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Leading charities have said disability benefit reform must not cut support for mental illness and introduce better trained assessors to prevent bad decisions being made.
Rishi Sunak has announced plans to reform Personal Independence Payment (PIP) – the benefit that helps people with disabilities pay their living costs – in a bid to lower the welfare bill.
Ahead of the publication of the consultation, scheduled for Monday, disability charity Scope said the Prime Minister’s focus on reducing the cost of disability benefits does not address the reasons behind the rise in debilitating health conditions. He said he had not.
Government officials stressed that no decisions had yet been made on the nature of the reforms, and said ministers were keen for the broad participation of people with disabilities, their relatives and organizations representing them.
Mr Sunak said he wanted to overhaul PIP to make it more objective and suggested he wanted to raise the criteria for eligibility to reduce benefits.
Louise Rubin, head of policy and campaigns at disability charity Scope, said the charity was not opposed to benefit reform but was “quite horrified” by Mr Sunak’s language. Ta. Sick Note Culture”.
talk to IShe criticized the fact that PIP reform was being “lumped together and confused with issues around medical conditions and unemployment benefits”. “Confusing it with PIP as a disability benefit is actually quite disingenuous,” she argued.
Scope supports the elimination of the work performance evaluation process that determines whether an employee should be terminated due to illness. But she warned that doing so alongside PIP’s tougher standards could leave more people “with nowhere else to turn”.
“I think what’s forgotten in all the noise surrounding the prime minister’s speech is that PIP is not unemployment benefits. It’s there to help with the additional costs of disability,” Rubin said.
“We have called for reform of the PIP. [the Government’s] “The starting point seems to be primarily cost-cutting, but our starting point is all the horror stories we hear every day from disabled people,” she added.
A scoping survey showed that people “overwhelmingly” think the assessment process should be reformed because assessors “don’t understand the real-life impact of having a disability”. There is.
“We have asked for the right to have a proper evaluator,” Rubin said. “That means someone with a medical background who has the same condition as you. Obviously we can’t cover every situation, but we can give you an idea of what it’s like to live with a particular disability. We need to have a variety of specialties so that it can be seen by people who understand it.”
He welcomed Mr Sunak’s suggestion that the changes would provide a “more individualized approach” to disability support, but warned that some people with mental illness may not need PIP. He said the suggestion that there was was concerning.
“We hear quite a lot about how mental health problems are far too easy to claim PIP for,” she says.
“We definitely dispute that. It’s not consistent with what we’re hearing from people with disabilities. In fact, it’s almost the complete opposite. We believe that in this assessment mental health problems I hear all the time from people who say they don’t really capture what it’s like to live with .
“And I’ve also heard the Prime Minister say that people with mental health problems don’t need as much financial support because it’s not that expensive. Again, that’s just me. It doesn’t match our data.”
Mr Rubin criticized the suggestion that PIP could not be given in the form of a cash payment, but could instead be paid through services such as home adjustment, giving claimants the ability to spend the money on what they need. argued that it should be possible.
Rubin added: “The government’s starting point seems to be: How do we pass legislation? But for us here at Scope, the question should be, why are more people falling ill? Why are more people claiming disability benefits? Of course there needs to be some boundaries, and we recognize that this is a big bill and a growing bill. Let’s find out why.”
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said: “Our next generation of welfare reform will ensure a fair and caring system, target those most in need, and ensure a welfare state fit for the future.”
“The PIP consultation will seek input from the whole of society, including people with disabilities and their representative organizations, to ensure that appropriate support is provided to people with disabilities and health conditions.”