Look For Work Or Lose Benefits, Sick And Disabled People Told
Currently an estimated 700,000 people apply for sickness benefit each year but are not required prepare themselves for returning to employment until they receive an official work capability assessment after three months.
More than 300,000 stopped claiming the benefit before they were assessed last year, according to the Department for Work and Pensions.
But under plans to be introduced from 2013, anyone claiming Employment and Support Allowance because they are ill will face sanctions if they do not take steps to prepare for work.
They will be expected to maintain regular contact with Jobcentres and to look for employment opportunities while awaiting the assessment of their fitness for work.
The new arrangements, being incorporated into Iain Duncan Smith’s flagship Universal Credit welfare programme, will be seen by critics as another assault on state support for the sick and disabled.
However, officials insisted that it was necessary to bring sickness benefits into line with reforms to place conditions on benefits for people who are out of work.
The DWP said anyone claiming ESA under the new system would be given “immediate support to help them return to work” as soon as they are able, warning that long periods of unemployment can cause significant damage to long term careers.
Minister for Welfare Reform Lord Freud said: “The overall aim of our welfare reforms is to ensure that people who can work get the support they need to find a job. This simple step will give people access to employment support months sooner than under the current system, so that the time spent waiting for a sickness assessment is not wasted.
“Individuals who are too ill to work will not be forced into a job, but for the first time, we will work with them to help them get a job when they are ready.”
Last year, ministers commissioned a major review of sickness absence, which costs the economy 140 million work days each year.
An estimated 700,000 people applied for the benefit, but only 389,000 were still in the system three months later to undergo a work capability assessment.
Many drop out of the benefit before the assessment and return to work because they have recovered.
More than half of claimants are found fit for work when the assessment takes place, often because their condition has improved since they first applied three months earlier.
A further 20 per cent are found capable of taking “steps into work” in the future with the proper support.
Work capability assessments have been highly controversial since they were first piloted under Labour in 2008 and later rolled out across the country under the coalition.
Critics claim the tests have been skewed towards forcing people back to work and the results have been challenged by thousands of disabled people.
Same Difference 
Despite what Atos and DWP say, many disabled people will not be able to find work. There are just too many barriers to face, the infrastruction of the building, lack of disabled facilities and the attitude of employers who fail to adapt their premises or see disabled employees as a ‘weakness’ in the workforce. Many factories would be a no go areas for poorly sighted people, wheelchair users or others with mobility impairments. Most employers would not dream employing some who keeps ‘going on the sick’, for whatever reason.
Many disabled people would love to go out to work, but just getting there can pose huge problems. Disabled employees tend to be better timekeepers, work harder and have greater loyalty than their able bodied counterparts.
To would be employers I would say this…”there is none so blind as those who don’t want to see”.
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What if these disabled or ill people get in severe extreme pain, every day? How will the employer’s cope when that happens? That makes me wonder. Do all these employers who hire disabled/sick people have the appropriate training to treat the person, if said sick person has flare-up symptoms at work? Gotta think about that. Long and hard. I advise it. I get extreme pains from an illness where an infection created a tract. It made it sting much more than before I got the infection. Gotta think about these things. Unpractical government. Unpractical employers. Why should sick or disabled people only rely on the dirty deed that the Jobcentre dishes out? There are charities who would happily pay us still, so what difference would it make if I don’t want to be BLACKMAILED by the Jobcentre? I’d rather live off charity donations than have no-brainers try to control my life. Stick it where the sun doesn’t shine and keep it. The Jobcentre was always a con. Glad I can see through it. DWP are a waste of my time.
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John- Couldn’t agree more with everything you say.
Sarah- You make a very good point about training employers to deal with symptoms.
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I know I can only work part time – I’ve only ever been fit enough *ever* to work part time. Seasonal conditions aswell as ongoing other conditions prevent me from being able to do anything regarded as ‘full time’, yet, the time before last when I had a medical, the doctor from the DWP agreed with me I can only ever do PT work. However, the JC+ and their methodology employed at the time meant ‘no, you can look for FULL TIME.’
