How benefit sanctions punish people with mental health problems the hardest

Some of the most vulnerable people on benefits are being sanctioned at alarming rates - even when they're in hospital.

Going through the sanctions process is even more stressful for people with mental health issues (posed by models)

It's hard enough dealing with a mental health issue - but it's made much worse if you're not able to work.

David (not his real name) suffers from schizophrenia and receives two types of income support to help him live while he deals with his illness. He was sanctioned twice in 2013 for not attending work focussed interviews and appointments due to his deteriorating health.

He was even sanctioned while he was very ill in hospital, and forced to rely on his family for food.

Caught in a bureaucratic nightmare without any guidance, David was too ill to speak to advisors.

His family explained his situation but received little compassion. They didn't know who to turn to.

The sanctions on his Disability Living Allowance and Employment Support Allowance (ESA) were only lifted once Citizens Advice Bureau got in touch and intervened on his behalf.

It's now all too common to hear tales of frustrated vulnerable people unable to access the financial help they need and are entitled to. Too many of them are sanctioned for not fulfilling basic tasks which they just can't do because of their disability.

People with mental health problems are FAR more likely to be sanctioned than someone with a physical injury

If you have depression, you're much more likely to lose your benefits than if you've got a physical condition like a broken leg or bronchitis.

This is what new data released by a consortium of church groups and charities shows.

They looked at the number of sanctions given to ESA claimants with different conditions. Claimants with mental health or behavioural problems have been penalised the heaviest by the new sanctions.



The most common reason for being sanctioned is being late or not turning up for a Work Programme appointment, according to the data released by the Methodist Church, Church of Scotland, Church in Wales and mental health charity Mind.

Yet some of these people have issues like crippling anxiety that prevent them from leaving the house, never mind getting to appointments on time. 

Paul Morrison, Public Issues Policy Adviser for the Methodist Church, said: "Sanctioning someone with a mental health problem for being late for a meeting is like sanctioning someone with a broken leg for limping.

"The fact that this system punishes people for the symptoms of their illness is a clear and worrying sign that it is fundamentally flawed."

The reality of being sanctioned, behind the figures:

• One single male said that he was sanctioned for SIX WEEKS for not attending a meeting that would take him off ESA and onto JSA. He didn't attend the meeting as he didn't know about it - he never answered unknown numbers for fear of harassment from debt collectors.
  He said: "I was given no direction over where to go for help.  I felt so angry, insecure, negative, depressed and beaten. I felt like finding solace in drugs and drink.”
• Another ESA claimant suffering from severe anxiety and IBS cannot always leave their home. They were asked to attend training sessions despite giving doctors' letters to support their claim, and were threatened with sanctions for non-attendance. Frightened they would be left destitute, they attended the training and while there, had an anxiety attack. They had to make their way home while very unwell and frightened: an situation that could have been easily-avoided.
• In one particularly tragic story from 2013 one single mother was sanctioned for not attending a meeting. She wasn't able to find help and the stress became too much for her. She was found hanged in her home two days before Christmas.

62% of people sanctioned have mental health problems

People on ESA with mental health problems are over-represented when it comes to being sanctioned.
Since 2010, the gap between the percentage of claimants with mental health problems and the percentage of sanctions for those who have mental health problems has widened.



Paul Farmer, CEO of mental health charity Mind, said: “We’re very concerned about the number of people having their benefits stopped. It’s unjustifiable that people with mental health problems are being sanctioned disproportionately compared to those who have another health problem.

"Stopping benefits does not help people with mental health problems back into work. In fact, it often results in people becoming more anxious and unwell and this makes a return to work less likely."

Mirror Online

Young jobless too depressed to leave their house says shock report

Prince's Trust Macquarie report says long-term youth unemployment has caused a mental health crisis

Isolated: More than half of teenagers surveyed say they are scared about life

Thousands of young people are too scared to leave the house, as joblessness fuels a mental health crisis.
More than one in 10 jobless youngsters regularly feel too anxious to go outside, while 46% avoid meeting new people, a report reveals.

The Prince’s Trust Macquarie youth index shows 47% of unemployed young people feel down or depressed “always” or “often”, while more than 30% say anxiety has stopped them looking after their health or eating properly.

