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Benefits, employment and the future of the NHS at the Labour Party Conference
Posted Friday 1 October 2010
After the Lib Dem's conference, the team headed off to Manchester for the Labour event. As Decca Aitkenhead analysed in The Guardian, the early days felt extremely quiet and flat. But Ed Milliband's speech brought the Conference to its feet, and suddenly it felt like the Opposition were ready to get stuck in.
This year's Mind stand at Party Conferences is focussed on our Taking Care of Business campaign, which encourages employers to protect the mental health of their staff so that work pressures do not lead to poor wellbeing and mental health problems. The long term aim of the campaign is to create mentally healthy workplaces where employers do not discriminate against people with mental health problems, and no one needs to hide their diagnosis for fear of the repercussions. It was encouraging to hear the new leader of the Labour Party mention mental health at work in his speech.
It is clear from blog and facebook comments and individuals who are working with our policy and campaigns team that there is a huge amount of concern about the impact of welfare reform changes, which is a major campaigning point for Mind. With this in mind, our meetings with MPs focused heavily on this and on the health White Paper which proposes major changes to the NHS. We put our case strongly to Anne Begg MP who chairs the Work and Pensions Select Committee and was supportive of our concerns.
Next week we meet Employment Minister Chris Grayling at the Conservative Party Conference and I'd be keen to hear your questions for him.
Paul Farmer is Mind's Chief Executive
32 Comments
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11459055
Dear Mr Farmer Could you ask Mr Grayling about the Universal Credit System for those those that remain unable to work and is it the next stage in scrapping sickness benefit altogether?
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A number of people on this site are still waiting for the answer from one of your managers Louise Bloom to a question put to the minister Paul Burstow by her at the Liberal conference.This question concerned employers attitudes towards the mentally ill. The question is on her post but not the answer. A number of us have asked what his reply was and have not heard back. Could you find out for us please?
Lastly Could you ask MP Nadine Dorres about her comments on disabled people being able to using the internet and being fit for work which appears to be what she is saying? Are we to be silenced unless we work?
Perhaps the MIND office could move the link on this issue I posted on Friday night to this blog to save duplication.
I believe the questions I asked are relevant to any sufferer of mental illness.
Best wishes
Paul
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Yes, would he care to comment regarding his local campaign to stop a care home opening in his area for people with mental health problems?
Would he care to comment on how people who have not been in paid work for many years [which cannot be disguised on a CV] will get employment when 70% of employers don't want people with psychiatric histories and people with strong employment records and degrees cannot get jobs?
Will disabled people be forced to do mandatory "placements" such as unpaid manual labour or face losing their benefits [when they are found "fit for work" by a humuliating medical designed to fail people which CAB evidence clearly desmonstrates given it can find terminally ill people fit for work]?
Can he explain Mr Cleggs comment about "the state not being here to compensate the poor for their predicament" and why the government appears to hold certain groups of people in contempt?
Can he explain why no action is taken regarding the media's incitement of hatred because if this were race it would be different?
Can he explain why constituents writing to their MP's have had their details directly passed to the DWP without their consent?
Can he explain why an MP has branded people who use social networks 'too frequently' are 'fraudulent' [if their communications express distress or outrage at media slurs and inequitable medicals]?
Can you explain to him that some people feel genuinely suicidal at the prospect of going through months of reviews/appeals and being left on JSA where they are likely to remain for life, so are now actively planning their exit. This is is no emotive attention seeking ploy, people are speaking of this privately, seriously and with great sadness not foul mouthed anger, because they know they won't be able to withstand all the sanctions they will be subject to.
Could you explain to him how people have been affected by this to date, some people have already experienced readmission under the MHA with their care team aware that the stress of this has been the main reason for their admission.
Could you please ask why the DWP bother to ask for specialists reports when they are totally overidden in medicals?
Can you explain to him that many people are so afraid that they are no longer doing activities they previously enjoyed - NO not carribean holidays, I mean doing a class once a week. Going to a gym [beneficial for mental health as you know] has been deemed 'fraudulent' by the tabloid media. Socialising has been questioned. This has resulted in some scared service users no longer being able to go out.
