PIP Medical and the white Letter from Hell

I had had my letter telling me that the lifetime DLA award I had been receiving was going to end and I would have to apply for PIP. I finally went for my PIP medical at the 3rd attempt, the first two appointments had been cancelled. Don't worry about me mate and the anxiety it was causing me building up to the date and then cancel the appointment the day before. Finally got to interview day and having got to the centre I was then escorted by the SS to the floor where the interview rooms were. The guy who interviewed me was pleasant enough and asked me questions about my head injury, the treatment I had for it and what rehabilitation I had had. The interview finished I felt that I had told him all the things I wanted to and how it was affecting my life. After waiting some time I finally received the dreaded brown letter from hell. I did not want to open it so my Wife opened it instead and read through it and told me that I had received a big fat zero points for anything. Great I went all through that for nothing. It looks like another trip to the CAB office.

Your [Lifetime] Disabilty Living Allowance is Ending.

I had a really nice letter from the DWP before Christmas saying that my DLA is ending. I knew I was going to get the dreaded brown envelope from hell at some point and now I have got it. I have felt for a long time that the Government want to take as many benefits from people as possible. Whatever I think about it I now have to deal with it. I am worried if I lose DLA about what impact to other benefits if I do not have a DLA proof of benefit letter. Am I just going to disappear as a person with a disabilty?. Hey isn't that what the Government want for all these benefit claimants to disappear?. I thought it would be easy to ring up and ask for them to send me the form where I will have to virtually write my life story. However it was not that easy as they do everything over the phone. I phoned up the number and went through the options and I got to speak to one of the robots of the DWP who sounded like they were reading everything from a computer screen. I found it very weird. I also found some of the questions stupid like do they want to use information used in my current DLA claim included. They said after I fill in my form I may have to go to a medical so I said I can't wait having been to medicals for Incapacity benefit before. I now have the 40 page form PIP About Your Claim and I plan to get help from the Citizens Advice Bureau. However I may have to go to there office in town as when I phoned up I gave up as I was 16th in the queue. I have about 3 weeks to get this form done so here goes.

DLA/Brown Envelopes/3 Months On

How do?

Just when I had thought I had escaped from Incapacity Benefit and the medicals I now face a new horror. I receive lower rate care DLA so that means at some point I will have a DLA medical. Can they not just f*****g leave me alone and let me try to get on as best I can?. I did what they wanted and did the right thing and panicked jumped ship from IB and got a job which was a miracle in itself.

I mean its just another way to add more anxiety to the problems people already have. I have been getting low rate DLA for care because of things related to my head injury and also because I am epileptic, it really helps just being reminded to have tablets because I often forget or for someone to be aware that I having a bath and just to check on me.

I would have thought it would cost a small fortune to have everyone on DLA to go through a medical test and no doubt some private healthcare companies the usual suspects are going to make a packet on the way. It looks like it will cost more just to save a measly £75 a month. Judging by what happened with ESA I would imagine there would be a lot of appeals as well so that is going to cost time and money.

I feel like it's not disabled & sick peoples fault that they have to go through these medicals. We are all paying in this thinly disguised attack on DLA in the emergency budget. The government have wanted to cut DLA and here an opportunity has presented itself on a silver platter. It was just convenient about the economy and the bankers came along so the Government could use it as an excuse to add medical tests for DLA claimants in the emergency budget.

Here's my really simple way for DWP to save some money is by not sending me a remittance advice every bloody week telling me I am getting £40 a week Return to Work Credit. How much does that cost every week sending them out to all the people on RTWC?. Why not just send me a letter once a quarter showing all the transactions?. I know I am getting RTWC for a year but I don't need a stupid brown letter every single week reminding me of the fact. I thought I had escaped the brown letters from hell but I get one every week.

I have been working now for the agency for about 3 months and I think the honeymoon period is over and I am facing the reality of being in work. I do like my work but physically I get exhausted and I know its catching up a bit as I have had a couple of 3-4 hour sleeps this week when I have got back from work. The reality of the situation is if I did less work then I don't get paid for it.

I am no longer getting Incapacity benefit, so there's some nice savings there for the DWP and I also pay Tax and NI so I am also contributing. I don't want to sound melodramatic but in my case this is the price of having a disability and going to work but what price am I paying with my health. I think its a case of trying to manage both and manage my spoons

ta ta for now.

