Disabled people's lives will be ruined by sweeping cuts to services

[MikeyT]

Not sure if we have any disabled members on Foxestalk, but I thought if there were, this would be of great interest to them. 

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/09/disabled-people-cuts-cumulative-impact

 

On Wednesday, politicians will meet in parliament to debate and vote on an issue their constituents have actually asked them to. This in itself might seem remarkable, but what is truly incredible is that it has taken them this long to agree to it.

For years now, sickness and disability campaigners have argued that sweeping government cuts to every service and support they rely on is doing – and will continue to do – great harm. Perhaps if just one area was scaled back, we could cope, but when all are attacked at once, some of the most vulnerable people in our society are left feeling helpless and hopeless.

Imagine for a moment that you rely on a carer coming to your home just to help you get out of bed. Without them, you can't get dressed, can't prepare a meal or have a wash. Yet as local authorities try to cope with eyewatering 25% cuts, social care has been slashed up and down the country.

Imagine that day the doctor diagnoses terminal cancer or lupus or a broken spine. You can hardly take it in, let alone think about going to work. You will need time to adjust, to put away those lifetime ambitions or cherished dreams. Yet our politicians aim to remove employment and support allowance (ESA) from up to a million devastated lives.

Imagine you cannot walk well around your own home. You can shuffle a few painful steps, but no further than the end of the drive. You rely on your car for everything, for getting out to see friends, for getting to work, without it you would be completely isolated. Yet this government plan to remove disability living allowance (DLA), the benefit that provides sick and disabled people help to fund transport, from half a million people.

Imagine you are so profoundly disabled that you cannot eat or communicate without help. You use a wheelchair and your home has been modified to ensure that you can carry on living in it as independently as possible. Until recently, you received top-up payments from the Independent Living Fund, but that has been scrapped too.

Now just imagine what might happen if all of these cuts affect you at once. No carer to help at home, no ESA to replace your lost income, no car to get about and no support to stay in your own home. What might have been manageable becomes the most terrible, frightening scenario possible. Without these vital elements of your life, you are left with nothing; bedridden, housebound, isolated and living in crushing poverty. Add in cuts to housing benefit and the NHS, and it doesn't take much imagination to see that the results could be devastating.

When politicians devise policies from the comfortable bubble of their Westminster offices, they are required to carry out what is called an impact assessment. The government has performed the most basic of impact assessments for each disability "reform" – and when I say basic, would it surprise you to know that they concluded the above changes would have no impact on health, no impact on wellbeing, no impact on human rights and no impact on the justice system?

Campaigners have begged the government to conduct a cumulative impact assessment to assess what will happen if several or all of these cuts hit the same people at once and this will be the subject of Wednesday's debate. At first ministers refused, claiming that it would be "too expensive" and "too complex".

This isn't good enough. If it is simplicity itself to strip away the dignity of the most vulnerable, to leave no stone unturned in the destruction of compassion, then surely it can't be too difficult to assess the true impact?

Either campaigners are right, and lives will be ruined, or MPs are right and these are the correct reforms, done in the best way. Surely the very least that sick and disabled people can demand is that we know for sure?

[Rincewind]

One of the presenters on our radio slot campaigns on disbility rights and on Thusday there will be two of them discussing many issues.

He has said he would love to have a one to one on air with the City Mayor Peter Soulsby but he is not Soulsby's favourite person.

[ADK]

I didn't read it in depth but i agree that this government has been a disaster for the disabled, must be very difficult to get by.

[Guest MattP]

I didn't read it in depth but i agree that this government has been a disaster for the disabled, must be very difficult to get by.

 

Or just fairly normal. They were showered with gifts by the last government.

 

Gordon Brown got a standng ovation at the Paralympics, the only other place he would have got that was the job centre.

[Mike Oxlong]

Feel sorry for the poor fvckers. Some of them don't have a leg to stand on.

[Rincewind]

The bloke I know has to have a carer to drive him about. He got a new scooter the other week but found that the battery life was no good and a back up one would cost a fortune. He is going back to a similar model to his old one.

Listen to what he says on Thursday and see if you agree. Only fair to listen before cricising him.

[DennisNedry]

The bloke I know has to have a carer to drive him about. He got a new scooter the other week but found that the battery life was no good and a back up one would cost a fortune. He is going back to a similar model to his old one.

Listen to what he says on Thursday and see if you agree. Only fair to listen before cricising him.

 

Paid for by himself or taxpayer funded?

[Charl91]

I feel really sorry for those disabled that need carers. I'm not particularly fussed if they get extra money - there's a lot more things that it's wasted on, and their lives are probably shit enough as it is without cuts.

 

I do have a burning hatred for some people (one guy I know in particular) that claim disability but are really outright lying though.

[Vacamion]

I'm sorry, but the country just can't afford to go on paying the vast amounts we have been paying for this stuff. We were left in the financial crapper by the last givernment and the lack of any growth during the current government's tenure has not helped.

 

We can't magic the money up.

 

Is the provision of services by local authorities not separate to welfare provisions?

 

If local authorities have to implement 25% cuts, maybe they should start with culling non-jobs, the executive wage bill, the exorbitant and unfair pensions they provide, before moving on to any cuts in their provision of social care.

 

 

I don't support cutting welfare payments, but I do support rigorous assessment to see what people need and making sure the deserving cases receive what they need.

 

I regularly come across people in the course of my work who are "lifestyle" benefit claimants and tell me they are signed off sick with "depression" or "backache", yet who appear perfectly well and sit around smoking fags and drinking in the day whilst watching their large flatscreen TVs and playing with their i-phones. It can't be right.

 

Root out the feckless cases and we might be able to afford the deserving cases.

