Denied
benefit: This is the late Karen Sherlock. Her illnesses included
chronic kidney disease, a heart condition, vitamin B12 deficiency,
anaemia, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, underactive thyroid,
asthma, diabetic autonomic neuropathy, gastropaeresis, and diabetic
retinopathy. She died on June 8, 2012, of a suspected heart attack,
after the Department for Work and Pensions stopped her Employment and
Support Allowance.
Readers of this blog will recall that the DWP had refused a Freedom of Information request, made in May last year, but the Information Commissioner’s Office upheld an appeal that used its own rules to demonstrate that the Department had been wrong in law.
The comment appeared in an excellent article by Ros Wynne-Jones of the Daily Mirror. She had contacted the DWP after receiving a press release on the subject from Vox Political – and we should be grateful to her for doing so. Comments to the mainstream media are invariably delivered much more quickly than responses to members of the public.
It is more interesting in what it does not say than it what it does. There is no reference to the fact that the DWP had been found to be wrongly applying the law; no suggestion that it will abide by the Information Commissioner’s ruling; in fact no reference to the Vox Political appeal at all.
Instead, we are told: “It is irresponsible to suggest a causal link between the death of an individual and their benefit claim. Mortality rates among people with serious health conditions are likely to be higher than those among the general population.
“We’ll respond to the Information Commissioner in due course.”
Irresponsible, is it?
There are several ways to disprove this...
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