Sanctioning ESA Claimants For Refusing Treatment Is ‘Unethical’ Says Sarah Woollaston MP
Stripping benefit claimants of their allowances if they refuse to go to undergo treatment for depression would be “unethical and completely ridiculous”, a senior Tory MP has said.
Existing welfare rules mean it is not possible to require claimants to have treatment, such as therapy or counselling, as a condition of receiving sickness benefits.
Senior ministers now believe the rules should be reviewed in order to reduce the “huge” numbers of people who are declared unfit for work due to mental health problems.
However Sarah Wollaston, the Conservative chairman of the health select committee, said that forcing people into counselling would present “profound ethical issues”.
She urged David Cameron to “squash” the proposals amid concerns about the damage they are doing to the image of the Conservative party.
She said: Consent is a very important principle and to link some kind of compulsion to that treatment would be grossly unethical. There would be a serious risk of a doctor being challenged and taken to the GMC.
“You would get people going to GPs having a prescription so they could demonstrate they have got treatment. Enormously wasteful of time. Far better to get on with parity of esteem.
“This kind of thing is enormously damaging for the Conservatives. No 10 urgently need to squash this. Do they think this is ethical? Do they think there is any evidence this will work? I have long supported the principle of offering individual placement and support to help get people into work, but this needs to be immediately clarified.”
The first moves towards potential reform are expected in a series of pilot schemes to be launched within weeks.
The trials, jointly designed by the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions, will test ways of combining treatment for mental health problems with support to find work.
According to the government, 46 per cent of benefit claimants receiving Employment and Support Allowance, the main benefit for ill and disabled people, have mental health problems.
This means that the proposal to enforce treatment could apply to an estimated 260,000 claimants, who receive up to £101 per week each in ESA.
Same Difference 
at least Sarah Woollaston MP is talking sence. This is another very disturbing piece of news that I am sure needs to be nipped in the bud by the UN. I know very well from the treatment i have received from the DWP over the past 35 years in that they have caused me considerable harm by the very way they have been part of my life so much so in that today i weigh just 55KG leaving me like a skeleton.
how i get through week to week is by some kind of miracle of which I’m sure i will never understand but the likes of this blog helps a hell of a lot. i know full well that there are many in the uk living in very similar conditions to myself and worse enslaved to the DWP and with no way of leaving the country.
Living in the same country as David Cameron the prime minister has been sheer hell the past 4 years and with the above news, one would have to ask would i be able to go on? To that question, it would be extremely doubtful.
i knew Margaret thatcher pretty well in her younger years and although odd in her thinking she was concerned with people like myself long term ill or disabled she wouldn’t set out to make you feel guilty for being alive. David Cameron on the other hand and his cabinet have always set out to make you feel guilty by being alive by making sure you were responsible for the rescission and that you would be severely punished and to your death as we have all seen in many cases
David Cameron had a disabled son that tragically died but it begs the question did he? As I find it so very bizarre that if he did have a disabled son why is he and his government so hell bent on making the lives of the sick and disabled so unbearable so much so many commit suicide and that is the main question that I hope he will answer in his lifetime
I just hope the EU give him as much grief as he and his government gives the likes of me and thousands of others of sick and disabled around the uk and I just wish it had been me that died instead of his son Ivan
Mind you, having said that what sort of son would even won’t the likes of David Cameron as a father. I know I would not and I have yet to meet any person that would thank god
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Well said and I’m sure the many of thousands of us sick and disabled share your thoughts, thank you.
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thanks Philip 🙂
yes they are very black thoughts indeed but i can afford to be honest as when your my sort of weight at 6 -2 you never know if this is your last day so with nothing to lose you feel very powerful which is odd but that’s how it is
even my Tory mp stays away from me so as not to get embroiled in my lack of care that and the main charities also staying well distant proving that you cant even rely on them for any help
it’s never good to be in isolated position in life and that the main reason for me to live just one day at a time and not plan ahead
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And so it begins again.
How long will it be, before the old, infirm and mentally ill are once again “euthanised” in much the same way that the Nazis did under Aktion T4?
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The image of the Conservative party ?, it is already destroyed and the hurt they have caused to the sick and disabled is on such a scale that the Tory party will forever be known as the nasty party the destroyers of Democracy .
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If no one protects us from those who are meant to protect us then God help us survive this Tory led coalition.
And I do believe that David cameron is blaming us and punishing us the sick and disabled for the sad loss of his disabled son.
The United Nations should by now be stepping in to help the weakest people in society and to protect us from the Nasty Tory party, slayers of our democracy.
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