Can you explain that many people's disatifaction with their own circumstances has resulted in them scapegoating people on benefits because the media and MP's have implied that this is the cause of economic deficit and crimes against disabled people are on the increase.
Can you ask him to explain why tax evasion is not being addressed first? [Vodaphone are excused from 6 billion]
Service users have many good ideas about how to reform the system and support people in work, he needs to listen to those voices [and you can represent them because it's clearly too difficult for people to speak for themselves without risk or being accused of 'if you can talk you can work'].
Part-time work could be an option for some people, but for single people this could mean living [and with the stress of work] in poverty. If someone could work no more than 2 days a week for example they would need their salary topped up with benefits to the level of IB and DLA. Now why can't this be an option? And I don't mean for a temporary period, epecially if this was backed as most suitable by a persons consultant.
There are some people who really cannot deal with the stress of paid work and need to remain on benefits but do their choosen voluntary work [which Mind and other charities, andTrusts benefit from]. Now why can't this be another outcome again especially when backed by a consultant?
The difficulty is that many long term service users will only get minimum wage manual work at best so this is quite a problem in the catering. domestic and retail industries because they usually don't give employees sick pay, pull people up on disciplinaries for going sick [even with a doctors cert] and employees are readily disposible as a result. Therefore people with long psychiatric histories being forced into this won't last long as soon as they have a bad spell, then will face sanctions in going back onto benefits [and accumulate debt]. Could you ask him how he proposes to address this?
Could you explain to him that the vast majority of service users do not have 7 children and plasma TV's please and that accessing mental health services is getting harder and harder. People need to be in crisis or have certain diagnoses [psychosis/bipolar]. In some areas crisis service care is then transferred to a recovery service and both are limited to a few months. People have a few months in which to recover as there is very little longer term support available and very little psychological support beyond 6, 12 or 24 sessions with psychology services [where they are expected to do CBT].
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THIS IS A QUESTION FOR CHRIS GRAYLING
I suffer from a sever Non Verbal Learining Disability which also impacts on my mental health i also suffer from severe brittle asthma. i am now 43, since leaving school no matter how hard i have tried i have failed to hold down a job as due to my disability i was unable to cope in the workplace and when in a stressful situation i would self harm or have an asthma attack and either had to take time of sick or i was sacked numerous times,which in effect cost the economy more. .
I am extremley worried and even terrified that i will be forced into employment when i know that doing so would make me become ill again and as a result i would end up costing the economy more as i may end up requiring acute nhs care. What help will be given to people like myself because of their mental health issues may never be able to hold down a job because doing so would make them ill. i doint sit at home doing nothing i do a couple of hours voulantary work a week and cannot cope with doing anymore than 3 hours a week anymore than 3 hours a week then i start becoming mentally exhausted and cannot cope also by doing voulantary work i can choose what i do and how many hours i can cope with and if i need to take time off because i am unwell i can without it costing the economy. I WOULD URGE MINISTERS TO UNDERSTAND THAT NOT EVERYONE CANNOT COPE IN EMPLOYMENT AND SHOULD NOT BE FORCED TO IF THAT IS THE CASE.
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My question:
Mr Grayling, why hasn't Atos been sacked when their inaccurate assessments appear to have driven people to suicide? People are dying, what are you going to do about it? If you think it's ok for people to be driven to suicide in order for the Government to save a little money, would you at least do us the courtesy of saying so honestly?
Ok, that's three. But I have many. I'm being restrained.
Thank you for the write-up, Mr Farmer, it is interesting.
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It is nice hearing the update, thank you Paul.
I am interested to know more about what IDS has in mind for DLA. The low fraud rate of DLA and the 20% target for savings doesn’t quite add up. Are we facing a change in goal posts?
I suffer from 'depression with anxiety' and I have a hard time getting new doctors to understand the affects of my condition, never mind a random ATOS doctor. I have trouble functioning in most areas of my life, from opening to my mail to keeping myself safe, and it’s severe and chronic. In short; without DLA I cannot live independently at all.