Some 50% of jobless youngsters report feeling scared about life.

The Prince’s Trust chief Martina Milburn warned: “Thousands feel like prisoners in their own homes.

“Their confidence has hit an all-time low. When you think about what it would be like trying to look for work while feeling isolated, unwell and unconfident, it’s easy to see why long-term unemployment often becomes a downward spiral.”

It comes days after charity YoungMinds revealed how the Government had broken its vow to look after children’s mental health services by slashing funding by £50million a year.

That is despite one in 10 youngsters having a diagnosable mental health issue.

The Prince’s Trust survey of more than 2,000 16 to 25-year-olds also reveals those without jobs are more than 50% more likely to “fall apart” emotionally.

Read more...

Letters: My Best Friend Hung Himself After Cost Of Living Became Too Much

My best friend Daniel hung himself three days ago. He was a kind and gentle soul who had lived in London for almost 15 years. He had always managed to support himself on limited means. He was a man of simple pleasures. I had never known him to need any support from the welfare state or anyone else for that matter. 

But recently as the cost of living in London increased exponentially, directly as a result of successive government’s savaging of affordable housing. Selling council homes off en mass to private landlords, encouraging the worlds elite to funnel their billions into the London property market, and through our despicable tax haven ‘crown dependencies’. Dan was unable to continue to cover the ever-increasing costs of accommodation, as work became harder to find and the work that he did get continued to pay the same wages they had 15 years previous. 

Dan became increasingly depressed, but there was no tonic our national health service could provide other than ever-increasing dosages of antidepressants and a pat on the shoulder. The ideological destruction of our most cherished service, our universal healthcare, meant that the resources weren’t available for doctors to spend the time with him and care for him in the way that he deserved. 

Meanwhile the welfare state judged him ‘fit to work’, despite the fact he was increasingly becoming a danger to himself. And offered no help despite the fact he was being evicted from his flat due to being in arrears. Eventually the burden of having to rely on handouts from friends and family became too much for him. He was a proud and generous soul. 

The relentless juggernaut of the free market, and the ideological destruction of the post war consensus has diminished our humanity. Our commitment to each other and to the weakest members of society has been slowly eroded. And for what? Progress? Growth? We have all been sold a monumental lie, and as result can only look forward to a darker future. 

For me personally, I have lost more than just a friend, but a brother. And the world has lost one of the good guys. 

Matt (surname not provided)

Source

DWP denials: They would kill you and call it ‘help’

Reblogged from Vox Political:

Employment Minister Mark Hoban: His attempt to cover up the failings of the ESA Work Capability Assessment, and his nepotistic use of a former employer to rubber-stamp the cosmetic changes, bring all politics and politicians into disrepute.

Who do you believe about the Work Capability Assessment?

Not the government, obviously.

You may have missed this – because it hasn’t been reported widely in the mass media – but a quiet row has been running for several months, concerning the collection and use of medical evidence to support applications for Employment and Support Allowance, the benefit people taking the WCA have applied to receive.

The government – whose spokesman appears to be Employment Minister Mark Hoban rather than Esther McVey, the Minister who is actually responsible for Disabled People – insists that decisions are made after consideration of all medical evidence supplied by claimants, and that they can provide further evidence during the reconsideration process or appeals.

But there is a mountain of evidence that this is a load of bunkum.

Back in 2010, an ex-military claimant, ‘Mrs S’ wrote a damning report on the service at the time. It stated: “This dangerous DWP contract offers the medical opinion of the Atos Healthcare Disability Analyst as a PRIORITY, which the DWP Decision Makers accept verbatim, so all additional specialist medical opinion of consultants, offered by the patient/claimant, is totally overlooked. Consequently, desperately ill people are now being declared fit for work because they are physically capable of collecting a pen from the floor. Patients, welfare advisors and MPs all presume that specialist medical opinion by a consultant will be accepted because they are unfamiliar with the details of the contract.

“The contract requires specialist medical opinion for several conditions… This is routinely ignored by Atos Healthcare with devastating consequences, whilst the UK government offer total support for this private company.

