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Is anyone replying to yesterday's Guardian article (life section) accusing Incapacity Benefit claimants of being malingerers? http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,965634,00.html An apology for this rather long message, which is comments pasted from a patients' list [log in to unmask] Janet Shapiro Anyone could read these e-mails from the yahoo groups, but the comments made below are relevant to the Guardian article and to the present discussion about the desirability or otherwise of more competition in the NHS on the HEN list. I have tried to make clear the voices of the 3 contributors with discretion and with abbrevaitions. Making applications for benefits more stringent only causes suffering and further costly work later. *********** From person A ... just a bit rude about benefit claimants.I hope you do not mean by your tone that anyone on this list is fraudulently claiming benefits? Did you know that millions lie in unclaimed benefits, many times far more than falsely claimed? Those who do not claim what they're entitled to are usually elderly, misguidedly proud or ignorant of their entitlements....the latter is no surprise given the nightmarish form filling system, reclaiming money spent up front (as described by Verity).These benefits are paid for from NI stamps, often if you lack the stamps many benefits & pensions are cut. This has happened to an unemployed friend of mine who's sick & is getting £0.00 in benefit because he lacks enough stamps over the last 2 years - he's lucky to have friends who can help him out. People grumble that some of us get DLA, a non means tested benefit, but so is child benefit which no-one complains is awarded undeservingly. Did you know that 1 in 3 children in Scotland are born into poverty? What about the embezzlement/loss of pension funds by companies who mismanage them yet still pay out fat cat salaries to their bosses? I could also explain why our hospitals are dirty, lack funds, waiting lists are too long, we have the worst cancer survival rates in western world...but it would take too long. The Scots are traditionally more socialistic in outlook - witness the upsurge in SSP, Greens & Independents. So I guess that's something else you'll have to put up with here! ********************************************* from person B On the benefits front, I finally managed to get a meeting with a Disability Rights Advisor through my social services, who helped me fill out the Disability Living Allowance forms and will represent me legally in any appeal I may have to endure. In fact, she advised me to get my GP to fill out a DS1500, which states I am terminally ill and likely to die on 6 months. Apparently, technically, if I refused treatment then this would be the case, so it is not fraudelent. My GP has agreed (most do) and it is my passport to all the benefits I need paid at the maximum rate, as well as the sacred blue badge (previously refused), free congestion charge pass and public transport pass. I'm sure most of you are entitled to money you're not claiming (especially as DLA is not means tested). Contact your local social services department at the council and they will do home visits. I am also having an Occupational Health advisor come and assess my home so I can get railings, wheelchairs and other aids sorted out - again, this is through social services. If you are presently disabled through your disease or your treatment, you are put into the urgent category, and a social worker should see you within two weeks (and this is a cash-strapped London borough, so other councils may be quicker). You can self refer, just by telephoning, and you don't need a doctor's report or anything. ******************** From person B The hassle of dealing with the benfit's system when you're ill is just ridiculous! You have just reminded me to check my bank account, coz I got a letter regarding Incapacity Benefit being accepted last week and they promised that the money would be in my account within six days! You poor thing - have you chased them up about it? I'm sure you have! Have you tried to apply for Disability Living Allowance yet? Form is HUGE (about 40 pages) and really difficult to fill out, and you are likely to get rejected on the first application (apparently everyone does as a way of weeding out false claims). But take a look at my post on Benefits, coz I was told a way of jumping the queue and getting the max amount of payout - you just need a GP you get on with really well and who is sympathetic to your plight. This benefit is a passport to lots of other disability freebies, such as blue badge, free congestion charge and free parking/petrol for hospital visits so is really worth the effort. You definately need to get in touch with your local social services dept and ask for a home visit from the Disability Rights Advisor. They will tell you everything you're entitled to and help you claim it. ********************** From person A in answer to person C I like setting the cat among the pigeons, pleased to hear you don't think any of us are fraudsters, & enjoy a good political argument - not called nippy sweetie for nothing! > How often do you see disabled badge holders bouncing around the > supermarket carpark? what bugs me more is the misuse of bays by non badge holders. These bays are not sanctioned, several times I've phoned supermarkets to complain & there's nothing they can do. Will be writing to my councillor & one from each party represented in Glasgow to push for sanctioning. S Lanarkshire does it in Hamilton. Teenage pregnancies? Highest in EU, lack of adequate sex ed, poverty (cultural as well as financial) low expectations, combined with the quintessentially British seaside postcard attitude to sex. Parents can veto it, RC schools teach it their way. In EU countries where sex ed & access to contraception is better teenage pregnancies are lower. >lot of satellite dishes on these 'poverty stricken' housing