Be Excellent To Each Other

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles ... plans.html

I heard this a while back, and then someone pointed this out to me today.

My eldest son has Asperger's Syndrome and we get DLA for him. When we first applied they said no. But we fought the system and under appeal we got awarded a minor sum, we were advised to appeal again, and we did, and we get a much more substantial sum.

We spent the best part of 2 years fighting for something we were entitled to. We felt like giving up several times, but we kept on fighting and in the end we got what we deserved. But we did feel the system is geared up to make people think it's not worth fighting for, especially if you are claiming for a mental health disability rather than a physical disability.

Now, I know a few people on here suffer depression related mental disorders, but what's the consensus on people receiving benefits for mental disabilities?

Malc

I think the difficulty getting it depends on where you live Malc in honesty.

When I got home with a busted back they initially put me on med 5s for disability. I was getting basic income support at the time.

However, when it came time to look for work (after about 11 months) I was asked to fill in other forms to apply for JSA. I filled them in, and under the part where it asks you if you suffer from any other illnesses (mental, physical etc) I put down Bipolar and Autistic.

Oddly I recieved an interview letter that mentioned an asessment. So I went, thinking that it would be about finding a suitable job etc.

Instead I was asked loads of questions about my personality, temprament and etc. Stuff like -

Q - What would you do if you went to work and somebody had moved things around that belonged to you and changed positions of your belongings?
A - Smack their fucking head in.

I was only being honest. I figured honesty was the best policy. Basically my reasoning on that question was my heavy autistic tendencies to organise everything. If one thing is moved on me I go into a panic and it seriously fucks my equilibrium and I freak out.

There were other questions. Some of them pretty intruding.. Toward the end I asked her why she was asking me things like this when it was supposed to be a JSA interview and she then mentioned that because I was Bipolar and Autistic that they needed to asess me (sic probably) to see if I was a risk.

In the end she basically told me to go to my Doc and get a Med4 and file for Incapacity. I asked why and she basically said that she could not reccomend me to an employer if I posed a risk to them, but more importantly because they have had a lot of suicides by forcing Bipolar sufferers into jobs they did not want.

I was still on income support for a while because I was out of the UK for so long, but recently it was changed to incapacity. It's not much tbh, certainly not enough to have much of a quality of life but tbh? my life would be a lot fucking worse if I was forced to work in my state.

Bipolar isn't a fun condition to have. They reakon that about 70% of sufferers commit suicide by the time they're 40. I'm closing in on that now and tbh it seems to be getting worse the older I get. I swear to god lately I have been losing my memory, I can't remember things from five minutes ago and I sometimes just sit here in a daze. I suppose it could be down to the latest cocktail of pills they have put me on, but either way I'd happily swap this shit for a broken leg or two.

Personally I think the Tories are a bunch of cunts. What they're basically saying is "We don't understand mental illness and we don't fucking care. We need to get money from somewhere so we will just take it from the pretenders out there" just like the rest of the narrow minded dumb cunts who don't have a fucking clue what it's like to be mentally ill.

I wouldn't worry about it though. This shit was in the paper the other week. Their comment about cutting back mental illness benefits was met by incredibly harsh criticism from the tabloids, so the next day they retracted their statement and said they would basically send mentally ill people for further evaluation

They can send me for what the fuck they like tbh. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out I'm fucked in the head. One look at my red raw bleeding fingers from all the biting and the gray hair is usually enough.

Sorry, shows where my brain is

A disability is a disability. Infact as I said, I would rather be missing a leg than have Bipolar. Sometimes my body is of no fucking use at all when my brain takes a shit. When I get really bad I cannot move, I literally hurt all over. I used to think I had all kinds of physical problems (terrible back pain, groin pain, abdominal pain) but it turns out it's the Bipolar. I get so tense and so fucked in the head it causes muscle fatigue.

At least if it was just a leg missing I would have the ability to be stable and as happy as I like to be. Instead my brain goes all over the fucking place and out of nowhere I don't know if I am coming or going. And as the years drag on I'm becoming more and more fucking sick of it to be honest. It's getting old.

Not like I can strap on a prostetic brain either really, just keep taking drugs with all kinds of shitty side effects that don't really work, just keep me ticking over.

