Benefits scroungers or the deserving sick and disabled?

Beware divisive, oversimplified media narratives

The recent Government press release on their proposed welfare reforms states,

‘Disabled people and those with health conditions, who are currently being held back from improving their lives through work, will be better supported to realise their potential under Government plans unveiled today.’

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-announces-new-welfare-reforms-to-help-thousands-into-work

On the face of it this sounds like a sensible proposal. However it has unleashed a pretty toxic, polarised debate between those angry at ‘benefit cheats/scroungers’ versus those who see all benefit claimants as ‘genuine, victimised sufferers’. Phone-ins on more right leaning radio/tv programmes are full of people ranting about work shy benefits claimants and relating anecdotes about lazy individuals dishonestly snatching money from hard working tax payers. Meanwhile much of the lefty mainstream media is packed with outrage over potentially taking away life sustaining support from the most vulnerable in society. Furthermore with the new Government proposed welfare reform, (as with everything in politics), the devil is in the detail. Central to their proposals is a shake up of the way people with disabilities or illness are categorised when it comes to their ability to work and therefore what benefits they are entitled to. There is clearly a desire for this to result in more people being declared fit to work, at least part time. Indeed the whole premise behind this new Govenrment initiative is that many of those not working due to disability or illness could work to some extent and with the right assistance. Moreover these people would benefit (pun intended!) from that. There is lots of talk of the disabled and sick being ‘held back’ and ‘languishing’ on out of work benefits. Indeed it’s hard to argue against the potential of paid work to be beneficial for general well-being and indeed life enhancing. However there are a couple of legitimate, fundamental concerns both with the Government’s proposals and the ‘crack down on lazy scroungers’ narrative.

   Firstly it is an unavoidable fact that there will always be a significant proportion of those currently receiving out of work benefits who just can’t work no matter what the assistance provided. For some of these people their condition may improve but for many it won’t. Do we really want to be a society in which those whom life has already dealt a crushingly unfair blow are forced to scrape by in a permanent state of financial hardship? Sadly ‘making work more attractive than benefits’ often means impoverishing the disabled rather than work pays enough. No one wants lazy people living high on the benefits hog while others struggle through long working days in exhausting and unfulling jobs just to put basic food on the table. But should the truly disabled and long term sick not be able to afford a holiday, decent clothes, going out once in a while for a meal etc.? Should we really remove simple pleasures many take for granted from those for whom life is already more painful and limited than the able bodied and healthy? Ensuring decent wages for the lowest earners doesn’t mean making life miserable for those who can’t work.

   Secondly what ‘assistance’ is really being provided for those who could work to some extent despite some health and disability limitations? Earlier this year the Government promised £2 million to help and support the disabled and long term sick into paid employment. However what’s already there, i.e. the much trumpeted ‘Access to Work’ scheme, is completely unfit to help people be fit for work. It’s fundamental flaw is that to be eligible for its grants and other practical support you must already be in paid work or about to start a job within 12 weeks. That totally fails to address the main problem of those who’ve been out of work for years having no idea how to find a job they could do despite their condition. It doesn’t provide a scheme to match appropriate work to individuals, or indeed help employers access what is indeed a pool of unused talent. I myself have been out of paid work for over a decade due to physical and mental illness, both of which are classified as disability. For most of this time I would certainly have been unable to hold down any type of job. However more recently I have been trying get help to find a small amount of flexible work that I could do mainly do from home. I have a BA and a Masters from Oxford University. I like to think I could contribute to the working world! I’m also sure having some type of paid employment would positively impact my mental health, if I could do it alongside my limitations. However I have no idea how to access such work and my contact with other long term out of work people, as well as the absence of any Government assistance in this area, has lead me to conclude my plight not exceptional.