I don’t have much faith that the DWP will not drop-kick me off DLA. My disability is more complex than a two word diagnosis. Although complicated, the current system allows me a fair shot at explaining my difficulties, with medical evidence where required. If that is space reduced, or if more importantly, the goal posts are changed – my future is at risk.And I don’t appreciate the spiel about “incentives to work” by IDS & Co. DLA gives me a chance. Nothing can take away with my wishes to gain a life over disability. I don’t aspire to just acquire a few quid a week so I can get help to go out. No, really!
Disability equality can never be achieved by treating us with such utter contempt.
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Ian Duncan-Smith has said that there will be "no losers" as the Universal Credit is implemented. Chris Grayling was asked in a live interview on Channel 4 News this (Sunday 3rd Oct) evening to confirm this. He was asked the question twice and deliberately avoided giving a direct answer, preferring to say that the idea was to get people into work. Perhaps you could ask him again for us.
In a report in the same programme, claimants were interviewed and made it quite clear that living on benefits is not the dream life the coalition would have the country believe. For those people there are no jobs to go to but they are desperate to work. Can Mr. Grayling therefore explain or justify the campaign of mis-information the coalition has pursued in recent months; why all benefit claimants have been presented to the general public as "scroungers", "cheats", "workshy" and "fraudsters" who have made a "lifestyle choice"; and why it is heavily implied that claimants are largely responsible for the deficit. At a time when unemployment is predicted to rise because of the proposed cuts in public spending can he tell us where the jobs are coming from?
One of the interviewees had a diagnosed mental illness and yet, in spite of evidence from her doctors, has been told she must look for work. There is already serious concern about the WCA not being fit for purpose for all claimants but especially those of us with mental health problems. Doubts have long been expressed about the ability of the ATOS assessors, needing to meet targets, to correctly identify and record how a person's illness affects them and the reluctance of Decision Makers to seek medical evidence before making their decision. It seems that the process of migrating claimants on to ESA is just a means to force the sick into work they are not ready for, and cutting their sickness benefits. Why is it that the DWP thinks it knows better than a claimant's medical team and why is it that ATOS remains unaccountable?
The number of appeals is increasing, so the process is slow from assessment to tribunal hearing. I know of someone who has both physical and mental health issues who attended a medical in March, was declared fit for work, and has been told that the earliest they can expect a hearing is December. Meantime they have been awarded less than £20 a week to live on (because they have appealed). How can that be right?
The proposed reforms are causing great distress and worsening health for those who cannot work because of illness. Does Mr. Grayling think that is a price worth paying to achieve "full employment"?
Can Mr. Grayling address these issues with an honest response? If, as I suspect, he says that these are matters for Ian Duncan-Smith, will he ask Mr. Duncan-Smith to respond and will you ensure that he does, with the response(s) posted here?
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I would hope that Paul Farmer may ask the following of the employment minister:
1) Will the work programme coerce people with mental health problems to enter low paid work even when not able to manage?
2) How will the Work Programme respond to people with an identified mental health need?. Even offering 'counselling' (as part of the programme) may be irrelevant when many of us have received psychiatric treatment for years but still know we wouldn't be able to cope with paid work?
3) How will you help fulfil the personal potential of people with mental health problems who feel ready to work, rather than paid by results companies pushing them into the first job available, eg low paid or mainly retail sector?
4) Can you reassure people with mental health problems that they will not be treated in the same way as the people the government cause feckless and work shy?
5) Can people with mental health problems allocated to the work programme continue to do their chosen voluntary work or will they be placed on work seeking programmes irrespective of their wishes, vulnerabilities, care plan or ongonig health needs?
6) Are you having any mental health specialist input eg not A4E businesses participating, in the work programme?
7) What about the migration onto Jobseekers allowance for those who have been on sickness related benefits for many years - it doesnt seem fair to apply so much 'stick' and force them into a return to work as they would have to on the JSA regime, often against what their mental health specialists would want for them? You will also cause many service users to need hospital or home treatment because of these welfare reforms since vulnerable people feel scared of them, and no reassurances are coming from government, only tough talk on cutting down on welfare cheats and scroungers.
