ESA and WCA

So. I last mentioned that I was waiting for my WCA results in August (4 Aug 2012). The result came that I have been put into a Work-Related Activity Group. And at the time I had no idea what this meant. It sounded like a scheme to get me back into work. I could have saved myself a lot more misery by reading more about the process, but at the time I was in no fit state to go seeking information - this is part of the problem, yes? And when you get the letter there's really nothing to say what it means.

What it means is:

"Claimants identified for this group will take part in work-focused interviews with a personal adviser, and have access to a range of support to help them prepare for suitable work." 

A guide to Employment and Support Allowance – The Work Capability Assessment. ESA214. June 2011

Anyway I decided to appeal without the full information. But once I found out I decided to see it through for  several reasons. I felt I needed more support from the government, and I did not want to be subjected to the horrors of the WCA again. I haven't written about my experience of the WCA yet, but it was traumatic. But I also just wanted to appeal to say FUCK YOU to the system that was saying fuck you, to me. I wanted time and resources to be tied up. I wanted to contribute to the wave of appeals, to boost the statistics that the WCA does not work.

A couple of weeks later I was summoned for my work-focussed interview. Each letter one gets from the DWP is combined with a subtlety stated threat that if one does not comply one's benefits will be cut off.

So I attended the interview where I alternated between extreme hostility verging on paranoid about how this might affect my appeal, and breaking down in tears. And it took some time for the information to sink in that I was not expected to look for work, but that if I did decide to do so they're support me in some way. It took a long time to get an answer to what "support" means. It seems to me that it's aimed at people who're never worked (whereas I was a professional for many years before becoming ill) or who were living really sheltered lives. Which I suppose I am, though I'm reluctant to see myself this way.

After this as I say I decided to continue my appeal. I must say a big THANK YOU to the Citizen's Advice Bureau who coached me through the stages of the appeal and gave me an over-view of the process. I can recommend CAB to anyone thinking of appealing a WCA judgement.

To support my appeal I had to approach medical professionals and ask for their help. My GP was very helpful and supportive and wrote a note which emphasised the points that I had asked him to more or less. Part of the CAB strategy is to go through the transcript of the WCA and identify places where one got less points than one should have, and ask Drs etc to reinforce the need for more points. I also approached the past pyschotherapist I had seen and asked for her help which was also generously and compassionately given. (And she said that she thinks I have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder which I'm not sure we had discussed before). Then I wrote, with the help of a friend, a long critique of the WCA pointing out inaccuracies, omissions, and numerous spelling and grammatical errors! I bundled it all up and sent it off.

And I won! I WON! I got moved to the Support group:

Support Group: If the effects of a claimant's health condition or disability are so severe that it would be unreasonable to expect them to prepare for work, they will join the Support Group. These claimants will receive the higher rate of Employment and Support Allowance and do not have to take part in any work-related activity as a condition of receiving benefit (although they can volunteer to do so). ESA214

And the good news is that I get about £20 extra a week. Now I'm still not sure how long this will last, or whether they will force me to undergo the WCA again soon, but I did point out that in the three years between my initial assessment for Incapacity Benefit and Employment Support Allowance my condition had not changed, and that the balance of the medical advice was that my condition was unlikely to change much, and that work if anything would make it worse. So hopefully they'll leave me alone.

That said I'm looking into ways of escaping from the system. I am looking at full-time study. This would be extremely challenging both physically and mentally but it might be doable with the right help. I'm more than capable of getting a PhD but my illnesses at various stages have made me back away from following through on my potential. My interests have changed since I last considered the possibility and I would need to do an MA or similar in my chosen subject before enrolling for a PhD. I'm using this year as a run up and a chance to explore funding opportunities for a one year MA or MPhil. It's what I love doing anyway and would take about 5 years. Not a bad five year plan! After that who knows?

This process has been six months of debilitating stress:

• Apr 26 - warning that benefits are about to change.
• May 10 - request to complete ESA50 (which replaces IB50)
• Jun 03 - reminder re ESA50
• Jun 18 - notification of WCA
• Jul 09 - WCA (by registered nurse).
• Aug 22 - notice of benefit change to ESA.
• Sep 10 - acknowledgement of appeal 
• Sep 26 - DWP employee rings me to try to "sort out" my appeal over the phone. I take this to be a thinly disguised attempt to screw up my appeal by an unscrupulous employee trying to meet targets.
• Oct 02  - Personal Advisor interview.
• Oct 22 - Appeal decision
• Oct 25 - Notice of change of payments.

