Secret panel probe links between DWP & claimant deaths

I suppose we should welcome this secret panel, but in reality the panel should have been there since the Benefit scandals started to occur and it should not be secret, for this is truly in the ‘Public Interest’.

Lets do hope the panel will reach conclusions, conclusions that we already know and exact change immediately.

Whenever the reports are formed they need to be made public without delay.

Govt Newspeak

Ministers have secretly launched a new panel that will examine deaths linked to serious failings by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), apparently without informing MPs and peers. Its launch only emerged when DWP admitted that the circumstances surrounding the death of Errol Graham had been referred to the panel. 

Graham starved to death after DWP wrongly removed his out-of-work benefits, leaving him without any income. He weighed just four-and-a-half stone when he was found by bailiffs who had knocked down his front door to evict him.

DWP civil servants had failed to seek further medical evidence from his GP, just as in many other notorious cases that have sparked repeated calls for an independent inquiry into links between the deaths of claimants and DWP failings.

cont reading

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Cancer patient forced to rely on food banks says DWP needs to ‘wake up’ to the ‘cruelty’ of Universal Credit : Welfare Weekly

A cancer patient says she has been forced to rely on food banks after being refused Universal Credit.

Source: Cancer patient forced to rely on food banks says DWP needs to ‘wake up’ to the ‘cruelty’ of Universal Credit : Welfare Weekly

Grandmother, 50, with terminal cancer left with £6 a week after benefits cut : i News

• Family say palliative nurse sent DWP note saying Denise is terminal
• Claim they appealed decision six weeks ago but have heard nothing
• Government is reviewing system for terminally ill benefits claimants
• A GoFundMe appeal has been set up to help the mother-of-five

Denise Bates thought she’d pulled through her battle with ovarian cancerfour years ago.

But at Christmas time last year the 50-year-old became ill and was given the devastating news the disease was back.

The mother-of-five and grandmother-of-seven fell into a depression and took an attempted overdose on Boxing Day in anticipation of her scan results. Weeks later doctors told her there was nothing they could do.

Since then, Denise and her family have been trying to hold it together and make the best of the time she has left. She has told her consultant she doesn’t want to know how long that will likely be.

But 10 weeks ago she was dealt another blow. After a face-to-face assessment the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) ruled that her disability benefit be stripped – leaving her struggling to pay her bills and next to nothing for food.

 

Source: Grandmother, 50, with terminal cancer left with £6 a week after benefits cut : i News

DWP figures show PIP complaints against Atos and Capita continue to rise

Yes, complaints are rising regarding Atos and Capita, but they are just an arm of the DWP, albeit a private arm, so are they not just doing the bidding of the DWP.

Why do I say that?

Well if they are not doing the bidding and complaints are coninuing to rise, why are they still doing the assessment as this implies they are not only not capable to do assessments, but are not able to follow the explicate direction of the DWP.

But are they able to follow the explicate direction of the DWP and are in fact doing so. Should this be so then, the complaints need not be addressed to Atos and Capita, but to DWP themselves.

We will never know if the DWP is explicately responsible, which technically they are, or whether Atos and Capita are not abiding by DWP directives, in which case the contracts to undertake assessments should be withdrawn.

However, again will we ever know, are there any penalty clauses in the contracts from the DWP to Atos and Capita to provide penalties for early cancelations of the contracts.

Could be as many of the contracts re privitisation are not in the interests of the population of the UK or the UK fullstop, but solely in the interests of the private companies, which is what I believe.

You only have to look at the PFI contracts to see these were not in the public interest, for yeas it was, so called, cheap money at the outset, but the real profits for the PFI companies is in the long-term.

In reality the DWP should be doing the whole process with all Welfare Benefits, not saying it would be any better and perhaps worse, if that can be believed, but at least it would be easy to see where the blame lies.

Really these whole processes should be held liable in the criminl system and effective criminal actions be taken against all concerned.

The Government is not litening to the UN, but would have to listen and then act accordingly to the law of the land.

Govt Newspeak

The performance of the two companies carrying out disability benefit assessments on behalf of the government is continuing to deteriorate, according to new figures released by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

The DWP figures, released to Disability News Service (DNS) under the Freedom of Information Act, show that the proportion of personal independence payment (PIP) assessments carried out by outsourcing giant Capita that lead to a complaint has risen significantly in the last three years.

And the proportion of PIP assessments carried out by fellow outsourcing company Atos that lead to a complaint has increased sharply in the last two years.

The figures suggest that the likelihood of claimants experiencing sub-standard PIP assessments at the hands of the two companies has dramatically increased, despite public expressions of regret to MPs by Capita and Atos in February 2016 and December 2017 (pictured) about their performance.

DWP chiefs get millions…

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Claudette Lawrence and her petition to help stop people with disabilities travelling long distances

I have queried with a DWP manager that, could not home visits be part of the agenda and have been informed that home visits can be requested and that they do take place.

However, what I failed to ask was, what is the criteria, which I should have done.

Govt Newspeak

Last year I started a petition, calling on the Government to stop asking people with disabilities to travel unfair distances to medical assessments when claiming health-related benefits and to stop asking them to pay for letters from their GP to prove they need a home assessment.

With the help of the organisation 38 degrees, I started an online petition which led to a meeting with government officials – Louise Everett deputy director of employment and support allowance policy, and John Andrae, assistant to secretary of state Amber Rudd – at the time of presenting the petition, I had 208,922 signatures.