8) Will you involve mental health specialists (eg community mental health teams) in your plans, or will they merely be left to pick up the pieces?
9) Please stop implying this is doing disabled people a favour, since the reality is that life on jobseekers allowance would be soul destroying when already unwell and without the capacity to comply with JSA requirements. What happens to those who are sanctioned since too unwell to accept job offers anyway? Will there be safeguards and what are these? -
Could you ask Mr Grayling if he and his Tory/Lib Dem colleagues will feel comfortable with having blood on their hands as people take their own lives as a direct result of what this heartless government are doing to the sick and disabled ?
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My questions are:
1. How can it be appropriate to harass, incite hatred against and even think of pressurizing people on IB into looking for work, when for years now, Lord Freud, Ian Duncan Smith and others have been declaring 'people that have been on incapacity benefit for more than two years are more likely to die than get a job' ?
2. Is is not fair (and indeed more cost-effective) that those with the greatest barriers to finding work (including most IB claimants, who have now all been on it for at least two years) be protected from the battery of frightening unfair/unethical medicals and threats of sanctions, by placing them in the support group - allowing totally voluntary access to 'employment support' if and when the time is right?
Isn't any other approach likely to prove counter-productive?
3. Not only has the government moved on from its original intention of keeping existing claimants on IB - under current targets, thousands and thousands of vulnerable people will be forced on to the highly pressurized JSA regime having failed an unfair/unethical medical. Not only are they being denied the tailored support that was promised when ESA was introduced - they are being pushed into dire poverty. How can this approach be appropriate in a supposed humane society?
4. Where are the safe-guards and crisis-management procedures in a system that was set up to protect and support vulnerable people when they are thrown into a financial or mental health crisis by the totally irresponsible actions of our government?
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Could Mr Farmer ask Chris Grayling if this information I have found out about is true concerning ATOS and the Shaw Trust
Atos to run compulsory work programmes
04 October 2010Atos may soon not only be carrying out your benefits medical, but also the interviews and work-related activities you are forced to attend afterwards. The multinational company has joined forces with a major charity to bid for DWP employment services contracts.
Atos Origin, part of the Atos group which carries out incapacity and disability medicals for the DWP, has gone into partnership with leading voluntary sector agency Shaw Trust with the aim of winning contracts to move disabled people back into work.
The shock news will cause considerable dismay to people who believe that a small number of private sector companies already have too large a stake in the UK's welfare benefits system.
This latest move raises the possibility that the same company which carries out medicals to decide which claimants go onto JSA and which go into the work-related activity group of ESA will soon also be responsible for providing compulsory interviews and training for those same claimants.
Claimants who believe they should have been placed in the support group for ESA, for example, but get placed in the work-related activity group instead may be particularly outraged if the same company that made a profit from producing an unfavourable medical report makes a further profit from attempting to move them into work.
Some claimants are also likely to be very unhappy that Shaw Trust, the leading voluntary sector back-to-work agency, has decided to add its name, and the additional credibility that brings, to a company for whom they feel particular animosity.
The new partnership is now advertising for other private and voluntary sector organisations to join them in bidding for DWP employment related support services contracts.
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Mr Grayling needs to be challenged as to why it would appear the conlib coalition views those of us with severe and enduring mental health conditions as in effect scum of the earth. I'm 40 so vaguely remember the benefit reforms under Thatcher in the 1980s. Hard to believe but our current 'masters' hold us in even further disregard than those of 25 years ago. In the dialogue on benefit reform replace mental health with black, asian, muslim, jewish, blind, deaf etc. and there would be (quite rightly) a national outcry.
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Mr Grayling, how are you consistently allowed to get away with saying things like "half the people receiving IB can work"? How do you know this? Have you gone around personally and given each one a medical examination? And if you do know this, why not just stop their claims if you're so convinced you know who the fraudsters are? Or is it because you actually DON'T know and are making it up in a frantic effort to look justified in your actions?
Can we please have a Dignitas in the UK so those of us driven to end our lives directly due to what you and your colleagues are doing to us can do so easily, painlessly and with dignity? Oh, and not to need to pay thousands of pounds to use it, after all think of all the money you'll be saving in the long term. Speculate to accumulate.