   There is also the elephant in the room that is ‘our amazing National Healthservice’, (peace be upon it), with its strike ready doctors and regular coverup scandals. Indeed the NHS is less elephant and more like the infamous Old Testament golden calf idol, worshipped by those who have lost their ability to see sense. It is little wonder that the number of those unable to work due to ill health is growing when there’s an NHS waiting list of 7.6 million. The wait for treatment, even for those in chronic pain to have pain relieving and mobility restoring surgery, can be easily be six months to a year. Add onto that the months it takes to get assessed to even get on the waiting list and then months of recovery and there’s an explanation for a sizeable chunk of those reliant on out of work benefits. Furthermore, the NHS often fails those with long term health problems and disabilities by providing utterly inadequate treatment. Long term pain management, physio therapy and all aspects of mental healthcare are far too often substandard. A lovely lady who works part time as a beautician near to me is disabled through spinal injury and fibromyalgia that cause chronic pain and limited movement. She needs to claim benefits as her condition prevents her working enough hours to support herself and her two children. She has been left on daily morphine for three years. That is what passes as NHS ‘treatment’ these days.

   I often joke that my full time job is chasing up the ever changing group of mental healthcare professionals who should be looking after me. Many months go by without essential medication reviews, promised therapy and indeed any contact at all. I’m on my third ‘care worker’ this year. The first forgot our introductory appointment and was moved after a few months without any explanation. The second could barely speak English and again after a while he was quietly replaced. I don’t have high hopes for number three. Furthermore none of this gives me confidence in the Government’s promised ‘tailored support’ for those decreed able to work in light of the recategorisation of claimants that will take place. Recategorising people alone, i.e. changing what boxes they tick on certain forms, won’t change their ability to work. What would help at least some to do a limited amount of paid work would be if their existing support structures and healthcare was improved. Why add yet more cost to the very tax payers complaining about the welfare burden and more bureaucracy to the admin jungle when every long term sick or disabled person should already have some kind of care/support worker? It would be far better for the quality and reach of these to be improved. The way forward would be to link these already existing support staff, already emersed in their patients needs, with understanding employers who would benefit from extra staff to work anything from just a few hours a week to full time with special provisions or flexibility.

    Of course there are people who manage to cheat the welfare system just like there are those cheat on tax. However what few are willing to admit is that a large part of the benefits cheating is coming from the nebulous, all encompassing term ‘mental health problems.’ This is enabled by poor quality GP diagnosis e.g. giving someone a diagnosis of clinical anxiety because they say work is making them anxious, or diagnosing depression because they’re struggling after a divorce etc. Improving GP training on what clinical anxiety and mood disorders actually are would root out the chancers without throwing everyone with real debilitating mental illness under the bus. Allocating more mental health nurses to work across GP practices would also be money better spent than running ever more pointless ‘mental health awareness’ campaigns. One could argue that the population is now so ‘aware’ as to have become paranoid and confused about what constitutes struggling with life and what is illness. https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-difference-between-life-problems-and-mental-illness/ Certainly making a psychiatrist’s or psychologist’s report a prerequisite for claiming benefits is reasonable. Likewise evidence from a specialist consultant should be necessary for most claimants with physical health problems.

   Several great historic figures such as Ghandi and Pope John Paul II have been quoted as saying something along the lines of ‘society is judged by how it treats the most vulnerable.’ Recently this attitude has for some, especially on the right, become identified with wokeism and been replaced with ‘everybody for themselves.’ Somehow encouraging independence and a strong work ethic has blurred into a survival of the fittest ideology that blames people for things genuinely outside of their control. Alongside this we have, for want of better terminology, ‘woke progressivism’ that sees real victims in everyone claiming victimhood. Polticians seem to be veering between pandering to both these extremes. It’s always easier to sell a narrative based on heroes and villains and those on benefits are generally all homgenously lumped into one or the other category. Yet it is possible and necessary for society to genuinely, (quoting our very non- genuine former Health Secretary), ‘wrap its arms’ around the vulnerable whilst encouraging personal responsibility in the capable. We failed to do that during the Covid pandemic but we mustn’t fail likewise regarding the Welfare State.