I had to struggle for going on three and a half years to get DLA for my range of conditions. The whole process is just humiliating and designed to force you to throw your hands in the air despairingly and admit defeat. Heck, I had to change my GP three times before I even got one who "believed" in several conditions I have on my medical records, before I could even start the form-filling process. (Incidentally, I can't even get my family or girlfriend to accept I have something wrong with me and understand what exactly I suffer from 'inside' or how it affects me. I'm not even allowed to raise the subject.)

I feel no exaggeration in saying there is Apartheid in all but name for disabled people. You are not one of "them", the ordinary folk, and can never be on equal terms. It's basically been my teenage and adult life, having to slowly accept what opportunities are cut off permanently for me due to my conditions. The bubble of naivety burst for me when I was 12 I've experienced being expelled from a grammar school solely for receiving an SEN statement, going without a school places for over a year, and it's hardly been much of a relief since really.

I think one quote from the article says it all:



That, in a nutshell, is where the problem lies. Physical disabilities are much easier to assess than mental disorders, compounded by an attitude in society that says if you're suffering from some type of mental problem then you need to pull your bloody socks up and get on with it.

Maybe in two-hundred year's time (or so) these attitudes will change as we understand more about how the brain works and perhaps there'll be more effective ways to treat mental disabilities, but at the moment there is a lot of bigotry founded in ignorance.

Hmm, I can see this becoming a can of worms very rapidly.

Source.



Is what they say they are aiming for.

And



So, my reading of it is they want people to get off IB as once people get on that it's highly unlikly they ever get off it, and for them to start looking for work and if they don't, then they don't get their £78 notes a week, as at the moment people on IB don't need to participate in any back to work programs.

I don't see what the problem is really, if people are assessed to be well enough to work then they should jolly well do so, and if they are not, then they are not.

Ideally a state would like people in employment as it lowers the burden, leaving them more money in the kitty to spend on Killer death 2000 missiles, and they can gain more revenue through taxation. It's those that can work that don't which the state, and the taxpayers get pissed off about.

What's the difference between someone who can't work through no fault of their own spending their cash on computer games and lager and someone who is out of work through no fault of their own spending their money on computer games and lager?

The problem is the accuracy of the assessment, especially in relation to mental health disorders, and the fear that many people will be assessed to be fit when they aren't.

At the moment it's:



So, basically, they are asking "someone who knows". Which I think is fair enough.

However they tend to make it that hard to get on it that a lot of people when on are going to be there for life.

Instead they want to push people through the rigerous , demanding , upsetting process multiple times on a regular basis to make sure they are still unable to work.

If you'd lost all your limbs , they still want to assess you every X number of months / years to make sure you havent grown them back.



I agree , however that is not actually what happens , however the process also has some .... what i'd call "nasty" caveats , one being that they just need to decide your fit for *some* type of work , and that can be anything they decide , so disabled from the neck down ? , you can work in a call centre cause you can still speak and i'm sure they can tie a pencil to your head so you can press a button to pick up the phone :-)
Therefore your fit for work , so your not getting any more money cut you scrounging b*stard !



Again I agree , however a number of things can be 'faked' and to try and make sure your not faking things they will put people through things which will seriously make their life worse / unbearable and then want to do it again in X amount of time to make sure they are not 'trying it on'

There are people out there that will cheat the system , but there are lots of people who need this and what they put these people through in the name of 'weeding out the cheats' is seriously disturbing

That's an anecdote. We don't know if it's indicative of the whole system, or not. As much as I sympathise, I don't think discussion of individual cases is going to be terribly productive. People are fallible, hence negligence cases.

What sort of system would be better? Self diagnosis? I doubt it.

I can see what you are trying to say here, but those cases would be the outliers on the bellcurve. The other way of looking it is "Turn up here for 2 hours once every 6 months and you get £2 grand.



I don't believe that for a moment.



I'm going to respectfully disagree. Tehre does have ato be "a system" and that "system" is to be designed in such a way as to cover 95% of stuff quickly and efficiently, the other 5% will cause problems, yes, but these can be dealt with.

I'm sure they are on the edge , and for Physically disabled people they are probably things that they can repeat quite easily (although how many people are on it for 'back problems' which are hard to determine and easy to fake)

However for those with a mental disability that 2 hour process can be something they worry about for the whole 6 months leading up to it , then go through hell to actually have the meeting.