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Chris Grayling (Employment) avoided answering a direct question when interviewed on Channel 4.
Philip Hammond (Transport) avoided answering a direct question when interviewed on BBC2.
Theresa May (Home Secretary) avoided answering a direct question when interviewed on BBC2.
Louise Bloom, in another post, gives details of a "woolly" response to her question about stigma at the LibDem conference.
As I write, someone from Defence has just told Andrew Neil that he is asking the wrong question and Baroness Warsi is refusing to answer direct questions.
Based on what I've seen from the Tories in the last few days I think that last example gives us an idea of what to expect here. Ministers and coalition MPs are all programmed not to answer directly and to trot out pre-agreed stock phrases in their responses. When asked about Child benefit changes, several MPs used the same "median income" phrase in their responses. Don't forget "The Labour government left us with a huge deficit...." etc.
If you don't ask these people the questions they want to answer, you won't get very far. Meantime, "woolly" or evasive responses satisfy them that they have "answered" a question and leaves the questioner with nowhere to go and a faint hope that they may have been listened to.
If we can't get straight answers about what is planned for us, how can we prepare? If we can't trust the "answers" we get, how do we manage? Lack of information and speculation about the reforms leave us, as individuals, extremely vulnerable and the negative effect on our health is largely ignored or discounted.
When I fill in any form relating to benefits, I have to tell the truth, not lie by omission and disclose every detail they ask for. When I attend a medical or interview the same applies. If I lie or refuse to answer, I am punished. Why does that apply to us and not those we elect to represent us?
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I have no direct questions just an observation. Cameron's speech suggests that in a few years time if the economy improves we will all share in the benefits. Will that mean that those with mental health problems will have the same chance of a job as anyone else? If not will our benefits be restored? If we are going to be excluded from society in this way despite our intelligence and abilities will society compensate us by at least giving us a livable income? Will the cuts in services be restored so that those in crisis are not left to struggle alone?
Or are we just in it together when times are tough?
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David Cameron, in his speech yesterday (6th Oct).
"People who are sick, who are vulnerable, the elderly – I want you to know we will always look after you."
"If you really cannot work, we’ll look after you."
With regard to us here then;
Can we have Mr. Cameron's definition of "sick" and "vulnerable", please.
Why, when the medical diagnosis and evidence says someone cannot work because they are sick, does he insist they can?
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@In Despair: I've often wondered that. How terrible must our NHS be if Cameron knows more about medicine than our very own doctors.
Scary research by Scope released today:
http://www.scope.org.uk/news/disabled-people-hit-by-welfare-cuts -
Ian Duncan Smith in his speech this week "promised" that the sick and disabled have nothing to fear and that we will be looked after.
He broke his "promise" before he even made it. I'm scared, I'm alone and I'm desperate.
No one is listening to us and it appears no cares. -
ATOS doctors in some areas are known to fail everyone indiscriminately, farm/laundery, cheap manual labour for no pay is what people will be forced to do to even keep their JSA, Companies will gain from this slave labour and government would have achieved their pound of flesh from groups of people they clearly despise
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When will MIND publish the answers given by Chris Grayling Conservative Employment Minister to the questions that would have been put to him by the CEO of MIND.
The CEO of MIND had requested questions from service users to ask Chris Grayling the minister at the Conservative Party Conference last week in respect of welfare reform, cuts in benefits, no understanding of illness and fluctuating conditions and virtually no chance of employment except workfare.
Paul
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@Annika: I think it has been mentioned here the intention to demedicalise the assessment. "Purposely ignoring the medical evidence" more like. As I understand it, Decision Makers are not obliged to seek supporting medical evidence with regard to a claim. I think I saw a figure of 500,000 mentioned, this being the number of claimants expected to be found fit for work under the new assessments. As you said, how can they possible know this? Seems like this is a number they have decided on.