I was told there that people should not be asked to travel more than 90 minutes to any assessment. I gave them examples of individual cases of people who did not want to be named because of the stigma around disability and benefits, such as a friend of mine who was…

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DWP tells GPs not to support benefit claimants with sick notes : Welfare Weekly

Yesterday on Twitter, I posted one of my previous posts – Jobcentre tells GP to stop issuing sick notes to patient assessed as ‘fit for work’ and he died –in which I discuss a letter addressed to a GP regarding a seriously ill patient. It said:

“We have decided your patient is capable of work from and including January 10, 2016.

“This means you do not have to give your patient more medical certificates for employment and support allowance purposes unless they appeal against this decision.”

The patient, James Harrison, had been declared “fit for work” and the letter stated that he should not get further medical certificates.

However, 10 months after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) contacted his doctor without telling him, he died, aged 55. James clearly wasn’t fit for work.

 

Source: DWP tells GPs not to support benefit claimants with sick notes : Welfare Weekly

“FIT” FOR WORK: Weighing six stone and barely able to move but denied ESA

DWP at its lying best.

Govt Newspeak

Stephen Smith had to get a pass from hospital to fight a DWP judgement for the benefits he deserved. Starving, unable to stand and looking like he is about to waste away – this is a man deemed fit to find work and denied vital benefits by a cruel system.

These shocking images show 64-year-old Liverpool man Stephen Smith in hospital over Christmas when his severe health problems left him in such a poor state his weight dropped to just six stone and left him fearing for his life.

Despite his awful condition and history of serious health problems, Stephen was forced to get a pass out from hospital to go and fight a decision by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) which repeatedly denied him crucial benefits and insisted he was fit and capable of finding work.

(Image: Liverpoool Echo)

He won that appeal after a tribunal judge…

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DWP tell woman with learning disabilities she could work out a complex budget

Yet another DWP atrocity, but what is happening to all these assessors who appear to be unable to conduct assessments correctly.

How can a person who is unable to do basic simple maths be assessed by the assessor, who said she could work out a complex budget.

Are theses assessor still assessing, been or being retrained or have they been dismissed.

A DWP spokesperson said: “Universal Credit staff give tailored support to people with learning disabilities and all our assessors have significant clinical experience.” How with all the evidence can a DWP spokesperson say this?

The DWP, certainly have some explaining to do.

All assessments should be suspended, until every DWP assessor is questioned about any assessments they have incorrectly completed.

If this is not done we can only assume that these assessors are incorrectly assessing with the complete full support of the DWP.

Govt Newspeak

‘The Government don’t care’ – Gateshead woman who can’t work out change from £1 told to find job

Sheila Nesbitt [above] has learning disabilities and can’t do basic maths but the assessor said she could work out a complex budget.

When Sheila Nesbitt was asked what change you would get from £1 if you spent 75p, she didn’t know the answer. It was one of the questions the 58-year-old was asked during a reassessment for benefit claim.

But, the assessor thought that she was able to work out a complex budget and the Department for Work and Pensions deemed her fit for work. Sheila, of Gateshead, had her benefits moved from Employment Support Allowance to Universal Credit – despite the fact she has learning disabilities and can’t read, write, use a computer or do basic maths.

After being moved to Universal Credit, Sheila lost £100 per week and has struggled to balance…

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The decimation of the welfare state

A truly worrying situation and one that could be happening within the UK. The DWP situation with Benefit claims and while the appeal process is reversing many of the wrongful dismissed cases, will this always be so. Not if we implement the American system as we appear to be doing.

It is very worrying and this should be noticed by the DWP, but will it be, I fear not.

Govt Newspeak

It’s sickening that the British welfare state is being gradually demolished by successive governments, to be eventually replaced with private healthcare insurance [1] and what’s even more galling is: they [some members of the UK govt] went to the USA to find out how to decimate our welfare state and NHS, encouraged by American corporate funders. Mo Stewart has written extensively about this in her book Cash not Care.

Amber Rudd has the absolute nerve to say Universal Credit has not always been compassionate whilst her dept have overseen the demolition of the welfare state causing misery not seen seen Victorian times [2] and I have added hundreds of  DWP atrocities like the one of Alan Chrisman [below] which have contributed to many suicides [3] 

Since 2010

• The Number of kids in temporary accommodation up 70% since Tories came to power
• At least 320,000 people are homeless in Britain

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Atos threatens to call police after claimant questions PIP assessor’s mental health training | Govt Newspeak

Staff working for a discredited benefit assessments contractor threatened to call the police after a claimant asked about the mental health qualifications of the nurse who was assessing his eligibility for personal independence payment (PIP).

Atos has now launched an investigation into what happened at the assessment centre in Leeds, which saw the nurse abandon Kris Weston’s assessment after just a couple of minutes.

She did not realise that Weston, a composer and trained sound engineer, had been recording the assessment.

Weston began the assessment last month by telling the nurse that he had stayed up all night because of the extreme anxiety he experiences when he has to deal with institutions.

He had spent three days putting together a 10-page description of his complex mental health problems – and what he says is the “continual failure to even listen to his problems by multiple institutions” – in the hope that the assessor would help him secure the financial and health support he needed.

He explained that he had been unfairly described in the past as “violent” by the NHS after a telephone argument, although she told him that Atos had no record of this.

She appears to have wrongly blamed the decision to refuse him a home assessment on the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), when such decisions are taken by the assessment companies, Atos and Capita.

 

Source: Atos threatens to call police after claimant questions PIP assessor’s mental health training   | Govt Newspeak