“Atos Healthcare doctors do not have access to a patient’s detailed medical history at the interview with the patient, as confirmed by Atos Healthcare, so one needs to question why so much detailed medical evidence is requested, which will be totally ignored?

“Atos Healthcare is totally unaccountable for all medical examinations. All usual patient safety networks in place for NHS and private healthcare do not apply and, according to the GMC and the Healthcare Commission, Atos Healthcare, as a company, ‘…have total immunity from all medical regulation.’

“There is no clinical supervision whatsoever.”

Get the picture? This situation has not changed in three years, despite the claims of Mr Hoban that he is “committed to ensuring that the Work Capability Assessment is as fair and accurate as possible”.

On Tuesday (August 13), New Statesman published details of several Atos claimants with mental health problems who – surprise, surprise – have been let down by the system.

One of these, who had previously attempted suicide, was driven to a further attempt to take her own life after receiving a string of 18 letters from a Work Programme Provider, all sent after it was advised to leave her alone for the good of her health.

“The DWP said it would not investigate the matter because [the Work Programme Provider] has its own internal complaints procedure,” the article stated, before going on to report on how that worked.

The company refuted the allegation and went on to say that it “takes its responsibilities to its customers and staff seriously. We have robust policies on safeguarding and data protection in place to ensure their privacy and safety is always maintained. With this in mind, it would be inappropriate for [us] to comment on individual any cases”.

It is clear that there is a culture of unaccountability running right through this system; the only people who bear the consequences of Work Capability assessors’ actions are the claimants themselves.

Perhaps that is why so many are dying that the DWP is now afraid to publish mortality figures for people going through the process. The suicidal person mentioned in the Statesman article would have been one more to add to the multitude, if they had succeeded in taking their own life.

This is what your votes support – a state-sponsored drive for sick or disabled people to kill themselves, rather than continue to be a burden on a Conservative-led government. Compassionate Conservatism – and this is at its most compassionate.

Let’s add in a few details. We know that the government recently lost a court battle in which it claimed that the current process was fair to people with mental health conditions. The Upper Tribunal disagreed and now the DWP is appealing against that decision – because ministers don’t want their underlings to have to consider medical information on anyone that hasn’t been gathered in the biased way ensured by the Atos Healthcare training system.

“We already request claimants supply any evidence they feel will be relevant to the assessment in the ESA50 questionnaire,” the department said in an email quoted by the Statesman.

But we already know from ‘Mrs S’ that this information is “totally overlooked”. It was in 2010 and we have no reason to believe the current situation is any different, judging from the treatment of claimants.

Now it seems claimants are finding it harder to get the expert medical evidence they need, because GPs are either refusing to hand it over, or are charging more money for it than claimants receive for their personal survival.

In southeast Wales, Bro Taf Local Medical Committee has come under fire for ordering GPs to stop providing support information to disability benefit claimants who were appealing against WCA decisions. The LMC has said its problem is not with the provision of evidence itself, but with the “increasing number of appeals [which] has resulted in more GP appointments being taken up to deal with such requests”.

Hoban said last month that he was bringing in “additional providers” to carry out assessments from summer 2014 and had already directed Atos to improve the quality of its written reports following assessments.

This will do nothing to improve matters, if the contract and the training given to the new providers is the same as that given to Atos.

And he has engaged a company to “provide independent advice in relation to strengthening quality assurance processes”. This company is PricewaterhouseCoopers, Mr Hoban’s former employer. The connection with the Minister implies an inappropriate relationship from the get-go.

Put it all together and you have an attempt to carry out business as usual, under the veil of a ham-fisted cover-up involving friends of the Minister. Anyone bothering to check the facts will see it as further evidence of the corruption that is rotting the institutions of British government with staggering rapidity under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat administration.

But there is a worse effect, which has a bearing on all politicians: Even those who accept such announcements at face value will consider this to be a failure by government. “They can’t get anything right” will be the chorus from the Great Uninterested – and the continuing furore as mistakes – and deaths – continue to take place will only reinforce the view that we should not give any politicians the time of day.

They would kill us all and call it “help”.

How are those with mental health problems treated by Atos?

With complaints about the failed Atos work capability assessment flooding in, Alan White and Kate Belgrave look at some of them.

