According to Iain Duncan Smith’s team, every year, more than 40,000 people on Sickness Benefits (eg. ESA) die. Over a three year period more than 125,000 people had died while on sickness benefit. During the lifetime of this parliament, 200,000+ will die on sickness benefit.
In order to be placed on sickness benefit, claimants must undergo an assessment. Some of those claimants are assessed and told that they will be fit for work in the future, and as such they are expected to carry out work related activity (such as training) immediately. According to Iain Duncan-Smith’s Department, 1,300 of those told they’d be fit to work in the future and expected to carry out work related activity died during one 11 month period from January 2011 to November 2011.
In order to be placed on sickness benefit, claimants must undergo an assessment. Some of those claimants are assessed and told that they will be fit for work in the future, and as such they are expected to carry out work related activity (such as training) immediately. According to Iain Duncan-Smith’s Department, 1,300 of those told they’d be fit to work in the future and expected to carry out work related activity died during one 11 month period from January 2011 to November 2011.
Of those receiving ESA who had died from January 2011 to November 2011, Iain Duncan Smith’s Department tells us that 15% of those dead had been placed in the category to ready themselves for work. More worryingly, DWP admit that 26% of those dead that had been assessed in the most recent year, under the new regulations, had been told to ready themselves for work. It is a verifiable fact that the new assessments made it more likely that someone placed in the ready themselves for work category would die.More than 1 quarter of deaths occurring under new assessments are people who have been told to begin work related activity immediately.
In addition, we have no way of knowing how many died after failing their medical assessment because Iain Duncan Smith’s department do not keep that data.
If we judge that the trend of 1,300 people dying over 11 months after being told to ready themselves for work stayed constant over the duration of a parliament then it would mean more than 7,000 people are dying per parliament while going through the stress of readying themselves for employment, according to Iain Duncan Smith’s own figures.
