Petitions against UK benefit cuts and the "Work Capability Assessment"

[A B]

Please will you take a minute to sign these petitions against the new
changes to the UK benefits system, and especially the so-called "Work
Capability Assessment"?

"Stop the Abolition of Disability Living Allowance for Personal Independence
Payments" http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/38182

"We call for a Cumulative Impact Assessment of Welfare Reform, and a New
Deal for sick & disabled people based on their needs, abilities and
ambitions" http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/43154

Both the above have received extremely smarmy responses from our attempted
government, saying basically that they're right and everyone else is wrong.
However that doesn't change the fact that if the petitions reach 100,000
signatures, then they have to be debated in Parliament.

"To Investigate the DWP and connected MPs for corporate manslaughter. In
relation to the WCA & Atos Healthcare"
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/41070

"STOP THE BENEFIT CHANGES" http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/48128
(Note: all these petitions are on the Government's official site, so are
open only to British citizens.)

For people who haven't yet been disabled and up against it themselves or had
friends or relatives who have, it may seem just a political controversy; for
those of us who've visited the parallel universe of disability, it's an
everyday menace.

Well, here are some I've personally heard from friends on the OCDAction and
Aspie Village forums in recent months:

* A friend of mine was so exhausted by an especially severe bout of OCD and
clinical depression that he forgot to attend one of his job centre
interviews. As punishment for being ill his income was cut off for 6 weeks
until his appeal could be heard, and he had to borrow from friends for food
and rent and do without gas and electricity at all. When he finally got the
appeal heard, the benefits were reinstated without question, so the whole
ordeal was pointless. No compensation, needless to say.

* Another autistic person found that the assessors hadn't read the letter
his doctor had sent them (here a chorus of recognition from the entire
forum), and when he gave them a copy they declined to read it saying that it
was "nothing to do with them". ?!

* Yet another was assessed by a 23-year-old who was under the impression
that autism was "something to do with bones"...

The WCA doesn't have to be done by anyone with knowledge of the condition in
question, only a "health practitioner" - a psychiatrist can assess your back
pain or a dental nurse your agoraphobia. The British Medical Association
are calling for the WCA to be abolished. Their members have already
reported many patients attempting suicide, after being falsely passed fit to
work and facing beggary.

Just to sum the whole thing up: numerous branches of Atos (the private
company responsible for the Work Capability Assessment) were recently taken
to task for doing the assessments in upstairs rooms without wheelchair
access. Would be funny, except if you don't get to the assessment you lose
your income...
--
A. B.
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My e-mail address is zen177395 at zendotcodotuk, though I don't check that
account very often.
Post unto others as you would have them post unto you.