Atos. Photograph: Getty Images

Tony Lea, who runs the Cornish benefit advice charity Bufferzone, wants to tell us about Jane. She suffered abuse from the age of 13. She never went to school and she can’t read or write. She’s 33 years old and has tried to kill herself before.

In February this year, the outsourcing company Atos carried out her Employment and Support Allowance Work Capability Assessment (WCA). She didn’t score any points on the mental health ability descriptors, and was placed in the ESA Work Related Activity Group – the group for claimants that the DWP considers to be capable of work at some point.

She was assigned a career adviser by a company called Prospects, which is contracted to find jobs for the unemployed under the Government’s Work Programme. Jane told this adviser that she had mental health problems. The adviser called her a liar and sanctioned her benefits. By June, Jane had got a job. She was in the job for three days before she tried to commit suicide by overdose.

On 2nd July, Tony told the Prospects career adviser not to contact her, and asked a mental health crisis team to carry out an immediate assessment. On the 29th of that month she tried to take an overdose again. Tony says this was because Prospects sent her a letter. She’d been receiving them for months, asking why she hadn’t been in contact with them. She can’t read and didn’t want them read it out to her, so she’d been storing them in a drawer: 18 of them in total. She recognised the company’s logo on the top, and that tipped her over the edge.

Tony made an official complaint. The DWP said it would not investigate the matter because Prospects has its own internal complaints procedure. On 5th August another Prospects worker phoned Jane. Tony believes “we’d have been looking at another suicide attempt,” had another mental health team not visited her.

When we contacted them, Prospects issued the following statement:

“Prospects strongly refutes the allegations made by Bufferzone which purportedly relate to one of our customers on the Work Programme in South West. 

"Prospects takes its responsibilities to its customers and staff seriously. We have robust policies on safeguarding and data protection in place to ensure their privacy and safety is always maintained. With this in mind, it would be inappropriate for Prospects to comment on individual any cases. 

"Prospects is currently helping more than 18,000 long term unemployed people in the South West to return to work through its innovative ASCENT model of delivery. Prospects works with customers to help them overcome barriers to employment through bespoke support and training to increase confidence and develop skills.”

***

You can see why there is such concern about the way that the WCA deals with people who have mental health conditions - and concern about the DWP’s commitment to a real overhaul. Here’s a reason to question that commitment: the Upper Tribunal recently ruled that the current WCA process is unreasonable to people with mental health conditions. That ruling came after an action against the DWP was brought by the Mental Health Resistance Network. Two claimants argued that Atos work capability assessments discriminated against people with mental health conditions. The courts agreed.

That decision would have put the onus on the DWP to source medical information for people with mental health conditions right at the start of their ESA applications. Unfortunately, the DWP is fighting that decision tooth and nail - and was recently granted leave to appeal it. "We already request claimants supply any evidence they feel will be relevant to the assessment in the ESA50 questionnaire," the department said in an email. The fact that the change could improve the experience for people who must go through the appalling work capability process appears to be neither here nor there.

Neither is the fact that sourcing people’s medical information at the start of their WCAs might improve things as far as the public purse goes – people found eligible for ESA from the start would not need to take their case through the wildly oversubscribed and costly appeals process. You’d also think the fact that the minister for employment, Mark Hoban, has been forced to admit there are problems with the assessments and the written reports that Atos produces (“an unacceptable reduction in the quality”) would give the DWP reason to pause when looking to overturn decisions which could dramatically improve the information available to Atos assessors. (Hoban has also brought in his former employers, PricewaterhouseCoopers, “to provide independent advice in relation to strengthening quality assurance processes across all its health and disability assessments.” Ahem).

Which brings us to the growing problems that people have getting medical evidence. Tony tells us about Clive. Clive’s in his forties. His mother lives at his home and has palliative care provided by Clive and another carer. Tony managed to get him referred to a mental health team and then to an agency called Outlook South West following a suicide attempt. He’s got a tribunal to overturn his WCA next week. Outlook South West told him it would cost £70 for them to provide a letter outlining his mental health problems. But as Tony says: “People like Clive have to live on £71 a week. If they have to pay that, what do they live on? I feel so strongly about this. It has to be highlighted.”