@very close to giving up: All in the coalition have been more than dishonest. They campaigned and made promises during the election, which they have been quick to dump on the basis of "We didn't know how bad it was". It's a coalition and all bets are off in their quest for "power". See how reluctant they are to answer questions. Like you, I'm alone and the more I see/hear, the more frightened I get and I agree, no-one is listening - at least no-one who could do something.
@Mindreader: I would love to know how/why ATOS gets away with it. It stinks.
I've tried to keep up with the conferences, hoping against hope that someone would be speaking up for us. All I heard was cliche and platitudes.
We know that the media has assisted in the coalition's campaign to demonise all benefit claimants. The weekend papers contained a story about a woman with 13 children who boasted that her benefits paid for her 46" plasma tv and the paper had decided that was good enough reason for the coaliton to "reform" welfare. There was also a story about a woman who had never worked who bragged about paying for cosmetic surgey with her benefits. Also was implied a direct link between IB claimants and the deficit. The newspaper said that the amount paid out to IB claimants over the last 10 years was £134bn, and that amount would be enough to wipe out the deficit. The stories that appear are the exceptions but are presented as the norm and as for amounts paid out over a period of time, what about the public money wasted on things like The Dome and failed IT projects?
The BBC are preparing for the CSR next week by travelling the country and examining how the cuts will affect different services. Today they looked at the re-asssessment of IB claimants in one of the pilot areas with a high IB claimant count. The reporter spoke to a couple of people who were disabled and they said they were scared, one saying that he didn't think anyone was safe from the axe. He also interviewed a man diagnosed with MS, who "failed" the assessment but was successful in his appeal.
Detailing the "new" assessment, the reporter quoted some of the questions to be asked. Yes/No answers only.
1. Can you hold a pen?
2. Can you walk 100m?
3. Can you turn on a star-type tap?Score less than 15 points and you're on to JSA.
He did mention the concerns about the new asessment but obviously it didn't cross his mind to dig a bit deeper into this and realise just how ridiculous this type of thinking is. Nor did he think to investigate the effects of having benefit refused and the appeal process. Nor did he question the use of private companies to conduct assessments, who are paid a bonus for each claimant found fit to work.
What can we do?
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1. Can you breath?
You're fit for work
Comatose? no problem you can be a paperweight
Loony? 70% employers don't want you so you can do 'workfare' cheap manual labour because it's good for you [even though no one else would want to do it]
I now understand mass suicide
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The pilot scheme seems to have slipped down the news agenda since this morning.
I noticed that the BBC report said that some claimants in the pilot areas were being reassessed "for the first time in years" or "since they started claiming". More mis-information for the masses. As we here know, if you have been on IB for a length of time, you are regularly assessed and I think the frequency of assessments has increased in the last few years.
The issue did get a brief mention on Channel 4 News this evening (11th Oct). They reported that letters were being sent to claimants to "invite" them for reassessment. Maybe they should make it clear that claimants have no choice about attending and cannot decline the "invitation".
I found this on their news website. It wasn't referred to in the report and you have to wonder why the interview wasn't shown on the programme itself.
http://www.channel4.com/news/benefit-claimants-reassessed-under-welfare-reform
No one seems to be questioning why someone who has been assessed as unfit to work in the last six months, WILL be found fit under the new assessment now. This shifting of the goal posts, where yesterday you were ill but today you're not - even with no change in your condition, is going unnoticed, but is the core of the coalition's campaign against the sick.
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I too would like to hear the answers to all our questions, though the reality is our fears will be ignored or glossed over with the usual government propaganda.
Chris Grayling states 'there is no target' and the 23% figure for people likely to be found 'fit for work' as a result or the IB reassessment process, is an estimate based on government statistics for the outcome of medicals. He fails to mention that these medicals have already been deemed 'officially unfair' or the number of people who undergo distressing and drawn out appeals because they have been wrongly found 'fit to work'.
Years ago, even before the recession took hold, the DWP made it blatantly clear that the number of people on IB had to be reduced due to a deficit in the pension pot. The Conservative Party promised to get rid of targets, but that clearly does not apply to the work of the the DWP as the proposed 'work programme' will also be driven by them.