Oh – it really bugs them that travel over distance is a no-no too… really narks them off no end…
However, in all the years I have been unemployed, I’ve done as much as I dare let myself do something in the community in which I live – it’s something, it’s local, it stops me from getting bored, I meet other people and we share considerable time in each others company – we’re a neat little collective of misfits and we like it that way. Jobs are rarer than hens teeth and rocking horse poo around here… skilled people are languishing and waiting for the next opportunity and there are others, for want of a better way of putting it, spend their time drinking and smoking stuff to kill the time because there’s absolutely nothing for them out there because they’re afraid of looking at the list of unavailable vacancies time and time again and none of them have the intellect to want to break down social barriers and serve their community in any which way they can.
*THOSE* are the ones who let the side down – not the disabled people who want to do something but their bodies only allow them ‘so much’ per day or per week. I’d give my eye teeth to be the me of 20 years ago – riding a bike everywhere and not afraid to travel or pull in the hours (I once worked 70 hours a week for a whole month) but the me of 20 years ago got sick and everything spiralled into what the me of today became.
But I didn’t let it stop me from re-educating myself. Heck no. I had to keep myself occupied or I’d go scattergorically NUTS. Now I’ve got a whole pile of qualifications!
I’ve always been a grafter and always will be. But when your body has other ideas, it’s you against your body. Some days you win, other days maybe not so.
But because of those daily monumental struggles that nobody but you sees, we’re almost deprived because of who and what we are of what we want to be. Deprived and then stamped on because ‘hey, we can’t have you in here farting all day, you’re putting the other staff off!’ – er.. hello? deal with it!
It’s problematic because other people are so self-absorbed and self-centred that if you cut them in half, you’d only see the words ‘it’s all about me’ in the middle.
So, the me of 20 years ago has long gone – she doesn’t do the job she did then and doesn’t want to be reminded of it next time she’s asked what her last paid job was – the honest answer of ‘Volunteer’ gets met with a shudder of disgust. But what the heck else are we to do? Where I live, it’s mostly those disabled people who have kickstarted a revolution of volunteers and I’m bloody happy to be a part of that.
So yes, I’m disabled and I volunteer for my community because that’s what gives me pleasure – a smile is worth more than a thousand platitudes and broken promises and we should all be commended for what we CAN do and currently DO do!
But the government has got us all upside down and back to front and confused us with the lager-swilling drug taking sorts that, we’re not a part of. I seriously and honestly believe that CaMoron, Vague and IBS are suffering some possible mental health issues which makes them unfit to hold their position because they like to take it in turns to have a go at a sector of what makes all our communities and villify them – almost flogging them publicly to death.
Education has gone downhill because parents can’t be bothered teaching their kids and their kids don’t teach their kids – and so on.
Mobile phones are the norm and if you’re not looking at a phone screen, the world is too scary to look at.
So yes, I can only ever work part-time. My GP says the same too… I’m currently undergoing tests at hospital to find out the cause of my problems and until that’s sorted, I’m off the being employable books until I have my own personal answers.
I’m also waiting to hear when my appeal will be too. I know that I should be put on WRAG, but considering all that’s happened, the hospitalisations (I have a phenomenal wristband collection), amount of medication and ongoing other issues – for the time being, I’m not fit.
Once I’ve done with the hospital, then I’m fit.
I did have one appeal date for 14th December that was cancelled because it was a clerical error. I’m going under a full anaesthetic on the 20th December – I’d have quite possibly failed the appeal if that December date had stood.
I’ve got all my evidence here and I’ve submitted loads as has my doctor, who’s been good about it so far.
However, if the DWP do not accept I’m only fit for PT work, then I shall just drop them my evidence pile on their table, show them the ever-growing pile of every tablet box I’ve ever had and ask them, ‘well?’
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