And then Tony tells us about Claire. She has a history of depression and suicide attempts. The WCA said there was nothing to go on regarding her mental illness. But the mental health team and Tony told Atos and the DWP not to contact her because they strongly believed she had a paranoid schizophrenia condition.

When her case went to tribunal, Claire only had medical evidence that was over ten years old, because her GP refused to provide evidence. The DWP supplied no evidence to back up its case that she was in good mental health. The tribunal chair was deeply unimpressed with the stress to which she was being subjected, and demanded medical evidence from both the department and her GP. Now she faces another tribunal in six weeks’ time.

Tony will most likely win the tribunal. Last year he attended 104 tribunals with nine losses: a 93 per cent success rate. His overall rate of success is 98 per cent. As he says: “Atos are so bad they make my job easy.”

***

This whole scene is a catastrophe. The implosions are everywhere. A few weeks ago, disability benefit claimants and campaigners were shocked to read that GPs in south east Wales had been told by the Bro Taf local medical committee to stop providing support information for disability benefit claimants appealing “fit to work” decisions, because the work was an “abuse of resources”. We spoke to the Bro Taf LMC, which sent this statement (and they said they’d be issuing another one this week, so we’ll look out for that) to say that their problem was not with providing medical evidence for claims, but for the “increasing number of appeals [which] has resulted in more GP appointments being taken up to deal with such requests.”

None of which helps claimants and we’re looking for a legal view on that withholding of support information. Public Interest Lawyers’ Tessa Gregory says: "It can’t be right that claimants are left without vital medical evidence from their GPs to support them in their appeals against Atos assessments which are notoriously unfair. We are considering the position of both the DWP and the Local Medical Committee carefully to see whether a legal challenge can be brought to ensure that claimants get the assistance they require."
The WCA’s systemic failures are causing complete havoc.

Only a day before the Bro Taf story appeared, industry magazine Pulse reported that “GPs were struggling to cope with a 21 per cent rise in requests to verify work capability since January [2013]” – saying that figures obtained by Pulse “showed the number of requests to verify claimants’ ability to work have increased by over a fifth since the beginning of this year.”

Note the anger in the comments on that story, with people arguing that they're doing the extra work for social security “reform”, while Atos makes the profit - “ATOS collects the money. GPs do the work. Welcome to the Tory vision of privatisation.”

As far as charging for medical information is concerned: it's not new for GPs and consultants to charge (there's a list of some charges here) – but the problem in the case of disability benefits is that cost could be pricing people out of vital information they need to support their claims and leave them with absolutely nowhere to go. What happens then? Around the country, people are being asked to pay £20, £30, £50 and more for medical evidence (you can see in the comments here that even last year, people were being charged upwards of £100 for support information and saying they couldn’t afford to pay it).

The Citizens Advice Bureau saw all this a mile off: they raised the issue of cost back in their January 2012 investigation (called Right First Time) into the accuracy (or otherwise) of ESA reports. The CAB observed then that: "In many cases, NHS doctors will charge an average of £30 (we have evidence of consultants charging £200 an hour) for medical evidence and few people on low incomes can afford to pay this much out of an income of £67.50 ESA (assessment phase rate) per week." That was over 18 months ago. As the number of appeals skyrocketed, this problem could only grow.

And it’s grown into a right disaster. When the Bro Taf story broke, the disability campaigner Sue Marsh wrote about Mark Hoban’s attempts to shift responsibility for the ever-burgeoning appeal rate: as she said here, Hoban has implied that the high rate of ESA appeals is at least in part because people don’t have enough medical evidence:

“DWP ministers have blamed the staggering 43 per cent ESA (Employment and Support Allowance) appeal rate on claimants not requesting and submitting enough medical evidence. As Mark Hoban claimed, “What’s happening too often is people are suggesting to claimants ‘oh, just leave the medical evidence until the appeal’ – there’s a shared responsibility here.”

