Here is a true story from the website of Parkinson’s UK the charity that represents people with Parkinson’s disease.
Here is a true story from the website of Parkinson’s UK the charity that represents people with Parkinson’s disease.
Jim Grimwood, 58, from County Durham, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 7 years ago. After working for almost 40 years, Jim came to the difficult decision in 2011 that he would have to give up work and applied for Employment Support Allowance (ESA).
“It was six years after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s that I was finally forced to give up work, so it can hardly be said that I rushed into it. After the first ESA assessment I scored zero and they said I should be able to return to work within three months.
“I was flabbergasted, as was everyone who knew me. Late last year I applied for ESA again as my Parkinson’s had got worse.
“I was put in the WRAG and told that I should be able to return to work in 18 months. I asked to be re-assessed but the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) refused to change their decision.”
Parkinson’s UK and other charities representing people suffering from progressive conditions like Multiple Sclerosis have become very concerned about the way the Department of Work and Pensions now treats people like Jim. They found that when people like Jim applied for Employment Support Allowance (which replaces Incapacity Benefit) 45 per cent of them were placed in the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG). This means that they have to prepare to return to work, and must attend interviews and other activities specified by an adviser. Failure to comply with such requirements may lead to them being sanctioned, and losing their benefit. The charities were so concerned that last August they published a dossier of evidence on the subject. and stated:
“A system which tells people who have had to give up work because of a debilitating progressive condition that they’ll recover, is farcical and simply defies belief.”
The dossier also reveals that over the past five years, seven out of 10 new claimants (70 per cent) with a progressive condition have been reassessed two or more times on the same claim, causing unnecessary stress and anxiety – something which we know makes Parkinson’s worse.
So the situation for people with serious and progressive illness was already considered to be cause for concern by charities that are not noted for making controversial statements. Stress and anxiety levels among people unfortunate enough to be living with such illness were high. And yet, if reports are correct, the Secretary of State believes many of these people should be working and are not trying hard enough to get a job.
The Guardian has reported that Iain Duncan Smith ‘is said to be concerned that only half of claimants in WRAG are coming off benefit within three years, and that hundreds of millions of pounds are being tied up in administration of the benefit, including the work capability assessments and appeals process.’
This report has stunned many people. On social media sick and disabled people were saying things like ‘I’m petrified’. It has left many people like Jim, who will never get better but have been placed into the WRAG, contemplating the prospect of being put on to Jobseekers Allowance, with its even stricter conditionality. Do we really want Jim applying for jobs and signing on at the Jobcentre? What is the job he would be well enough to do, and where is the employer that will give a 58 year old man with Parkinson’s disease a job?
Perhaps what makes this worse (if it could be worse) is the reason given for Iain Duncan Smith’s unhappiness with the WRAG as it stands. Half the people in the WRAG are not getting jobs. This is hardly surprising given the people that are in the WRAG. But to be reportedly annoyed by the fact that Work Capability Assessments and appeals are costing hundreds of millions of pounds is breathtakingly disingenuous.
The high number of appeals is a direct result of the damaging incompetence of Mr. Duncan Smith’s department. As Parkinson’s UK pointed out, “many assessors, and those who rubber-stamp the decisions in Government, don’t apply the most basic understanding of the medical conditions they are dealing with.”
People have been complaining for years that Atos, the private company that carries out the Work Capability Assessment for profit, has provided an appalling service and got almost everything wrong. Their frequent reassessment of people like Jim is obviously a waste of taxpayers’ money, as people have been saying for years. Surely a letter from his GP or Consultant should ensure that anyone like Jim gets Employment Support Allowance, without the wasted expense and stress of these ordeals. Now, apparently, Mr. Duncan Smith has decided to do what he always seems to do: blame anybody else, be it civil servants or, as he seems to prefer, his victims. If seriously ill people are made to pay the price for the chaos in the DWP, our country will have reached a new low.
Ekklesia supports an e-petition to the government, written by sick and disabled people, seekingr a cumulative impact assessment of the cuts and changes affecting them, and for an end to the Work Capability Assessments, as called for by the British Medical Association. The petition has until 12 December 2013 to gather 100,000 signatures and potentially trigger a Parliamentary debate, but currently stands at just under 90,000. It now seems more urgent than ever that this petition should not fail. Nobody knows when they may become ill or disabled. This could affect any one of us.
* Please sign the cumulative impact petition and share wherever possible: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/43154
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© Bernadette Meaden has written about political, religious and social issues for some years, and is strongly influenced by Christian Socialism, liberation theology and the Catholic Worker movement. She is an Ekklesia associate and regular contributor. You can follow her on Twitter: @BernaMeaden