BTW your suggesting a meeting every 6 months by a panel to assess someones possiblity to work , any idea how much that would cost vs's what you'd have paid out ?



It is 'any work' and not 'suitable work' , i'll admit i'm pushing things to an extreme here to try and make a point , but it is what they are trying to do.



But you'll torture those 5% because its the system ?

So what? It is evidence of where the system has proven itself fallible.



I think discussion of individual cases is particularly relevant, given that this new legislation may affect individual people.

The options are:

1) "We'll see how fit you are to work, give us a call when you are and we'll stop the cash then"
2) "We'll see how fit you are to work, and review this every 6 months or so"

What do you think the problems would be with option 1?



It came from the "they still want to assess you every X number of months / years" that you mentioned.



Where does it say "any work"? If someone is deemed fit to do X,Y and Z then why should they still claim benefits and not attempt to get employment?



No, I'm saying that the outlying 5% that don't slot nicely into the process can be dealt with "by other means". It's fairly simple to draw up protocols to sort things like this out.

I know from experience that sufferers of chronic depression can be considered for DLA. There are a lot of hoops through which you have to jump, but it is currently possible.

[edit]Nothing to see here

[edit][edit]Damn quote system

Where "fallible" means there's a system of appeals, some might even go as far as to call them safeguards.
Also, in this case it worked out in the end.



Option 1) Devise system that can deal with 95% of claims efficiently, giving the right result, set up process for tricky ones
Option 2) Tailor system to each individual at their level, covers everything

Which one would be costlier and trickier to implement?

Eh?

First post.
But I retract my question, as this is a discussion that's going to get nasty quickly.

Well if it doesn't then I'll come back later and answer your question and put words into your mouth

There's probably a line of thinking which goes "your problem child, your problem".
I think it's going to be a hard one to discuss dispassionately though.

Or I could just let Kalmar do it for me.

Why are those the only options ? , as an example why is there not a

3) "We'll see how fit you are to work , and if you fall into a specific set of criteria we will wait for you to be in the right circumstances to go back to work"

I'm sure there could be many more (this is similar to your point at the end about doing something different for those 5% however i really dont see that happening)



In this documentation it does not , in previous ones i've seen (and in assessments) i've seen the phrase that they could do any work, i'm trying to avoid going into specific case details (as you've said you didnt want to discuss them) , but as far as i'm aware the criteria is that they could do 'any' work and those on the panel can suggest that the person may be suitable for specific kinds (i.e. my extreme with the person who has difficulty with moving at all could be used in a call centre without considering any other circumstances)

And again my example is using a physical disability , a mental one will be *much* harder to qualify why something is not suitable.



Okay , different tact (again an extreme) but lets say that rather than X , Y and Z , they are only deemed suitable to do Z and there is no Z jobs around in this area , what happens ?

"Ahh we have loads of jobs , look at all these X and Y ones , you can go on jobseekers allowance and we'll save a fortune before a Z job which would suit you comes along and your lucky enough to get it."
Oh and the Z one is a job which pays (after you take everything else into consideration) less than your going to get from your current benefits - but your fit for that type of work - go out and work scrounger !

Is it not possible to look at things for these people and actually try to help them to get work rather than just moving them in with all the other people seeking employment ?

so in your earlier part this would be

4) "We'll see how fit you are to work , and if you fall into a specific set of criteria we will help you more than our normal jobseekers stuff to help you get back to work" ?

But in actual fact what will happen is "rejected" and they are dumped back in with everyone else



But no-one is saying they will do this , and i really dont trust them to , do you ?

Are we doing this?

If a child has mental problems, then it's true, you may not need hoists, stairlifts and modified bathrooms, as if they were in a wheelchair, but support would still be needed for other things, such as different schools, travel, special educational needs and other, less obvious, but still money draining things.

Are you saying that the current system does deal with 95% of claims efficiently, or that a new system should deal with 95% efficiently? In either case, how did you arrive at 95% and what do you judge to be "efficient"?

As for the relative costs of each "option", it would be equally possible for Option 1 to cost ten times as much as Option 2, be far more difficult to implement and ultimately fail to deliver. Without knowing the detail of the implementation of either, I can't answer which would be the more costly or more difficult to enact and no one can.

Christ, .