In theory, within the claim process, Atos is expected to request evidence from a claimant’s doctor when the claimant is likely to be placed in the Support Group. For the year up to October 2012, Atos only requested such evidence (as an ESA113 form) in 27.2 per cent of all ESA referrals; 23.8 per cent of these were not returned by GPs.” The DWP would have us believe that extra sourcing of information is a robust part of the WCA process: when we asked why it was trying to overturn the Upper Tribunal decision on mental health claimants, the department said: “Atos healthcare professionals will continue to seek further medical evidence in accordance with the Department’s guidelines.” Doesn’t sound like that’s going too well.

Sue Marsh tells us that Hoban needs to sort it out. “The ESA50 clearly suggests that a claimant sends in medical evidence from a consultant or GP that knows them best. If those medical professionals are now withholding that vital support and Mr Hoban insists that it is necessary for an accurate WCA decision, he MUST act immediately to make sure that medical professionals cannot refuse to provide this evidence and that they are not allowed to charge punitive fees for obtaining it."

All Bufferzone client names have been changed

New Statesman

Mental health patients failed by futile laws

A damning report by MPs today revealed a catalogue of problems in Britain's mental health services.

The Commons health committee found that the 2007 Mental Health Act, drawn up "to protect extremely vulnerable patients," was not working properly.

MPs said that its safeguards weren't effective, with laws designed to protect patients often ignored and psychiatric wards over capacity and under huge pressure.

And shockingly sectioning - forcing people into hospital - is being used to get patients a bed.

Furthermore, a system of treating patients in the community is not working.

Committee chairman Stephen Dorrell said deprivation of liberty safeguards (Dols) were brought in to protect vulnerable patients, such as those suffering with dementia or severe learning difficulties.

But he warned that it is commonplace for Dols to be ignored, leaving many people at heightened risk of abuse.

"The current approach to these vital safeguards is profoundly depressing and complacent," said Mr Dorrell, demanding the government look into the matter immediately.

"Nevertheless, we were shocked to learn that there is evidence that patients who need hospital treatment are being sectioned unnecessarily in order to access a bed.

"This represents a serious violation of patients' basic rights and it is never acceptable for patients to be subjected to compulsory detention unless it is clinically necessary."

He said the government should "urgently investigate the prevalence" of the practice.

The inquiry examined use of community treatment orders, intended to treat patients in the community partly to reduce pressure on beds.

While welcoming the policy, the committee found that the orders "have not worked as legislation intended," and were being used to save cash.

Patients have a right independent to advocacy, but the inquiry found that patients most needing advocacy were least likely to get it.

Morning Star

Atos 'nearly killed' diabetic who could not afford to eat

How could Atos class such a sick man as fit for work?

His family says the decision to pass him fit for work almost killed him – a diabetic who could no longer afford to eat

Struggling: Zulfigar is sick after 30 years of hard graft

Let’s say you work for Atos in one of its Assessment Centres in Lancashire.

Your job is to assess people on disability ­benefits to see whether they are fit for work.

A 58-year-old man, who’s done 30 years hard graft, comes in for a “Work Capacity Assessment”.

He is suffering from diabetes with multiple complications and mental health problems.

He is almost blind, with incurable damage to both his eyes.

He suffers from frequent ­hypoglycaemic attacks that often result in total loss of consciousness and sometimes ­hospitalisation.

He is often incontinent. He suffers from depression.

He relies on friends, carers and family to shop for him and struggles to cross a road unaided.

He has no feeling in his feet – another complication of his diabetes.

He has suffered with gangrene and over the winter he had badly burned his feet on an electric heater.

On the day of his assessment, his feet are bandaged.

Say you had all that information in front of you. Would you write on your piece of paper “Fit for work”?

When Zulfiqar Shah, from Blackburn, was assessed by Atos, his assessor gave him zero points. He needed 13 to qualify for benefits.

His family says the decision almost killed him – a diabetic who could no longer afford to eat.

“I told them I wasn’t afraid to work, but that at the moment I was not well enough to,” Zulfiqar says, quietly. “But they didn’t listen.”

When his sister Zahida, 46, picked Zulfiqar up from the assessment centre he was wearing only one shoe, not even realising he was walking with his ­bandaged, burned foot on the pavement.

“Any human being seeing him for five minutes could see that my brother was neither physically or mentally able to work,” Zahida says.

