. If I have to call JobcentrePlus at any time, I will end up in a call centre with nobody having the first idea what is going on.

A hell of a lot of stories seem to be about people who should get it, but are either having, or have had, huge difficulties doing so.


I am much more concerned with those, than with 'my mate down the pub' who gets a free car, sky tv and a house for his pet immigrant. 

Yes - its called anecdotal evidence which the papers feed off.....

etc.

Three-quarters of the incapacity benefit claimants reassessed recently are able to work, the government claimed today as it sought to demonstrate momentum in the drive to reform the welfare system.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures showed that 78% of the 842,100 people reassessed were either fit for work or had closed their claim before medical assessments were complete.

Do you think anybody actually wants to live like that? The problem a lot of people don't seem to want to address is that long term unemployment depresses to the point of inertia. I bet this woman would love to be able to go for a walk, the cinema etc. The only place she now feels safe is her home and she won't leave it until absolutely necessary.

This really is clutching at straws. What sorta jobs do they have in mind?
My old lecturer always said, "Never be afraid of stating the obvious!" So I will.
This campaign to turn workers against each other by demonising people with problems, stinks. No-one, be they unemployed, disabled, or in receipt of top-ups, is remotely responsible for the state in which this country finds itself. I have no respect whatsoever for anyone who continuously trots out this spurious rubbish at the behest of the fat cats and their newspaper lackeys.

GJ 

I think we also need to remember that successive Governments both Conservative and then Labour willingly allowed the long term unemployed to move onto ICB in order that they could massage the unemployment figures.  Not only that, they allowed certain 'illness/disability' that hadn't been included before to be included i.e. stress.

I'm more than aware that stress of a severe nature can be debilitating but the point I'm making is that in the 80s everyone had a 'bad back' and then in late 90s and norties it switched to stress. These were two of the ailments that those wishing to scam the system used.  Unfortunately, it has meant that anyone who genuinely claims under these conditions are automatically seen as 'scroungers'.

I personally think anyone who claims ICB (I claim it myself) should automatically be seen by a doctor in order to receive it.  Most claims are granted on what is written on that long flipping form.  The problem there is that the people granting payments go on face value of what someone has written whether it be the truth or not.  They are also not able to accurately assess whether someone needs this benefit  due to lack of medical knowledge, hence the reason why so many decisions are overturned on appeal.   However, some of the doctors for instance, Disability Living Allowance doctors are gatekeepers who are paid to reject claims whether or not someone desperately needs it and again, the number overturned on appeal is staggeringly high.  I also question what GPs and hospital Consultants are writing because it's their supporting evidence that allows a claim to be passed 

I was called in to be assessed under the last Labour Government's last initiative of showing what you could do rather than what you can't - I was told I'm considered ill enough and disabled enough never to have to work again!  From what I understand, more people were granted ICB under this system than the old one hence the reason the ConDems have had a rejig with it. 

I also personally know someone who gets ICB for having acne on her face which she states causes her so much distress she can't work because people will stare at her.  It hasn't stopped her drinking in her local pub!  It's incidents like this that get my goat yet there are people genuinely ill who are refused.

The blame lies with the Government for allowing these claims to be accepted.  If they didn't you'd find only genuine people would go through this process because believe me filling in that form and being assessed is no picnic.

Sorry this is so long 

Not even a tiny tiny percent? 

I agree that the state we find this country in is down to a lot of government mistakes but don't trivialise the fact that we have a leech element here. Freeloaders who have leeched for most if not all of their lives. Parents did it and the children follow. We may not all live next door to them but it doesn't mean that they don't exist.

Pengy, I have just been successful in receiving DLA after 3 years of applying and appealing. They based their judgement on the form and my doctor's letter. If I had lied on the form, it would have come out. I have to agree with GJ. Looking at the deficits incured by benefit recipients compared to tax evaders and/or avoiders it's a drop in the ocean and those people will never be held to account. Why not? They hold the strings.

The people that sit behind their desks and perspex screens in the DWP are not qualified doctors, there needs to be more Medical evidence in the claim process like repeat medicals. Only the Family G.P or hospital consultants know their patient, and as a lot of illnesses have good days and bad days, and the G.P wouldve seen it all.