My sister has one child with severe physical and mental disabilities, one child with Asperger's, and one perfectly normal child. It's a wonder her and her husband have coped, despite the council's continued efforts to shaft them as hard as possible.

What makes it worse is that there's a family down the road from them with a physically disabled child who, because the parents don't have jobs, have been given a nice big adapted house, a brand new converted peopel carrier, a free taxi for their kid to school every day, and lots of money. Because her and her husband have jobs, my sister has to struggle pay for everything herself, and has had to take out loans to do so. Did you know it costs £15,000 to have a people carrier converted to having a wheelchair ramp and tie downs?

Anyway, off topic. But I can't imagine squeezing the budget for disabled assistance is going to bring any positive outcomes, despite Cameron's insistence that the third sector will step in to do it all. Fuck will they.

It's pretty similar to 2, but I think the idea is fairly sound. The sticking point will be who decides 'when', and when I'm sure you will agree it's not productive for either party to be on the benefits for an extended period of time, as history shows they will never get a job.





So, broadly speaking, if someone can work, and they choose not to, they should continue to get monies from the government? And 'suitable' work is hard to define. i'd say I'm not suited to work on an oil rig, or up a tree, but needs must, and if someone can do the work, then maybe they should?







See earlier from Tory policy:



So that system is already proposed.




See above.





It's clearly in place already, as with malc's case.

95% is a purely arbitrary figure, and considerably faster to type than "the vast majority". It also makes maths easier for me, so I quite like to use it.



Right, to make it slightly easier, why are made to measure suits more expensive to produce than off the peg suits?

As a further example, when it comes to working with systems, I'll give you an example, when I was a scientist, we developed a system that would from point A to point B which was a several step process pick up about 98% of things. To go back and pick up the other 2% took 4 times as long, as things had to be tailored. it's the same principle.

Funnily enough, off the peg wedding dresses usually cost more than made to measure ones. I'm not sure how we work that into a parallel to disability benefits, but still.

And you looked lovely, darling.

If you tailor everything, on a large scale, to each individual it will end up more costly than designing a scheme that works for the vast majority (Ctrl-C'd that one).

Where does it say this is anything other than "standard" for all jobseekers ?



Interesting , i thought you didnt want specifics , so without going into details on it , his post seems to suggest it was not an easy thing to do and made them jump through hoops / made them have to fight each step to get somewhere , and in theory they will now have to do it all again ?

I'm not saying the current system either works or is appropriate , I'm saying their proposals for it look "worse" to me.

Two simple questions on this :

1) If the proposals go through do you think (for your 95%) things would be better or worse than they are now ?
2) If the proposals go through do you think (for the other 5%) things would be better or worse than they are now ?

It was referring to people on Incapacity Benefit.




No, but it illustrates nicely how the minority can be sorted. Granted, it's apparently a labyrinthine process, but it exists.

With regard to it "being worse", I'm not sure how. One supposes it depends from which viewpoint you look from. Their aims and objectives to reduce the need for benefits and getting people back into work or another.



I'd have to read further on it, before making a judgment, although I can't anything fundamentally wrong with the proposals.

Gimme a few minutes on it.

Personally, I think that the whole issue of mental disability is very poorly handled in this country. Like so many other things 'we' do so badly within the public sector (such as healthcare in general, education, social housing, local government - you name it, really), there are doubtless other much better models out there in the rest of the world that we could emulate?

Of course, no doubt the Tory measures proposed are all about one thing: saving money. Thanks to Labour's complete mismanagement of the economy (which could hardly now be denied by even the most diehard supporter of theirs, given that we're the last major economy still in recession and have fallen behind even Italy in GDP terms), it's probably now a case of stark necessity, unfortunately. That's fine as far as it goes, but the whole notion of simply trying to starve people back into work through curtailment of their benefits, when done simplistically and in isolation, is as counterproductive as it is distasteful.

In my opinion, what's needed is a far, far greater emphasis on the treatment of mental disorders, as well as more accurate diagnosis and categorisation for fitness to work. It's equally immoral to condemn someone to a lifetime living on marginal benefits when they *could* work, if only they were to receive the best intensive treatment available and crucially, lifelong support. No doubt this could well be even more expensive to achieve than the current (or proposed) models, but personally I'd say it was a price worth paying for those many thousands whose life and self esteem could be immeasurably improved?