Ordeal: Zulfigar with his siter Zahida

As Atos comes under increasing ­pressure over its controversial welfare assessments, Zulfiqar’s story is not just a tale of personal tragedy but of public scandal.

A written House of Lords ­question last week revealed the company has so far been paid £754million for its medical tests on people claiming benefits since 2005.

Of the 40% of people appealing their assessment, 38% – including Zulfiqar – have been successful.

Despite this, the Government has already handed Atos the £400million contract for assessing people for the new Personal Independence Payment (PIP). Now the National Audit Office is ­threatening an investigation.

Zulfiqar came to Britain from Rawalpindi in Pakistan when he was 18. For 30 years he worked in the Lancashire weaving and textile industry.

But in 2003, his leg became ulcerated and doctors realised he had diabetes. Complications meant he was unable to work and he started receiving disability benefits.

Last July, he was reassessed, and on September 29, he received a letter from the DWP saying that he was fit for work.

Both his Employment Support ­Allowance and his Housing Benefit were then stopped immediately.

“He couldn’t even make a claim for Jobseeker’s ­Allowance because he couldn’t leave the house without an ambulance,” says Zahida, a mother of five who works in sales.

“If it hadn’t been for the support of his family, I genuinely believe he would have died.”

With no income, Zulfiqar was unable to eat ­properly and stopped taking his insulin for fear of a severe hypoglycaemic attack.

His sight deteriorated, his hands began to lose feeling and his feet became worse.

“When my son visited Zulfiqar during this period he found he was sitting in a pool of blood,” Zahida says.

“He had hit his foot on the kitchen cupboard, not felt it and not been able to see he was bleeding. My son had to call an ambulance.”

His family lodged an appeal and he was put on to “Assessment Rate ESA”, a minimal sum paid to those awaiting appeal, for the next five months.

The RNIB say Zulfiqar’s is one of the worst cases they have come across.

But they also say they are deeply concerned that Atos assessments “unfairly discriminate against blind and partially sighted people”.

In evidence they will shortly submit to the fourth independent annual review of WCA, they blame narrow criteria, ­“unsuitable” guidance for those carrying out tests and say the process doesn’t reflect the fact that nine out of 10 employers rate blind and partially sighted people as either “difficult” or “impossible” to employ.

New DWP figures show 56% of blind or partially sighted people had their “fit for work” appeals upheld between October 2008 and May 2012.

Six months after his benefits were withdrawn, with support from Action For Blind People and the RNIB, Zulfiqar successfully appealed.

His benefits were reinstated at the highest level without even a tribunal hearing and he was also awarded ­Disability Living Allowance.

A spokeswoman for Atos said: “Our doctors, nurses and physiotherapists do all they can to provide as much detailed information to the DWP as possible so that they can make an appropriate decision on benefit entitlement.

“If a person’s condition changes they can ask the department for a ­reconsideration and supply further medical evidence to support this. If we receive a complaint about an assessment we will do a complete review of the case.”

“We were determined to fight for Zulfiqar,” Zahida says. “But I dread to think of all the people who just give up.”

Since he has had financial and care support back, Zulfiqar’s health is finally improving.
“I am so proud of my brother,” Zahida says.

“Somehow throughout all that time, he always had a smile on his face.

"I tell him, there is something so beautiful about you. I thank God he is such a fighter.”


MIRROR

Join the fight..

Have you or your family been affected by the cuts? Or have you been shocked by how your area has been hit?

I want to reveal what’s really happening around the country every week.

POST: Real Britain, Daily Mirror, One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5AP
CALL: 020 7293 3000 and ask for the Real Britain desk.
TWEET: @realbritainros
EMAIL: realbritain@mirror.co.uk

“Imagine you are happily commuting to work one day when someone pushes you onto the train tracks”

ATOS Miracles

Kirsty F***********

In her own words….

“Imagine you are happily commuting to work one day when someone barges past you on the train platform, pushing you onto the tracks where the train goes over your legs.

You wake up in hospital, no legs and damaged internal organs. You can’t even take care of changing your own nappy. You have to learn to use a wheelchair and how to live again with your disability.

You can’t work so apply for ESA. ATOS demand you attend a work capability assessment. “But I’m still in hospital!” You reply. ATOS reply “we don’t believe you. Make your doctor send us a letter to prove it”.