DLA and AA Petition Needs Your Help

If you are not already aware of the governments plans to scrap DLA & AA can you sign this petition please:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/AttendanceA/

I received this in my email today from benefitsandwork:

CHARITIES ADMIT DEFEAT

We have received a copy of an email which a campaigner says came from the charity ASBAH (Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus) in response to his concerns about the care green paper. The email appears to admit defeat in the fight to save DLA and AA:

“. . .ASBAH, in line with many other larger bodies is of the view that these proposals have already gathered too much momentum to be reversed and that major changes are inevitable. . . it is vital within any alternative system that people retain elements within their budgets where they can exercise choice in how they spend that money. Although we have not adopted a position where we are fighting to save DLA and AA we would fight to see this element of choice protected and would resist any attempt to convert all support to 'in kind'.”

We have emailed ASBAH to ask for confirmation that the email is genuine and to ask which other ‘larger bodies’ – presumably disability charities - have also given up the fight to save DLA and AA.

We have yet to receive a response.

MINISTER’ STATEMENT: IS DLA REALLY SAVED?

One week on and there has been absolutely no corroboration of Care Services minister Phil Hope’s off-the-cuff statement that DLA is not being considered for the axe.

As we pointed out last week, Hope’s ‘don’t worry, be happy’ exhortation contradicts previous statements made by the DWP. So, the continued failure by either the DWP or the Department of Health to make any official statement confirming that they have changed their position and that DLA is now safe can only be a cause for deep suspicion and grave concern.

In addition, no reassuring words whatsoever have been offered in relation to AA.

So, at Benefits and Work, our message continues to be ‘It’s not over yet: carry on campaigning’.

NO 10 PETITION STRUGGLING

The petition about DLA and AA seems to be grinding to a halt again, at under 12,000 signatures. As we said last week, if any agency starts a petition it’s vital that they give it maximum publicity or it ends up damaging, rather than promoting, their cause.

Do you have time to check the website of any disability charity that you have a connection with and, if there isn’t an obvious link to the No 10 petition, email them and politely ask them to publish one.

You could point out that the petition was started by the Disability Charities Consortium and that it’s important that disability charities now work together effectively to promote it. If they can’t act together on so simple a thing as getting signatures on a petition, then what exactly can they act together on and how can they claim to be representing their members’ interests?

The petition can be found at:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/AttendanceA/

GREEN PAPER WEBSITE AMAZED

The Big Care Debate website have answered our queries about missing responses by replying that “we have received an amazing response from the public in regards to the Green Paper, on both the website and via email. We are doing our best to work our way through them, and have them online and ready to view as soon as we can.”

We know that in the past, such consultations have struggled to get responses numbering in the hundreds, let alone the thousands. So, we can certainly believe that the ‘amazing’ response by Benefits and Work campaigners has taken the Department of Health by surprise. But we do wonder how hard it can be to read and publish a few thousand posts over several months. Is the sheer volume of communications really the only problem? Rather than, say, the fact that most responses are overwhelmingly hostile to the green paper?

If you haven’t yet sent a response to the green paper, please do so by visiting this link:

http://careandsupport.direct.gov.uk/greenpaper/execsum/

Or emailing: careandsupport@dh.gsi.gov.uk

We’re concerned that there doesn’t appear to be any complaints procedure for the green paper consultation and we’re looking into this. But at the very least, if they don’t publish your response it will give more grounds for challenging the validity of the whole green paper consultation, which is after all a statutory process.

POST YOUR NEWS

Finally, remember that you can post your news in the Benefits and Work forum, if you’re a member, at:

http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/forum?func=showcat&catid=13

and/or in the free welfare watch forums at:

http://welfarewatch.myfineforum.org/index.php

You can also keep up with news about opposition to the green paper at the Carer Watch campaign blog:

http://carerwatch.com/cuts/

Unfortunately, we’re getting so many emails on this subject that we are unlikely to be able to respond individually. But we do appreciate hearing your news and views and we do encourage you to publish them for others to read on the forums detailed above.

Good luck,

Please feel free to forward or publish this email.

Benefits and Work Publishing Ltd

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk

Company registration No. 5962666

(c) 2009 Steve Donnison. All rights reserved.

DLA & Benefit Busters

The possible threat of the withdrawal of DLA is worrying as I am a recipient of DLA myself. it looks like it is just another way of this damn governments no more benefits campaign and make sick and disabled peoples lives more difficult and back to the 1800's Poor Law.

It just seems to me just lately to be an all out attack on the vulnerable/the unemployed and people who don't have a voice to support them. I have already added my name to the Benefits and Work DLA & AA campaign which can be found here

I must say I really can't wait to watch on Channel 4 Benefit Busters , no doubt another program aimed to put benefit claimants in a bad light. No doubt the sick and disabled will feature in the series somewhere. We shall wait and see. I am appalled that such programs are put on our screens for so-called entertainment. I saw that it features A4e which you can read about on the newdealscandal blog

ta ta

brain blogger