Yes there is evidence of people claiming that shouldnt have - read your local papers.


The government and DWP should also work along side employers to ensure that some people who have jobs but find something difficult or challenging are helped to stay in the job comfortably, i.e ramps, hand rails, breaks for medication etc. etc.

I wouldnt want to live like that but the lady in question is capable of walking and bathing etc...she chooses not to. My issues arent really regarding her because she is claiming what she is entitled to, the problem is more with her son who is milking the system to his own personal gain. I know only too well how depressing being out of work is as i have been depressed and jobless for many years, i am however fortunate enough to not need to claim.

I agree Cologne about the tax evaders.  I'm glad you finally got your DLA.  I was given it when I first became ill, then lost it a year later, had to appeal and then was given it back plus they levelled it up!  It also took me three years to get mobility allowance having been refused so many times.  It's disheartening which is why so many people who genuinely need it tend to give up because the process is so horrid.

My GP didn't fill his side of the form in satisfactorily which is why I lost mine plus I challenged the DLA doctor who came to my house.  Apparently you're not supposed to challenge a doctor   I listed 19 inaccuracies during my appeal and I was told that they'd never had anyone so vigorously appeal their claim 

The main point I was trying to make is that it's no good blaming people for making claims irrespective of whether they are genuine or not, the Government allows people to make these claims and have them be granted by the current policies in place at the moment.

I'd like to know why it's always the disabled that are first in the firing line?

Responding to a few posts back....... The only free loaders and leeches are the bankers and assorted business people who rewarded themselves so handsomely for screwing the Eco omy, and shifted their ill gotten gains offshore to tax shelters. Look up the figures sometime. Whatever occurs down around us is mere peanuts.

I think you need to re word that. It's not ONLY bankers and business people. I'm sure if everyone on here was to be honest and name people they knew who sponged off the government it would heavily outweigh bankers and politicians. It may be a pittance in comparison but it still contributes to it. Personally I think we as a country are too quick to blame the government for all our problems when most of them lay at our own doors so to speak. How many people here know of people who scam benefits but don't report them?

I agree, but what is there to do? If everybody in this country just rolls over, we have to be contend with our own paralysis. The students were condemned yesterday, but I thought it was good to see them being political again and the mob element was the smallest part of the demonstration. Such a pity because nobody will listen to their cause anymore. It didn't help rolling out Claire Solomon ULU President, who went into Tory headquarters despite the fact that she should have known better. It's tempting, but pointless to be a political 'martyr' as she tried to make out to be last night on Newsnight.

I really and truly don't know anybody.

I know lots. From working, mother and baby club, going on nights out etc etc. It's rife and as I already said they are not the only ones to blame but they are a factor in it. We have an easy benefit culture for some. It's not a last resort.......it's a career

My bf is still waiting for all his free stuff... I keep telling him to get on to immigration about it, shocking it is

I disagreed with you BUT I respected your point up until now.  How can you compare Bankers to people who steal off the taxpayer every single day.  Yes the bankers did wrong etc etc but they contribute a lot more to socity than the sort of people who think it is ok to claim benefits that they are not entitled to - they cost the economy far far more than a few bankers.

I agree things have to change (mainly for the sake of the ones on the dole forever), but it's been like this since I came here (1979) nothing to do with left or right. They all made some haphazard effort to get the unemployment figures down, but the only real way to get jobless off the dole is creating jobs and I can't see that in the moment. I remember Thatcher closing everything down because she didn't have the intelligence to realise that the only thing that keeps a country going is industry. We are still paying the price for this misguided woman.

The poeple that cost the most are the ones that hide their money and don;t pay tax on most of it...and they are the richest that can afford the best accountants.

They don't cost the most money they are self sufficient - yes they are not paying a fair amount of taxes etc but the country isn't paying for them like it is paying for those who refuse to work.

I know you won't answer me, but it would be really interesting to find out how bankers contribute to society apart from kneeling us all in the groin and yet give themselves huge payouts on the back of near bancruptcy.

I guess your Uni course had nothing to do with Economy.

*remembers being arrested though not charged for chucking eggs at Mrs T*