Work Capability Assessment – Year 3 call for evidence

As part of his third independent review of the Work Capability Assessment, Professor Harrington has launched a call for evidence.

He is particularly interested in views and evidence about the implementation of his recommendations and any changes to:

• communications.
• face-to-face assessment.
• decision making.

Who this call for evidence is aimed at

This call for evidence is aimed at individuals and organisations who have information that is relevant to how the Work Capability Assessment is operating and what further changes, if any, are needed to improve the process.

We have sent this call for evidence document to a large number of people and organisations who have previously been involved in this work or who have expressed an interest. Please do share this document with, or tell us about, anyone you think will want to be involved in this call for evidence.

see in full here

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Please sign Pats Petition  here and ask others to do the same.

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VIGIL TO SHOW SUPPORT OF APPLICATION FOR JUDICIAL REVIEW OF WCA‏

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THE MENTAL HEALTH RESISTANCE NETWORK WILL BE HOLDING A VIGIL OUTSIDE THE ROYAL COURTS OF JUSTICE ON FRIDAY 29 JUNE

On Friday 29 June there will be a hearing in the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, London, where a judge will decide whether to grant permission for a judicial review of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) as it affects people with mental health problems. The WCA is being used to harass and remove benefits from people in mental distress, leading many to contemplate suicide: some, we believe, have already taken their own lives.

The MHRN is supporting the application for judicial review and is organising a vigil outside the court on the day. The vigil will be peaceful and will serve to show our solidarity with all people living with mental health difficulties who are in the firing line of Tory brutality.

We won’t know until the day before what time the case will be heard so we are asking people to arrive outside the courts at 11.00am on the 29th. Bring banners if you wish, but the vigil will be conducted in a spirit of respect for the court.

Please spread word of the vigil as widely as possible

 MHRN VIGIL

29TH JUNE 2012    TIME 11 a.m.

Venue – 

ROYAL COURTS OF JUSTICE

STRAND

LONDON

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** please sign Pat’s Petition

 Stop and review the cuts to benefits and services which are falling disproportionately on disabled people, their carers and families

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Barking and Dagenham Against the Cuts – community conference

received from Anna…………

Hi everyone,I wanted to let you all know about Barking and Dagenham Against the Cuts, and a community conference we are having on Saturday 9 June to bring people together who want to fight the cuts and defend public services and welfare.

Do you, or anyone you know, live or work in Barking and Dagenham? It would be great if you could get involved and come to the conference – and spread the word.We are also looking for people to contribute to informal workshops on the issues of benefits, the NHS and housing. This would mean talking about their experiences of campaigning on these issues – to help participants in the workshops/ conference develop plans for local action.

Would you or anyone else you know be happy to do this? If so, please get in touch!  More information can be found on our website:   (a work in progress – and quite psychadelic at the moment!).

Please let me know if you have any questions/ comments/ suggestions.

Thanks!

Anna

anna.wolmuth@gmail.com

Further details of speakers can be found here

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Also sign this petition and share as wide as possible asking others to do the same.

Pats Petition  background here

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/20968

 

Disabled People Against Cuts – protest April 18th

Disabled people Against Cuts

April 18th meet for 1.30 pm McDonalds Leicester Square.

Let us have text contact details if definitely coming. Access needs if any too.

Action will be around benefit cuts, care funding and Loss of Remploy jobs.

this affects older people too so bring your grannies and grandads too.

Contact mail@dpac.uk.net

Press release

Photo opportunity. Meet Leicester Square McDonalds, 1.30pm

DISABLED PEOPLE REFUSE TO SIT BACK AND BE SLOWLY KILLED

Already three-quarters of disabled people live in poverty yet the Condems seem determined to push people even further into destitution. It seems that this is a means of punishing them for daring to be or become disabled – something that can happen to anyone at anytime. This is part of the new economy and Condem society of Britain.