[Charl91]

 

 

I don't support cutting welfare payments, but I do support rigorous assessment to see what people need and making sure the deserving cases receive what they need.

 

I regularly come across people in the course of my work who are "lifestyle" benefit claimants and tell me they are signed off sick with "depression" or "backache", yet who appear perfectly well and sit around smoking fags and drinking in the day whilst watching their large flatscreen TVs and playing with their i-phones. It can't be right.

 

 

Basically, this.

[ADK]

I guess we get this topic every other week and the responses will be the same. You probably have to be disabled or know people who are disabled to understand the issues.

 

I think the system is prejudiced against those who are less educated. There is alot of emphasis on the the claimant putting across the right information and a large proportion of successful claims seem to require going through an appeal. It gives an advantage to people who have the ability to play the system.

 

I don't like the way the system encourages people to be as disabled as possible in order to get the welfare they require. It dosn't encourage people to try to improve their situation.

[Rincewind]

Think he pats for it himself. He cannot claim for everything. In fact it's been cut down. He has to pay for the carer as well.

[Guest Col city fan]

Not sure if we have any disabled members on Foxestalk, but I thought if there were, this would be of great interest to them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/09/disabled-people-cuts-cumulative-impact

On Wednesday, politicians will meet in parliament to debate and vote on an issue their constituents have actually asked them to. This in itself might seem remarkable, but what is truly incredible is that it has taken them this long to agree to it.

For years now, sickness and disability campaigners have argued that sweeping government cuts to every service and support they rely on is doing – and will continue to do – great harm. Perhaps if just one area was scaled back, we could cope, but when all are attacked at once, some of the most vulnerable people in our society are left feeling helpless and hopeless.

Imagine for a moment that you rely on a carer coming to your home just to help you get out of bed. Without them, you can't get dressed, can't prepare a meal or have a wash. Yet as local authorities try to cope with eyewatering 25% cuts, social care has been slashed up and down the country.

Imagine that day the doctor diagnoses terminal cancer or lupus or a broken spine. You can hardly take it in, let alone think about going to work. You will need time to adjust, to put away those lifetime ambitions or cherished dreams. Yet our politicians aim to remove employment and support allowance (ESA) from up to a million devastated lives.

Imagine you cannot walk well around your own home. You can shuffle a few painful steps, but no further than the end of the drive. You rely on your car for everything, for getting out to see friends, for getting to work, without it you would be completely isolated. Yet this government plan to remove disability living allowance (DLA), the benefit that provides sick and disabled people help to fund transport, from half a million people.

Imagine you are so profoundly disabled that you cannot eat or communicate without help. You use a wheelchair and your home has been modified to ensure that you can carry on living in it as independently as possible. Until recently, you received top-up payments from the Independent Living Fund, but that has been scrapped too.

Now just imagine what might happen if all of these cuts affect you at once. No carer to help at home, no ESA to replace your lost income, no car to get about and no support to stay in your own home. What might have been manageable becomes the most terrible, frightening scenario possible. Without these vital elements of your life, you are left with nothing; bedridden, housebound, isolated and living in crushing poverty. Add in cuts to housing benefit and the NHS, and it doesn't take much imagination to see that the results could be devastating.

When politicians devise policies from the comfortable bubble of their Westminster offices, they are required to carry out what is called an impact assessment. The government has performed the most basic of impact assessments for each disability "reform" – and when I say basic, would it surprise you to know that they concluded the above changes would have no impact on health, no impact on wellbeing, no impact on human rights and no impact on the justice system?

Campaigners have begged the government to conduct a cumulative impact assessment to assess what will happen if several or all of these cuts hit the same people at once and this will be the subject of Wednesday's debate. At first ministers refused, claiming that it would be "too expensive" and "too complex".

This isn't good enough. If it is simplicity itself to strip away the dignity of the most vulnerable, to leave no stone unturned in the destruction of compassion, then surely it can't be too difficult to assess the true impact?

Either campaigners are right, and lives will be ruined, or MPs are right and these are the correct reforms, done in the best way. Surely the very least that sick and disabled people can demand is that we know for sure?

Cheers Mikey. As a carer for my disabled mum, this is very interesting

[Vacamion]

 

I think the system is prejudiced against those who are less educated. There is alot of emphasis on the the claimant putting across the right information and a large proportion of successful claims seem to require going through an appeal.

 

 

 

I disagree.

 

The people who have been dealing with claiming for years tend to know their rights and know what they can and can't claim for.

 

It's the "squeezed middle", who have paid in all their lives, who are likely to get nowt when they fall ill, precisely because they are not well versed in playing the game and jumping through the hoops that the authorities set for them.

[Rincewind]

True and those behind the counter know who to target with sanctions.

 

Slightly off subject but someone I know who has worked inside a prison on training programmes said a prisoner said 'Why should I go on a programme to learn to drive a forkllift when within a week I can make 20k dealing drugs and buy my own place in less than a year? What forklift job pays that money?

[Guest MattP]

True and those behind the counter know who to target with sanctions.

 

Slightly off subject but someone I know who has worked inside a prison on training programmes said a prisoner said 'Why should I go on a programme to learn to drive a forkllift when within a week I can make 20k dealing drugs and buy my own place in less than a year? What forklift job pays that money?

 

I'd have no problem then mate see you in here again soon.

[ADK]

I disagree.

 

The people who have been dealing with claiming for years tend to know their rights and know what they can and can't claim for.

 

It's the "squeezed middle", who have paid in all their lives, who are likely to get nowt when they fall ill, precisely because they are not well versed in playing the game and jumping through the hoops that the authorities set for them.

 

The middle class types i know who have to claim have been successful because they have the intelligence to work out what they will need to write. They may get a better reception from doctors (unable to prove) too.