Entitlement To Benefits Is Very Far From Consistent

After just shy of 30 yeras working in our esteemed NHS it has been apparent from very early on that entitlement to state support / benefit / call-it-what-you-will is far from absolute and very far from consistent. The trend seems to be that in times of plenty anyone with any level of physical or mental disability is encouraged to "go on benefit" rather than sign on for un-employment to keep the jobless stats down, and the same applies when there is a strong political imperative to do the same. As soon as cash gets tight, and especially under certain regimes (not all Tory) the push has been to "weed out scroungers" and push the "workshy" back into the labour market to keep the benefit bill down. No prizes for guessing which way the wind is blowing right now.


As a case in point Ned is fifty years old and until a couple of years ago was fighting fit and worked elsewhere as a lumberjack. Then Ned got chickenpox, which he had evaded as a child. Sadly his infection was complicated by encephalitis, a rare but well known complication. This fused his brain. Specifically that part that deals with short term recall. From that time on, though physically fit, Ned can't retain or process information. Last year he was assessed incapable of work for that very reason.

This year he has been reviewed. When asked if he can perform the standard physical tasks of the peronal capability assessment, Ned answers that he can, and freely demonstrates the same. So now Ned is again "fit for work". The only reason Ned made it to the assessment in the first place, and home again afterwards, is because his sister who is also his carer, made sure he did. Even if Ned found work, cleaning or asssembling or whatever, another employee would have to be tasked with watching and directing him every minute of his shift to keep him on task. His short term memory is shot without hope of recovery, but the latest assessor didn't think to ask, or disregarded the information. Now Ned, through his sister, is appealing the decision. I look forward to receiving the request for medical evidence to support his application, and I foresee a great many more "Neds" needing the same in the coming months.

As ever "Ned" exists as an abstracted representation of a genuine scenario encountered here this week. Names and details have been changed enough to preserve confidentiality.

The GP's Story, By Dr Jest

Note from BendyGirl: Dr Jest is a GP working in England who blogs fictionalised accounts of  typical everyday situations faced by doctors working in general practice. I asked him if he would like to share his story of how it feels to be a 'doctor seeing patients denied or defrauding (for balance) benefits and this is what he had to say:

And there follows a small contribution from your humble interlocutor about two friends of mine. As regular readers will know whilst the following stories are “true” they are composites of more than one individual’s experience in each case and reflect the “patient experience” rather than identifying an individual.
 

So with all of that said, first let’s meet Dud. Dud has worked in light industry all his life. Of course by light industry we only mean not building steam engines or other very very heavy things. He’s worked with metal in heat and dust and smoke for years. He’s also been partial to the odd fag, to be sure (American readers take note: Fag = cigarette in “proper” English like wot is spoke in Ambridge), and as a result of all of these factors he’s developed that persistent shortness of breath that is COPD. He needs three inhalers several times a day to get by. That hasn’t stopped him working well past retirement age, his skills being too valuable to the company to loose. A few months ago his chest took a bit of a nosedive, he started coughing a lot more and he ended up in hospital. While he was in the nice docs did a chest x ray and found a nasty looking “shadow” at the top of one lung. Dud put two and two together, decided he wasn’t liking the arithmetic and quickly persuaded them to let him home without a lot more testing and probing. He’s on oxygen, is comfy, and is looking forward to sitting up for nights on end to watch the test matches from Down Under. We haven’t talked about his diagnosis, because we don’t need to. In the end the only thing he’s worrying about now is how much his treatment is costing and whether he deserves it!

Pete lives in Penny Hasset, a stones-throw from Ambridge. He’s been barman, cleaner and general factotum to the Penny Hasset Working Men’s club for decades. Though never a smoker he’s worked around smokers for most of his working life. From quite an early age he was identified as having bronchiectasis. This, for the uninitiated, is a poorly understood condition of susceptibility to recurring destructive chest infections that slowly but surely erode the normal architecture of the lung, leaving in their wake cavities which fill with phlegm which in turn render the sufferer more susceptible to infection. Three years or so back Pete had a really bad infection—bad enough to warrant admission to hospital with pneumonia. While he was there he developed respiratory failure and came home with both oxygen and night time ventilation. Against advice he went back to work. He lasted six months before I prevailed on him to be signed off. He was gasping, and the lifting his job entailed was patently far too much for him. Three months after signing him off the benefit docs asked him in for a medical, where they asked him a few questions, got him to do a few trivial physical jerks, and passed him fit to return to work. This despite me filling in a form explaining his need for long term oxygen therapy and night time ventilation. 

So Pete gamely struggled back to work. At least by now there was a smoking ban so his working conditions were a little better, but come the following winter he had another exacerbation, a long spell off work, and finally lost his job. Thus far I’ve been able to persuade him he really ought not be looking for another, and again thus far, the B.A. docs appear to have seen sense and have accepted my latest report and stopped hassling him. 

So there you have it. Neither Pete nor Dud would have chosen to be where they are now, and neither has asked not to work when they were capable. Indeed both have rather struggled on when reason would have suggested they ought not. And I could name you a dozen others in a similar position. All present talk of making it more profitable to work than rely on benefit may sound very noble and high minded in the marbled halls of power, where hard graft means having a lot to read and a few late meetings to go to. It completely misses the enormous efforts made by the likes of Pete and Dud to keep going against the odds, and any move to impoverish them is little short of scandalous and should be relentlessly pointed out for the evil narrow minded bigotry it is. I sincerely hope this is not what Dave and his cronies are about to do, but somehow I'm expecting to be disappointed.

Thank you Dr Jest. If any other doctors, nurses, social workers, care workers etc would like to share their stories please send them to us at thebrokenofbritain@gmail.com