Sink or Swim
SUSAN MCFIE
One in ten working age people is currently claiming sickness or disability benefit in the UK. It’s costing a fortune: £48 billion in 2023-24 and expected to reach £67 billion in 2029-30. However the government response has come as quite a shock to many people, particularly those most affected. The best way to help people back to work is apparently to remove or decrease their benefits. The thinking here is if you take away the lifebelt, most people will either sink or swim. Swimmers will go back to work. But what will become of the ‘non-swimmers’?
This ‘tough love’ or ‘cruel and immoral’ approach (you choose) suggests that most people claiming the benefits are scammers, shirkers or wimps. The problems with this approach are numerous. Disability benefits are not handed out freely to anyone who says they are feeling a bit under the weather. The Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is already harder to access than the former Disability Living Allowance. The old allowance relied on information from patients’ GPs, whereas PIP assessments are outsourced to private companies. Former PIP assessors have spoken out, describing the job as a ‘target system’ set up to fail the claimants. Both claimants and assessors have described the process as incredibly stressful. Simply travelling to a face-to-face interview can be a mammoth task for many, and yet vital points may be lost if they manage the journey.
Hastings resident James Oliver suffered from chronic liver disease which was beginning to affect other organs. He was in constant pain, bleeding internally and struggling to breathe. He was doubly incontinent and could barely walk. It would take him at least two hours to walk half a mile to and from the nearest supermarket. In 2016 he applied for PIP. He was assessed by a paramedic who awarded him zero points, thereby denying him benefits. When his request for a review was rejected, he appealed the decision. A letter inviting him to attend a court hearing was sent in August 2019, but it was too late: he had died four months earlier after collapsing on his way to the supermarket.
The case is shocking but far from unusual. Government data revealed that over 17,000 people died between 2013-2018 while awaiting decisions on PIP benefits. Furthermore, the BBC’s Shared Data Unit found that seven out of ten of those who appealed benefit decisions in the period 2018/2021 (mostly involving PIP) had been successful. This showed that most people refused help were found to be genuine cases of need when reassessed by the legal system.
An undercover Channel 4 investigation revealed that PIP assessors were paid £80 per client, but after the first eight, the rate went up to £160 per session and £300 per assessment from the 14th. One worker claimed he could earn about “20 grand a month” and that he sometimes filled in the forms before even seeing the claimant. Another was told to put aside his mental health training when assessing clients.
Thanks to pressure from end-of-life support groups like Marie Curie, people not expected to live for longer than 12 months can now claim fast-tracked benefits under what’s known as the ‘Special Rules’. This should serve as a safety net for those in most need. However the safety net seems rather threadbare. A Freedom of Information request revealed that around 100 people who applied for PIP from 2018-2021 under the Special Rules had died awaiting a decision. And things are unlikely to get better under the latest welfare reforms; framed by the government as a benevolent attempt to get people back to work, but described by disabled support groups as cruel and inhumane.
The goal is to make savings of £4.8 billion by 2029-2030, and £4.5 billion of this will be from cuts to working age sickness and disability. Articles and letters in the British Medical Journal have expressed concerns of the medical profession. One group claims that cuts “will worsen health and the economy”. They challenge the claim that this is a moral case which will get people back to work saying “high rates of inactivity in the UK reflect its almost unique failure amongst industrialised countries to recover population health after the pandemic”.
So what’s going on? The health of the nation has been in decline for some time but took a nosedive during and after the pandemic. One of the most obvious but least considered problems is what we call Long Covid also known as PACS (Post-acute Covid Syndrome). Symptoms include extreme weakness and fatigue, brain fog, cognitive problems, tinnitus, circulation issues, swollen veins, abnormal heart rate and blood pressure, chest pain, tingling sensations and breathing difficulties.
Analysis of 41 studies from 2021 concluded that worldwide, around 43% of people develop long-term symptoms following Covid infection. That’s a lot of people: an estimated 17 million plus in Europe and more than 2 million in England and Scotland. However the problem could be even bigger than we are led to believe as there is another group living with similar symptoms due to adverse effects from Covid vaccines. Their condition is known as PCVS (post-Covid Vaccine Syndrome) aka Long Vax. Many of these people were working before they developed the condition.
GASLIGHTING
The symptoms may make it difficult or impossible to work. The UK is not the only country feeling the impact: by 2023 the US reported a loss of 15 million from the workforce due to post Covid syndromes. To make matters worse, people living with these problems often find themselves abandoned by medical professionals: doctors may dismiss serious symptoms implying that the illness is imaginary. There is growing criticism of this ‘medical gaslighting’ of patients, ultimately a power game, with the most likely victims being women, minorities and the disabled.
Most people with complex neurological and auto-immune conditions like ME, MS or Gulf War Syndrome will have had this experience. The manipulation often extends beyond the doctor’s surgery, when affected people find themselves dealing with the ‘target driven’ assessment system. Those seeking compensation may have an even greater struggle. In 2024 the BBC asked “Is the system letting down people harmed by Covid vaccines?” The one-off Vaccine Damage Payment of £120,000 is only awarded to those deemed at least 60% disabled by the shot. It hasn’t been updated since 2007.
An analysis of international vaccine injury compensation schemes found great variation in treatment of claimants. Japan came out top, compensating 74.29% of cases; France paid out 27.42%. However the US compensated just 3% and the lowest of all was the UK with just 2.64% of injured people receiving compensation. The UK scheme is ‘all or nothing’ so that someone who is assessed as 59% disabled by the shot receives nothing, even if they require round the clock care.
These people join a very long queue for compensation in the UK including the 30,000 people infected in the contaminated blood scandal and the 40,000 or so women injured by the vaginal mesh scandal. With compensation so scarce, disability benefit is vital. But with thousands of PIP claims rejected annually, more and more people are being left to sink or swim.
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