Still waiting

Still waiting to hear the result of my WCA. Depressed and despondent. Suicidal thoughts.

So now we know...

What we've suspected all along is that ATOS employ artificial targets aimed at shifting people of benefits into the workforce, and this at a time of high unemployment (though the most recently figures showed a decline in the jobless, the figure is still higher than when the ConDem goct came to power).

The Guardian have reported on a secret film made of ATOS training:

Atos assessors told to keep disability benefit approvals low, film suggests

GP applied for job with Atos assessing whether benefit applicants were fit for work, and secretly filmed his training.

"Undercover filming shows Bick being told by his trainer that he will be watched carefully over the number of applicants he found eligible for the highest rate of disability payments."

The article also says:

"Large numbers of people found ineligible for the benefit are appealing against the decision to find them fit for work; about 41% of those refused support go to tribunal and 30% are subsequently granted the benefit. There have been more than 600,000 appeals since the WCA started, costing about £60m a year."       

Of course ATOS continue to deny that they set targets.

The film was shown on Channel 4 8pm Monday 30th July. It can be seen on Channel 4OD online.

WCA

I had my Work Capacity Assessment yesterday.

I was interviewed by a nurse rather than a doctor. The nurse did not perform any of the standard tests I have come to associate with my conditions -- fibromyalgia or anxiety/depression. He seemed to take my diagnosis as read, but was solely concerned with my ability to work despite the diagnosis.

But then as a nurse he could not really make that assessment and his job was simply to run me through a questionnaire so that other faceless bureaucrats could make a decision well removed from me. I have no right to face my accuser or to have a day in court over this. To the people making the decision I'm not even a person, just a file. And they have no idea of the consequences of their actions.

He was all business, appeared quite friendly, but not particularly sympathetic. At one point I burst into tears and it took me a while to get myself back under control. He pushed a box of tissues across to me. I tried to convey what my life is like when things are bad. He seemed to take me at my word on this which was one thing. But then I did not see what he was typing on his computer.

It was a grueling experience that I have no wish to repeat.

The one thing that has become all too clear is that being at the mercy of these cunts is not something I think I can tolerate long term. I'm going to have to find a way out of the health trap. I'm wondering about going back to school, but I'm not interested in practical subjects. If I could I'd like to study economics and public policy for instance. I've become quite concerned about how the government is trashing things. But where's that going in employment terms?

In any case I have to wait a few weeks now. I'm dreading being forced into job seeking. I wish I could have found a way out for myself before now. Losing the Income Support I've been getting and dropping down to the level of basic ESA is not going to be easy. It's about £25 a week less. At present I have about £50 of disposable income -- from which comes clothes, shoes, and any extras. I confess to spending most of it on trivial stuff, but it includes books.

At 47 and not having worked for five years now, who is going to offer me employment? Or will I be forced into one of these workfare benefit slavery deals? The chances are I'm going to fall apart under pressure and that's all going to be distressing for me, any employer and the people I work for.

No Sex is OK.

So... it's been ten days since I stopped masturbating every day with the aid of fantasies and porn. I was only an occasional porn user, but I used both porn and pornographic fantasies to create desire in order to get to orgasm. You might not think this is a bad thing, but I got to reading about the effects of hyper-stimulation and the dulling of the pleasure response in relation to my long history of anxiety, depression, fibromyalgia and (these days) chronic fatigue.

And the result? Almost no spontaneous sexual desire. No daytime erections. Almost no thinking about sex. The urge to masturbate is not presently linked to physical desire. It is linked to habit, and neurotic pleasure seeking. Whether or not it is related I don't know but I am experiencing quite severe insomnia at present. I've cut down a little on chocolate as well (one 100g bar of 70% a day is limit!) and that may be it. I do notice that being in the presence of an attractive women - and I live in a University/tourist town so it's heaving with them - makes me feel uncomfortable or restless. But it's not a groin sensation at all. So I'm just looking away and trying not to think about it. And actually it's fine. When I'm not artificially stimulating my sexual desire, it's very low indeed - and well it may be as I'm in pain & tired most of the time. Actually I think I feel less lonely in the last week or so.

So this is something worth blogging about. There's a lot of political shit going on in the UK. A lot of stuff that I can't really keep up with - a constant barrage of propaganda from the DWP which is clearly designed to reduce sympathy for the beneficiaries of the nation. And it seems to be working as there are massive protests against heath and education plans, and policy U-turns, bu there is no organised response to benefit cuts. Of course those of us on benefits are not really in as good a position as educators and doctors to defend ourselves. But I find it all too much and too depressing. Others are doing a good job of commenting in blogs.

