@Trish Apologies for being a latecomer in doing so but I wanted to add my heartfelt thanks for everything you have done with regard to pointing out all the issues with this Toolkit and getting it at least temporarily removed.
I am personally hugely grateful that you have done this as I can testify to the harms caused by such things. I first became ill in 89 and remained undiagnosed for many years, but was able to continue working until early 2011 when I had a massive ME crash and was forced to give up work. At this point my GP classified me as mod/severe. At the end of Dec I had to take redundancy due to company relocation (I would have taken it with or without ME).
Once my redundancy money and our savings ran out and due to my husbands work situation, I had no choice but to apply for ESA (at some point in early 2013). Initially, much to my dismay I was put in the WRAG group and it caused me much torment. I was forced to attend pointless regular meetings that I knew I was too ill too attend let alone get any benefit from, and threatened, albeit obliquely, with sanctions if I didn't. Even though this was prior to the
@Action for M.E. Toolkit the ethos was nevertheless one of work is good for you, an expectation of positive attitude, rehabilitation and goal setting. Trying to persuade the advisers that this pressure was making me worse was the devils own job. The attitudes of the advisers ranged from sympathetic jobsworths who 'understood' but felt there was nothing they could do about it, in part because of the pressures they themselves were under from their masters, to those who simply didn't care.
For 15 months I had to endure this torture until in exasperation my GP gave them a stern phone call, followed by a sternly worded letter and two weeks later I received notification that I was being moved to the support group. But by then it was too late I had already been pushed from moderate/severe into the severe category and my downward spiral continues to this day. As I say this was before the existence of this Toolkit. I dread to think what further pressures they would have placed on me had they been given the endorsement that this Toolkit appears to give them. And of course I fear for others still going through or facing that process in the WRAG.
@Action for M.E. please bear in mind that I do not feel you understand the mindset of the DWP or the policies under which they operate. Or that the Toolkit is written from the right perspective. That we ME patients want to get back to work should be a given, we do not need any encouragement whatsoever to work towards that. What we need is for DWP etc to understand our difficulties in achieving this goal and the simple fact that most of us have no chance of it whatsoever. If you must write a Toolkit please do so from the point of view of safeguarding the patient/client. And with stern warnings for the DWP of what harm they can very easily cause if the put any pressure on us at all. And of course with the intention of informing DWP that the vast majority of us should not even be in the WRAG in the first place.
Thanks again
@Trish