70% of people who have already been subjected to ESA medicals have been forced down the JSA/appeal route. Where is the guarantee that IB and newer ESA claimants will be protected from exposure to these unfair medicals in the future?
I find Chris Grayling's reference to "abandoning people to spend the rest of their life on benefits doing nothing" both ignorant and insulting. People who become reliant on sickness benefits make the best of a very difficult situation - yes resting when their physical/mental health allows them to do little more. Many also struggle to keep a home, care for dependants, volunteer and generally do their best to engage in 'big society' type activities that would be given the thumbs up if we were not being excluded from Ian Duncan Smith's vision of 'main-stream'.
Many of those found 'fit for work' would fail to function in today's pressurized work environments even if the jobs were handed to them on a plate. Young and fit school and college leavers and those facing redundancy are struggling to find work for goodness sake.
Thank you to Mind's Sophie Collett for speaking out in the media today and for providing an honest, balanced and compassionate overview. Sophie highlights the reality of the unfair medical process, referring to the fact that for people living with mental illness "the impact of their condition on their ability to work is barely recognised" and that "the consequences of being wrongly declared fit for work can be devastating."
And a very big thank you to the ITV News and the lady from Burnley who bravely spoke about her history of mental illness, her fears about the medical process and how being forced back into the workplace would make her ill again.
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http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2010-10-04a.14894.h&m=40250
Talking of government propaghanda, which Patsy suggested in previous post and which I entirely agree, the propaghanda is all too well highlighted in this link from Parliament and Chris Grayling Tory Minister.
The comments infer in my view that MIND agrees with what is going on.
If MIND do not like being used as cover will they tell Grayling to stop quoting this stuff about MIND because it creates suspicion of collusion in my view. Once again can we have the answers of questions put to Grayling at Tory conference.Paul
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I am sick of waking up to depression every day, I would do anything to have rid of this insidious condition but after a life time of it and pushing 50 theres no chance of that. I have no chance with the medical, as I have been labelled personality disorder by the services and discharged. I would probably come across as the perfect media scrounger, hard to beleive once a was a qualified nurse who looked after others for over 20 years. I am not justifying myself to anyone anymore, if they want to take my income let them, if they try and push me into some workfare scheme let them, I just won't do it, damn the consequences. I have qualifications coming out of my ears, if society doesn't want my intelligence, then I don't want society. Tired of my personality, tired of being a mug. Voluntary work for the last 5 years as never good enough for paid work, I'll stop that too.
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Don't worry Linda - you can come and work at the laundry with me. It's probably full of women our age - the steaming heat will be put down to our hot flushes.
I am appalled you have been discharged and denied the continuity of care and support you need. Let's hope Claire Rayner's threat to come back and haunt David Cameron, will make them see sense.
The personality that shines through in your writing belongs to someone who really cares.
Best wishes to everyone else who continue to speak out on these blogs too.Mind please listen to us and step up your campaign and media work on these vital issues.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11527750
child benefit taken from people on £44,000+ = uproar, taking disability benefits away from people who didn't choose it unlike having children - nothing. What a nice big society we live in -
With regards to Shaw Trust...
I was "tricked" (not too strong a word) into taking a work placement through them at the beginning of this year - I had applied for a job advertised in my local paper, got to interview, & got asked (as per usual) to explain the 2yr gap on my CV (where I was dealing with depression and borderline schizophrenia, attending weekly psychiatric appointments, and coming close to suicide) - I replied that I "had had health problems" but that I was much better, and keen to get back into work (the truth). At the end of the interview, they said they'd be in touch.
I got a call from Shaw Trust, in which I was told that I'd been offered the job, on the proviso that I accept "support" from Shaw Trust.
I wanted to work, wanted to get off benefits, so I agreed.
Shaw Trust and my advisor LIED TO ME. What I had signed up for, it turned out, was a 6-month placement, where, because I wasn't "technically" employed by the company I was working for, I wasn't eligable for any formal training that they ran, and, I discovered, would immediately be discounted for advancement within the company, no matter how well I performed.