Still waiting for the Work Capacity Assessment axe to fall, and constantly anxious about that.

Cancer patient faces tests on fitness to work

"As Citizens Advice Scotland disclosed 70% of its appeals against "fit to work" judgments are successful, Stefan Morkis talked to one man who must constantly prove he is too unwell to work."

Story from The Courier.
Seen on Mind In Flux.

I wonder how representative this is? We still do not know what proportion appeal. Nor how many people's appeals succeed. To ask the DWP ministers about this, email: ministers@dwp.gsi.gov.uk

Danny Alexander's comments on the ESA and WCA

"The fact is that the process isn’t working and that genuinely vulnerable people are being denied money as a result." - Telegraph 26 May 2010.

So Danny... WHAT'S CHANGED?????????????????????????????????????????????

My letter to Danny:

Do you still stand behind your words printed in the Telegraph on 26 May 2010, regarding the Employment Support Allowance and the Work Capability Assessment?

"The fact is that the process isn’t working and that genuinely vulnerable people are being denied money as a result."

Would you have any comment on this YouTube video (6 mins): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PBKrsOEV8g

I look forward to your response.

Matt

Why don't we all write to Mr Alexander about this?

Bendy Girl Strikes Back!

This is brilliant! If you read the headlines about 3/4 of incapacity benefit claimants being judged fit for work then take 6 minutes out to watch this!

First seen on the Bendy Girl's blog: Benefit Scrounging Scum.

Please go to the blog and give BendyGirl your support!

I'm really struck by this - the measured tone, the background research and the referencing of Danny Alexander's previous opposition to the current scheme.

What ever happened to those 36% of people who dropped out of the WCA? Why doesn't the DWP know?

Letter to the General Medical Council

To Whom It May Concern

Yesterday the media were repeating claims (inaccurate as it turns out) that fully 78% of people on incapacity benefits were in fact fit to work. In fact the situation is more complex than that and the headlines were a distortion of a government press release.

But consider the implication. It is UK doctors, both GPs and DWP doctors, who are the gate keepers to incapacity benefit. I'm ill, my GP says so, my specialists agree, and the DWP doctor also agrees. And the headlines are saying that 4 out of 5 times they are wrong. The government are saying that UK doctors are incompetent and themselves unfit to judge whether a person is ill enough to need time off work.

Doctors are being undermined as much as the sick in this campaign. I wondered what the medical council thinks about this. The stories of seriously ill people being judged fit to work by the WCA are mounting up. If I am judged fit for work, which I fully expect to be despite both mental and physical health problems, then should I sue my GP practice? After all the government would effectively be telling me that my doctors are incompetent.

I look forward to your reply
Matt Black

Letter to the Editor

Dear Chris Elliott, Reader's Editor,

I am writing with regard an article that appeared on your website:

Allegra Stratton.

Three-quarters of incapacity benefit claimants are fit to work, says DWP.

As I pointed out in comments on the article, the headline is misleading. This is not what the figures and the press release from the DWP say. They do not mention Incapacity Benefit for a start. 39% of people simply drop out of the system once they begin to face the stringent Work Capability Assessment (WCA). But that 39% are not accounted for; we have no idea if they died, dropped out, or recovered!

Only 39% were declared fit for work, and anecdotes are already piling up of seriously illpeople being declared fit for work. How many of the 39% appealed the decision and won? How many are really fit to work? Oh, we don't know because it's not in the official figures, nor in the press release (funny that), and the reporter didn't seem to bother asking.

If 78% were claiming a benefit unnecessarily then that would be a scandal wouldn't it? Because that would mean that GPs, specialists, IB50 form assessors, and the DWP doctors who make recommendations on fitness, have been getting it wrong 4 times out of 5! They are clearly incompetent! Call the Medical Council because most of the doctors in the country are complete idiots!

Having realised that this so-called 'report' was more or less just a government press release I felt pretty disappointed with the Guardian. I hadn't thought that this paper would be doing the government's propaganda work for them, but I suppose that was naive of me.

Really what's happening is that a lot of sick people are being pushed from a higher benefit payment onto a lower payment because of a change in ideology. Thanks for supporting the government in this program by further spreading their ideology unchallenged. Not!

Do us a favour and look into the appeal rate on these assessments, and how many people get the decision overturned. Interview a few more seriously ill people judged 'fit to work'. Do some investigation instead of spewing our government press releases.

Yours sincerely
Matt Black

The DWP press release:

The DWP statistical report. [pdf]