Benefits

Disability tests 'sending sick and disabled back to work'

People deemed too sick or disabled to work are being refused their benefits because the current assessment is inadequate, according to the expert appointed to review it.

Prof Malcolm Harrington, the government appointed adviser on testing welfare claimants, admitted the work fitness test was “patchy”.
He said that as a result of the flaws in the 13 week assessment, which tests physical fitness as well as mental skills, some claimants who were genuinely unable to work, have suffered.

There's a lot of talk about the new means testing for disability benefits being unfair and taking genuinely disabled people off benefits. There are also a lot of people claiming disability that have no business being on benefits at all.

Off sick for a decade... with acne or a cough! The astonishing cases among 885,000 benefit claimants

Thousands of people have been on sickness benefits for a decade or longer because they suffer from conditions including acne, bad backs and persistent coughs.
Official figures show that 885,100 have been signed off as being too sick to work and given incapacity benefit for ten years or more.
They have a bewildering array of conditions. Nearly 70,000 have been signed off due to bad backs while a further 140,000 have been away from the work place because of ‘depressive episodes’.

Ten people have been on incapacity benefit for a decade or more because of acne, while 670 have been signed off because they are obese.

There is a common ground to be found somewhere, but the truth of the matter is, Britain's welfare state is very broken. Not just disability benefits but all benefits are being handed out willy nilly.

The welfare state was created as a stop gap to help people when they need it most. Now benefit dependency has become a career in itself. It has to stop.