The launch of #ESAendgame yesterday was simply remarkable.
Nearly 9,000 people have read about #ESAendgame in under 24 hours.
It was the most shared and read article online in the UK yesterday. (Ebuzzing News)
318 people have taken part in our consultation "What Most Needs to Change about Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and Why" In DWP terms, 318 responses is very large. But I want 1,000 - 2,000 We MUST show that we truly represent the experiences and opinions of sick and disabled people and their carers. A consultation here with thousands of comments is a VERY powerful tool in anything we compile.
PLEASE keep sharing any of the consultation posts like yesterday
http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/esa-sos-starting-gun.html
whenever you can and encourage people to comment - you don't have to be sick or disabled or a carer to understand that ESA is inhumane and want to stand up for justice. I can't stress enough that #ESAendgame is open to EVERYONE. In fact, the more non-disabled people, DPOs, charities, MPs and "influential politicoes" that contribute and who join with us, the more credible our response and more frightening for Government.
It is ONLY unity that will convince the government to think again, but with unions, the TUC, disability groups, political sites, everyday blogs on shopping and cooking and fishing, charities and politicians ALL talking about why ESA must be changed NOW we CAN win. But every last one of us has to join. Please, cross-post everything - you don't have to ask, just link back so we can estimate our reach.
So far, the issues people believe to change about the WCA and ESA RIGHT NOW (In order of most mentions) are :
- Fear and Dread caused by the process
- Constant Reassessment
- The One Year Time Limit
- Worsens Mental Health conditions
- Continuing scrounger Rhetoric and made to feel dishonest and worthless
- The Error rate and inaccuracies on forms and in decisions
- Continuing inability to deal with Mental Health conditions
- Makes symptoms/illnesses worse.
- Assessments are inhumane
- The assessment ignores own Drs/medical evidence
- Removing ESA indefinitely for reconsiderations before appeal - fear of no income
- Fear of the Brown Envelope
- WCA is designed to make you fail
- The Assessors are not appropriate to the condition
- Only 30 days to return the ESA50 application form
- The form is to hard to fill in and takes enormous emotional toll
- It's just a tick box system that gets 1 in 6 decisions wrong. LIMA must go
- The Work Capability Assessment (WCA) is not a "real life test", not about what you can do in a real job
- Poverty casued by out of control process
- People dying days after being found "Fit For Work" - in ever increasing numbers
- **TRIGGER** ESA process making some suicidal
- A growing number of people are "Fit to Work" according top Atos, unfit according to JCP and stuck in limbo
- Changes are purely ideological and not based on evidence
- The process is clogged up and taking far far too long
- Many Disability Testing Centres are still inaccessible
- Lies on forms
- Fear for the future of dependants without carers
- The descriptors do not apply to many conditions
- Money taxpayer is paying for this failure
- Forcing abuse victims to discuss abuse with stranger
I think that's a pretty good start as mini-sections of a report to present to the public eh? Your quotes explaining each one and adding human warmth?
PLEASE we need new people to join every day and leave comments.
Name (or twitter/Facebook/pseudonym)Constituency1 line on what needs to change NOW about ESA
And please keep sharing every day and using #ESAendgame on twitter when discussing ESA.
Let's keep building momentum
**PLEASE do remember to leave your constituency. It's not an address, but will be SO helpful later when we want to contact every MP and peer in the country to already have people who can send a quick email or two in every constituency.