At the end of 6 months? Nothing. I'd been applying for other jobs, Shaw Trust had been sitting on their arses, criticising ME for not getting any of the jobs I appiled for (apparently, according to Shaw Trust, I was meant to "doctor" my CV so that there was no gap - nice to see that honesty is valued in our society, eh?) but never contactng the companies involved to challenge their rejections.
I was advised by Shaw Trust staff to apply to go back onto IB - even though I'm more than capable of working now - as "Shaw Trust can continue to support you that way." Continue to screw up my life & rake in the dosh, more like.I'm now claiming JSA, and trying to find an "acceptable" way to explain why I only lasted 6 months in the "job" Shaw Trust "provided."
In Norfolk at least, these guys are the scam artists - all they care about is the bonus they get for meeting their back-to-work targets. They don't give a toss what happens to their clients long-term.
Scrap the bonuses in the W2W sector, any you might just be on to something.
I believe that, had I not accepted Shaw Trust's "help", I would have been in long-term employment by now.
During the time I was in contact with him, the contact at Shaw Trust displayed only a very limited understanding of mental health issues, encouraged deception, and sought to blame me, and my "laziness and lack of initiatve" for every hurdle.
Even if it meant losing my benefits and ending up starving on the streets, I wouldn't deal with this organisation - especiallly the advisor they asigned me to - again.
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Nick Clegg today talking about the Fairness Premium for the poorest children.
"The decisions we take to tackle the UK’s deficit... will be a test of the Government’s character."
"... we will be guided a single, but crucial, belief: that while we must take swift and decisive action to get the nation’s books in order, we can do so in a way that is fair."
"...we are taking steps to ensure that work pays and welfare promotes work and opportunity. As John Stuart Mill said: 'Assistance should be a tonic, not a sedative'."
"...that would have been to allow the deficit to define our social purpose -- and that could not be allowed to happen. We have said that we will not balance the books on the backs of the poor..."
Have I missed something? Time and again we are told reducing the deficit is the most important thing, so the coalition's "social purpose" has been defined by it already.
The Premium will be £7bn over the next few years and I have no problem with it being spent in support of the poorest children. "There is no money" we are told, yet £7bn can be found for something which makes the LibDems look a little morer caring.
I think we have already seen the nature of this government's character and the way it really views the poor and vulnerable. The carefully timed "something nice" announcements do nothing to convince me that the coalition cares and I am certain that my health and situation will worsen as a result of their actions.
I noticed that Paul Farmer blogged promptly here at the end of the LibDem and Labour conferences. Three weeks on and despite several requests, we are still waiting for his coverage of the Conservative conference and, more importantly, the responses he got from Chris Grayling to the questions we were asked to pose. Why the delay?
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00v68vn
may only be available for another day or so, with one listener describing what it's like to live on benefits for depression and PTSD with everything said about claimants now, she has to switch off the news -
In Despair -
Mind CEO Paul Farmer has been busy meeting all kinds of ministers and industry folk, so has hardly been in the office over the past couple of weeks - hence the delay! We do hope to be able to publish his overview of the party conferences soon. Paul has read all comments in response to his party conference posts, and is aware of your concerns.
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*please note, some blog readers may find the images on the web page linked to in this comment disturbing*
I was telling a friend about how the CSR is going to influence the welfare "reforms" the coalition are intent on implementing and the vicious campaign they have conducted. I said that I was becoming more frightened and anxious about the future and worried for the long term effect on my mental health. My friend has a keen interest in 20th century history and insisted on showing me this.
http://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/stolenyears/ww2/japan/burmathai/story3.aspI couldn't understand why, but he had remembered reading the following and thought it relevant.
"The Japanese demanded “fit” prisoners to work each day. Despite their emaciated and sick condition, they deemed very few to be unfit. Those too ill to work had their meagre rations reduced and token pay denied."
I thought lessons were learned from the past and that we are supposed to be more civilised.
The media is really going to town on tomorrow's CSR but I'm already at my limit now and am avoiding, as much as I can, any reports. Everything seems to have been signed and sealed and will be enacted. I thought all this had to go before Parliament to be debated and voted on before anything can happen?
Commenting is now closed.