That said though, we also must concede that there are probably plenty of people out there who are claiming disability benefits without reasonable just cause not to work at all, and no doubt this isn't entirely their own fault, due to the political expediency of successive governments to shift them onto the 'sick' and away from unemployment stats, which is itself unforgivable. Nevertheless, it is right that we must try to belatedly address this as well, both for their sake and ours, in the most genuinely effective and ethical way possible. In a word, carrot, stick and real, effective treatment that is of a much higher standard than that which is currently offered.

Other than the ctrl-c dig at the public sector in para 1, I agree pretty wholeheartedly with Cavey.

In a nutshell, the proposal is this:

Are you on IB?
If so, then do Work Capability Assessment.
Do we judge you as being able to work?
No - receive unconditional support and can have more support if they want it
No (non permanent) - Come back and be assessed again at a later date.
Yes - Go to Jobseekers, lose £20 if we think you were taking the piss
Can prepare for work - referred to Welfare to work, but with additional support.

Because off-the-peg suits are produced in countries where child labour is exploited all along the supply-chain and the production line, wages are low and human rights are largely ignored?



Ahh, but that's anecdotal evidence - and it's irrelevant because your process was clearly designed to discover something quantifiable and repeatable, which is not necessarily the case with a mental disorder which by, their very nature, are as unique as the individuals who are blighted with them. No two cases of depression are the same.

It's still an input/output system, and those that don't get boxed up nicely can get picked up.

I'm unsure if you're pissed off with the system, or the system's treatment of individuals here.

I have a feeling that mental disability support is probably going to be lacking pretty much everywhere; because it presents no physcial symptoms, it's often easy to slip through the cracks (but maybe those pesky Swedes have a few good ideas - a brief Google suggests they also have problems with underdiagnosis, but predictably have better care once you're in the system).

What happens now then, if you get disability benefits you just carry on receiving them forever?

The devil is going to be in the detail with all this. The principle that people should work if they can is a nice thing for politicians to shout but really it's completely uncontroversial. Certainly concentrating on "scroungers" is a very populist type of policy but I'm not sure how much real difference any of this is ever actually going to make. As long as you have a system that allows people with genuine disabilities access to benefits without it being unacceptably odious then there will be those who'll game that system. I guess more checks might make a few % difference but I can't see it being a lot more than that when it all shakes down.

Err, the Swedes sterilised women "released from prison, the mentally ill, people with learning difficulties, the poor, epileptics, alcoholics and women of "mixed racial quality" up to 1976....

1976 was 33 years ago. One or two things, and the people in power, have changed since then, guy.

Free Polanski!

What Mr. Chris said! But it goes to my point a little; mental disabilities in even the most progressive societies have tended to be swept under the carpet or even worse. The last couple of decades show a change in that, but I think there's still a long way to go...

Physical disablities have largely been treated the same, historically - they've just come in from the cold a bit sooner and further than mental disabilities.

The government has put in place the disability Living allowance.

This link tells you who is entitled to what

Malc

As for why we wanted the money, our main argument was that our eldest needs so much care it prevents Pauline from doing the job she wants to do, and if we had the money that this benefit supplies then Pauline would be able to spend that time caring for him.

Malc

I have been for two further assessments. There was the initial one at the job center and then within a couple of weeks I was shipped off to Brighton to see another specialist. I can see why they're doing it tbh, and I have no problem with it

At my age I just didn't care any more. When I started to realise that "hey, I'm a bit radio rental, what the fuck's going on?" I initially decided not to do anything. But the more time goes on the more you have to face it. Thus, when I go to my shrink and they ask me how I am feeling I don't try and hide anything. I tell them all of the weird and whacky shit that goes through my head, basically down to the minor details.

I've just got done an ADHD assessment (because apparently before determining Bipolar in the UK they do that, fair enough) but last time I went to the shrink I was pretty down tbh. First time they had ever seen me that way. So now they are sending me to a Bipolar specialist. Half of the problem with being diagnosed in the UK I have found is because the meetings with the shrink are so few and far between because of the NHS that it could take years. When I had my assessments in the USA my shrink asked me to go every day for three months so that he could assess me accurately. Sure enough, Bipolar and mild autism were the end results.

I guess it's just going to take a lot longer in the UK for them to diagnose it based on the way they see me (once every two months).

But you're working now, and not having to live off the claims, so it's all good?