estates. Often provided free as a package. It's cheaper to watch TV & rent videos than to take the family to the cinema or theatre, that's if you can get public transport there which doesn't cost the earth. > don't believe just because you're entitled to a benefit, that you are duty bound to take it. Entitled doesn't equate to 'need'. And there's nothing wrong with pride... That's a personal decision but should not be applied to all, as an individual cannot determine what life & circumstances are like for another. For instance, working or not can make the difference whether someone claims something. Have you ever heard of anyone who declined to claim non means tested child benefit? > but I believe Scotland gets a 'bigger slice of the tax pie' per > capita (ignoring the North Sea oil and whisky revenues) + much more > EC grants that the rest of the UK. (Shame some of it can't be > spend on filling in holes in the roads!) Because of worse poverty which the government has failed to address. Some is also to repay debts run up by previous administrations & repay interest on loans. Most of the oil & whisky revenue is taxed & returned to London, Scotland doesn't see its fair share of that - one of the SNP's demands was that more of this revenue went to Scotland - because of poverty elsewhere in UK. > I was pretty shocked to hear that a Stem Cell Transplant costs approx £50,000. Who of us has actually put anything LIKE that 'in the pot'? And we all know about Rituximab. Where's the money supposed to come from? Good old Nye's idea was that more people put in than take out. Not really working is it? Lots wrong with the NHS but I'm thankful I'm not living with a US type system. It's not working because of too much bureacracy, cuts in bed numbers & health care staff, ward closures, privatisation of cleaning, PPP/PFI, lack of investment (we spend less per head on health than USA or EU!). If the government can afford £bns for illegal wars it can afford decent health care. People have to accept that progressive taxation is the fairest way to fund universal health care, but the culture in UK has turned against this since Thatcher cut top rate tax to 63%, then New Labour cut it to 40%. Surveys show that most people would be willing to pay higher taxes providing they funded health & education. In Sweden, where the highest tax bracket is 80%, people culturally accept this in return for a high standard of service. Not paying your taxes in Sweden is the next worst thing to murder! SSP propose a service tax instead of council tax, meaning 77% of Scots would be better off. Jack & Bridget McConnell (joint income £212,000) pay £1545 annually in council tax, you can be on £20k & still pay that - I pay more! > And now we're going to have to pay for Saint Tony's Olympics. He goes from bad to worse to unbelievable. Did you know he was voted the most unpopular Briton on a channel 4 poll recently?! As for the Euro, well it would be great to have the same currency even world wide, but in reality under capitalism working people & those on low incomes would suffer as jobs would be lost & prices would rise to accommodate the fluctuations of such a currency, so the Euro is not to the benefit of ordinary people. Always considered myself more close to Europe, culturally & politically, than America, maybe it's the artist in me too. >I never congratulated you on your political stance. How did you get on? > You're a real fighter and both *** and I respect you for it. More than trebled the vote in Glasgow's only Tory ward (went from 110 to 361), we didn't do much either as resources are stretched & prioritised the areas we were likelier to win. Think my fighting spirit is what helped me when I had NHL, I've been a socialist for over 25 years, my epitaph would be "don't go down without a fight!" Tommy is popular & principled, he's a brilliant speaker, no-one likes speaking after him on a platform! I was up at Hill House yesterday, they've opened up more rooms & added more furniture, notably a £1m writing bureau on loan in the sitting room. **************** from person A glad you managed to get some help to what is yours by entitlement, the forms are a nightmare & if you don't fill them in right you are knocked back. It's like something out of an Orwellian or Kafkaesque novel. Social work dept. & occupational therapy are very helpful in getting you gadgets, support, disabled bays etc. Your post has been most helpful to others. > I'm sure most of you are entitled to money you're not claiming (especially as DLA is not means tested). It is sadly a fact that most of these benefits remain unclaimed, people are put off at the first hurdle after completing complex forms - if indeed they get that far! I heard it is "policy" to refuse all 1st time applications except terminal ones, to discourage chancers but also to diminish their paperwork as well! There was a case publicised on the web of a wheelchair user who could not walk at all being denied DLA, he chained himself to the railings of the DSS in protest. Sadly again many people who are entitled to such benefits are being denied them by the jobsworth's who have targets to meet. The Swedish system is much better, you don't claim - you get! Sick & disabled people can do without the added stress of form completion & financial worry. > On the benefits front, I finally managed to get a meeting with a Disability Rights Advisor through my social services, who helped me fill out the Disability Living Allowance forms and will represent me legally in any appeal I may have to endure. These tribunals (I had to go to one after being refused DLA) can include very personal questions, make sure you can go over it all in advance with your legal representative so that you're thoroughly prepared. You can also bring your carer with you to the tribunal. Most cases which go to tribunal are successful (perhaps another indicator that the current system is too strict) & you get all your DLA backdated to the first date you applied for it.