Chaos in the news of late, particularly on the disability front.

If you’re not exposed to these things, they’ll probably pass you by. 

Work Capability Assessments are administered when an individual cannot work because of their physical, learning or mental conditions. These are, much like PIP assessments, I gather a largely humiliating affair. 

Disabled activist Ellen Clifford has launched a legal attempt to force the government to carry out a fresh consultation on its plans to tighten the work capability assessment, which she believes will force many disabled people into poverty, or even destitution. More on Disability News Service. I’ve never sat one of these, but I have sat a PIP assessment by ATOS, which was far from a pleasant experience. 

New WCA proposals suggest ‘removing the absence of bowel or bladder control, the inability to cope with social interaction, and the inability to access a location outside the claimant’s home, from the list of activities and “descriptors” used in the WCA.’ So basically, if you can’t work because you might shit yourself on the job… you might still have to work. 

I’m sure people with these conditions will be as determined as I am to annex any Tory voters from their social circles. 

Some good news, though: Assessment service Atos, who have assessed hundreds of thousands of disabled claimants (and treated the majority of them as layabouts and liars) have been stripped of the PIP contract. Don’t get your hopes up that things will be much better, though: the government have handed it over to Serco. Yes, that’s Serco of ‘expensive track and trace that didn’t work’ fame. So, I’m sure everything will work out in the end. 

Cough. 

That said, the government, it has been revealed, has forked out over £350 million (of your money) fighting disabled and ill people who are appealing a benefits decision – only to have the majority of those overturned in favour of the claimant. Big Issue details how utterly pointless the whole charade is. 

I still have it in mind to blog about my Atos experience, but it would require my mum to find the notes she made when she came to the assessment with me. I have no idea whether that still exists. She doesn’t either. 

Scary time for people with disabilities. Remember, this is voted for. We knew it would happen.