Linda Burnip co-founder of DPAC says  “If cuts to benefits don’t kill you slowly by leaving you starving or freezing to death in winter then massive cuts to care and support funding should finish off those Maria Miller, the so-called minister for disabled people, calls “unsustainable” a bit faster. “

Campaigners say disabled people are being unfairly picked on because they are seen as an easy target by millionaire politicians and the ex-banker Lord Freud in particular.

Disability benefits designed to pay the extra costs of disability and originally awarded for a lifetime term are being reassessed. Many who were certified by medically qualified and independent doctors are losing their meagre incomes to politically appointed and performance incentivised ATOS assessors.

Huge increases to hate crimes, cuts in housing benefits, cuts in public services, the closure of the Independent Living Fund, job losses in the public sector, closure of Remploy factories when unemployment is at a record high the list of attacks is endless.

Debbie Jolly another co-founder of DPAC says: “Disabled people will be descending on London again to tell all politicians we’ve had enough. We are fed up with being vilified as scroungers by successive governments, we are sick of hearing about disabled people who have died from neglect and lack of services or who have committed suicide because services and benefits were withdrawn from them. Debbie from Leicester says: “Disabled people will be descending on London again to tell all politicians we’ve had enough. We are fed up with being vilified as scroungers by successive governments, we are sick of hearing about disabled people who have died from neglect and lack of services or who have committed suicide because services and benefits were withdrawn from them. We are angry at the constant attacks by this government  because we are seen as an easy target .We want to make sure politicians know we will not accept these attacks on our lives any longer. “

ENDS

Contact-  Linda 0771 492 7533 or Adam 07801058235

Notes to editors:

Data from Family Resources Survey and the National Equalities Panel found that:

• 75% of disabled women and 70% of disabled men are already at the bottom end of Britain’s income distribution scale living in poverty.

• A tenth of disabled woman have incomes below £31 per week and a tenth of disabled men have incomes below £59 per week including earned income and benefits.

• Under the coalition government’s economy drive disabled people are set to lose at least £140 per month through direct cuts to disability benefits (initially devised to pay the extra costs of being disabled) alone.

• The Condems are removing DLA saying that the number of claimants must be reduced by half a million.

• Employment Support Allowance and work capability assessments have been criticised by CAB, disability charities and Disabled People’s Organisations. ATOS healthcare failures are costing £50 million in additional appeal tribunal costs.

• Housing Benefits for all tenants will be reduced. From October 2011 for those 2 million disabled people living in private rented accommodation and from 2013 for anyone living in social housing which is deemed too large for their needs

• Added to that funding from the Independent Living Fund for care and support has now ceased to all new claimants and any additional needs cannot be met by them

Extra costs of disability to individuals

A Rowntree report (2004) found that the weekly income of disabled people who are solely dependent on benefits is approximately £200 below the amount required for them to ensure an acceptable, equitable quality of life’

However, even if receiving maximum benefits, disabled people still experience a substantial shortfall in income. The income of disabled people solely dependent on benefits, irrespective of the type or level of their need, is approximately £200 less than the weekly amount required for them to ensure a minimum standard of living.

Source: Disabled people’s costs of living: ‘More than you would think’ (2004) by Noel Smith, Sue Middleton, Kate Ashton-Brooks, Lynne Cox and Barbara Dobson with Lorna Reith, is published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (ISBN 1 85935 236 7,

Employment

The employment rates of disabled people are around 48% compared with around 78% of non-disabled people Source Labour Force Survey, Quarter 2,2010

 Only 20% of those with mental health problems are in employment- Source- Labour Force Survey, Jan-March 2009.

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. Please click here to sign Pat’s Petition  which calls on the government to –

“Stop and review the cuts to benefits and services which are falling disproportionately on disabled people, their carers and families”

Once you have signed share it with all your contacts asking them to sign and pass on too.

WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

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Louis Theroux – Extreme Love: Dementia

from BBC media centre

Programme: Thursday 26th April 9pm BBC2

As one of the big retirement destinations for middle class Americans, Phoenix Arizona has also become a capital of dementia care. Louis visits the city in order to spend time in state-of-the-art care home Beatitudes and with home-based carers, whose love is tested by a condition that steadily erodes the personality and character of their partners.

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Please sign Pats Petition here: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/20968

Louis Theroux – Extreme Love – Autism

from BBC2

Thursday 19th April – 9pm

Louis visits one of the best schools in America for autism. He meets the students and their families to get a glimpse of what life is like for them and to experience the pleasures and the strains of one of the most extraordinary kinds of relationship.

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Sign Pats Petition here:

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/20968

Shoot your mouth off

Shoot Your Mouth Off   (SYMO) is a production company specialising in high-quality work with disabled people.  SYMO produces a vast range of work including dramas, documentaries, comedies, music videos, resource materials and much more. We have won numerous awards for our work and our films have been screened at festivals around the world. SYMO is a social enterprise and exists to provide an enjoyable, rewarding and meaningful use of time to those often excluded from traditional training and employment opportunities. We aim to raise the visibility of disabled people in the media, portraying them as they are, bona fide members of society, with hopes and fears, dreams and nightmares, choices and rights.

After months of interviewing disabled people and  travelling all over the North, SYMO is showing “Falling Through the Cracks“. Commissioned by VONNE and the Lottery, the film focuses on disabled people’s responses to the government’s spending review, highlighting their hopes and fears, and joining them in Newcastle for the Hardest Hit campaign demonstration.

Watch video here

Are you worried about cuts to benefits and services too?

Sign this petition  asking the government to Stop and review the cuts to benefits and services which are falling disproportionately on disabled people, their carers and families. Share the link with as many people as you can and ask them to do the same. Share it on twitter and facebook, blogs too.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/20968

Care reform must succeed where welfare reform failed

The Care Lobby is here. Full details on their website 

CareLobby 2012 are also staging the world’s first twobby – an online lobby so that even more people can tell MPs that a change in social care is urgently needed. This will run at the same time as the lobby at parliament. Our social care system is broken. Support the twobby TODAY

The program of welfare reform and cuts is proceeding with alarming momentum and the needs of carers  and  disabled people are being lost in the fiscal crisis.  

In this present economic climate we are already witnessing many cutbacks within Local Authorities:

• Care criteria being tightened
• Day centres closing
• Respite allocations reducing in many areas
• Meals on wheels costs increasing dramatically
• Care package costs increasing
• Transport for disabled people either stopping or priced out of reach
• Carers’ grants under threat

…………… and so the list could go on.

Add in the recent passage of the Welfare reform Bill which will see Disability Living Allowance become a Personal Independence Payment. Removing or reducing DLA will not only have an enormous financial impact on disabled people it will also impact on their carers – a double blow which will especially hit hard those families on the poverty line.

This is why we need a pause. To stop and assess how all these changes will impact on lives.

Sign Pats Petition here   Share the link and ask as many others to sign too, ask them to pass it on. Together we can do this.

Have your say about how caring has affected your health

Carers Week 18th – 24th June 2012

In sickness and in health

Every year we ask thousands of carers to tell us about their lives. We use the survey to generate interest in the press and media. 

Our theme for 2012 is “In Sickness and in Health” and your answers will help us to highlight;
– How does caring impact on your health and wellbeing?
– How much have the cuts to local services impacted on your health and wellbeing?
– What could really make a difference to your life as a carer?

Take the survey here

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If you are worried about cuts to services please sign Pats Petition too and then gather as much support as you can.

 

Easy read consultation on the new Personal Independence Payment

The government’s ideas about the points you need to get benefit, and assessment questions.

Tell them what you think. Consultation ends 30 April 2012

Easy read docs here

Send responses to –

email to   pip.assessment@dwp.gsi.gov.uk      or

post a letter to

Dept of Work and pensions

2nd floor Area B

Caxton House

Tothill Street

London

SW1H 9NA