The doctor won’t. He has been ordered by the government not to get involved in “DWP issues”. You eventually persuade him but it costs you £45 for him to write the “non standard letter”.

ATOS “lose” the letter. You get another one done and have it sent recorded delivery.

ATOS reluctantly postpone your appointment by a few weeks. You get out of hospital and go to the assessment centre in your wheelchair. When you arrive it is not disabled accessible.

ATOS mark you down as a “no show”. Your claim is cancelled.

You spend days of frustration calling various departments begging them to listen to you to reopen your case and to send you to a different centre.

Eventually you MIGHT manage this. Your phone bill arrives, all the 0845 numbers adding up to hours of wasted time and money that you simply do not have.

You attend the work capability assessment they decide to announce you fit for work because you can talk you can write you can type and make yourself understood.

You quite rightly appeal the decision, you are told you will not receive any money while you are appealing this may take months in fact it usually takes about a year.

“But where will I get any income from?” you ask. The DWP say “apply for job seekers allowance”.

You apply. “Are you able to start work immediately?” You are asked. “Of course not, just look at me!” You sob through tears of pain. “Well you cannot claim jobseekers allowance then” they reply.

“But how am I supposed to get money, what am I supposed to eat, where am I supposed to live?” You plead.

“Not my problem” they reply, dismissing you.

THIS IS REALITY. THIS is how this government treats anyone unlucky enough to become sick or disabled as well as those who were born that way.

Personally I have been through the hellish fight of having been kicked off Incapacity Benefit, straight into WRAG without them even bothering to assess me. My appeal took around a year before I finally won and was awarded the Support Group. They didn’t backdate it. I am STILL battling for DLA however.

I am writing this lying flat out on my back for yet another day as I am in too much pain to move. I can’t afford a carer so on the days I cannot move I simply can’t eat. I have my many medications at my side and bottles of water to keep me going. I admit I keep myself dehydrated so I don’t have to struggle to get to the bathroom so often. The water is for taking the pills with. An average of about 36 a day. My doctor wants to put me on morphine next.

There is no cure for me, I will be like this for the rest of my life. Unable to care for myself. I used to be fit and strong, I even had my own business until I was involved in a car accident when a boy racer smashed into me.

I may be “lucky” to have won the support group but I cannot rest easily as I know that at any moment they can decide to take it off me again and put me through the whole process again.

Luckily despite mental health issues as well as my physical ones (which includes bipolar and severe PTSD), I am quite strong and determined not to let them win. I will not let them kill me.

Unfortunately I personally know many more victims of ATOS and the DWP who are not as strong, who have had complete breakdowns and suicide attempts because of the persecution. They have panic attacks or withdraw into a gibbering wreck curled up in the corner if the DWP are even MENTIONED. It makes their condition worse. It causes them immense distress.

It does not help that the DWP have ordered GPs not to “get involved” in patients DWP issues, ordering them to deny the help and support that the patients so desperately need.

On one hand the DWP blame the victims for “not providing enough medical evidence”, when on the other hand they have bullied the victims doctor into not providing the victim with the medical evidence. Even if the victim obtains such evidence, as a matter of course ATOS refuse to look at it during the Work Capability Assessment. (They are not allowed to call it a “medical”). This is contrary to their OWN rules published in the “WCA handbook”: a vital tool for victims to use to fight their case. It can be downloaded from victim support groups online.

In addition the Citizens Advice Bureaux, Welfare Rights and Legal Aid have all had their funding slashed to a pittance meaning they cannot help the majority of people. The CAB in particular is snowed under. They cannot afford to open more than a couple of days a week, or man the phone lines. They certainly cannot spare staff to act as advocates at appeals or tribunals. This means vulnerable people have to represent themselves with no idea how to do so.

The sick and disabled have nowhere to turn. We are being forced to die from starvation, neglect or being turfed out on the streets from the bedroom tax or poverty. The “lucky” ones avoid the slow death by committing suicude. This appears to be exactly what this current government wants to happen it wants less sick and disabled people around and when they kill themselves it’s cheaper than building gas chambers.”

Kirsty F*******

Source