UK: Disability benefits (UC, ESA and PIP) - news and updates 2024 and 2025

As stated in this case the disability and its requirements are consistent with the applicable law and its provisions for the management of chronic illness and disability, hence the newly revised guidelines, guidance and planned delivery still being implemented by dwp and so overlooked to date - as can happen due to persistent medical errors of ignorance or else 2nd opinion.

the disclosure (to the MEA) of dwp guidance for decision makers had to be very heavily redacted for fear of fraudulent claims, so this claimant cannot refer to and rely on it as applicable to the decision still in question.

If the Tribunal needs to be confidentially informed then this case becomes a test of this new guidance (previous guidance was published in full)

This case is weighty enough as it is without the added dimension of national interest

I don't know if the justice of this medico-legal tribunal system still requires the dwp to provide a specific reply to each specific in the appeal letter. If so, the dwp may opt to withdraw and backdate the blocked award, instead. Or rely upon its clinical opinion in cases where the disability remains consistent with the diagnosis

When the dwp makes just decisions then it need not lose the game of legal precedents - by setting case law against its conflicted purpose. I would go even further and stop the commercial exploitation of government administration. It would be economically cost-effective to end experimental trial and error in the profit margin.
 

DWP disability PIP assessors quit in droves over being 'despised' and 'de-skilled'​

Health professionals responsible for evaluating individuals for disability benefits are abandoning the sector en masse due to feelings of being ‘despised’ and ‘de-skilled’, research from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has confirmed.

In a recently-published report, the department reveals that more than half (52 per cent) of its health assessors departed in a single year, with 40 per cent of new hires quitting during the three-month training programme.
The study, which examines assessors for both the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and the health-related component of Universal Credit, was conducted in Spring 2022, with conclusions drawn from 2021 data.

Both evaluations have long faced criticism from disability rights advocates as challenging and unreliable procedures. According to surveys by disability charity Sense, more than half (51 per cent) of disabled people with complex requirements report feeling humiliated by their PIP assessment.

A further 45 per cent stated the process worsened their symptoms. Assessors must be qualified healthcare practitioners. One informed researchers: “We all got in healthcare for altruistic reasons and that maybe isn’t the case in this job... you’re a cog in the machine doing bureaucratic work.”
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One informed researchers: “We all got in healthcare for altruistic reasons and that maybe isn’t the case in this job... you’re a cog in the machine doing bureaucratic work.”
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I suspect they're also trained to minimise pain and disability in a way that wouldn't have occurred to them when seeing patients in a clinic or looking after them in an ambulance. And to make the most of people failing to give the 'right' answers due to inexperience or lack of knowledge, even if they can see they have significant needs.

That's got to be pretty depressing, even if the pay rate's better than working shifts in a hospital.
 
Kitty said:
I suspect they're also trained to minimise pain and disability in a way that wouldn't have occurred to them when seeing patients in a clinic or looking after them in an ambulance. And to make the most of people failing to give the 'right' answers due to inexperience or lack of knowledge, even if they can see they have significant needs.

That's got to be pretty depressing, even if the pay rate's better than working shifts in a hospital.
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Moral distress in the workplace, can lead to PTSD.
Very common in the modern NHS
 
MrMagoo said:
Moral distress in the workplace, can lead to PTSD.
Very common in the modern NHS
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Absolutely. I recently read (listened to) a book called trauma stewardship which described how working in a ‘doing good’ role can change the way you think and act, with examples from healthcare, social care, humanitarianism, charity work, commissioning etc., and described how people ‘protect’ themselves mentally.
 
Haveyoutriedyoga said:
Absolutely. I recently read (listened to) a book called trauma stewardship which described how working in a ‘doing good’ role can change the way you think and act, with examples from healthcare, social care, humanitarianism, charity work, commissioning etc., and described how people ‘protect’ themselves mentally.
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That’s a slightly different thing.
Moral distress or injury is where you go into a role to do “good” and help people, but in the role you’re prevented from doing good, in fact you’re doing bad.
So if you become a PiP assessor to help the “genuinely” disabled but actually you have to see 20 people and write 20 reports per day then you can’t see them properly or do a decent report. You can’t do a decent report for one of the 20, and all of the 20 seemed genuine, not trying it on. The system is forcing you to do a bad job and that causes tough consequences for the claimants.
 
MrMagoo said:
That’s a slightly different thing.
Moral distress or injury is where you go into a role to do “good” and help people, but in the role you’re prevented from doing good, in fact you’re doing bad.
So if you become a PiP assessor to help the “genuinely” disabled but actually you have to see 20 people and write 20 reports per day then you can’t see them properly or do a decent report. You can’t do a decent report for one of the 20, and all of the 20 seemed genuine, not trying it on. The system is forcing you to do a bad job and that causes tough consequences for the claimants.
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Yes that was covered in the book
 
Kitty said:
I suspect they're also trained to minimise pain and disability in a way that wouldn't have occurred to them when seeing patients in a clinic or looking after them in an ambulance. And to make the most of people failing to give the 'right' answers due to inexperience or lack of knowledge, even if they can see they have significant needs.

That's got to be pretty depressing, even if the pay rate's better than working shifts in a hospital.
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I'm not sure it's a genuine explanation, it rings fake to me. The people who work on junk rehabilitation pseudoscience seem to enjoy their work, in fact insist on continuing and expanding it, despite the fact that they don't actually help anyone, and in fact overall cause massive harm. They're oblivious to it for the most part, but they still face this reality every single day, as much as anyone working at some place like the DWP.

The cog in the machine part, sure, but the "this is not what we signed up for" rings extremely hollow when all it takes is a bunch of bullshit coating to turn frowns upside down. No one is more of a tool in a soul-sucking machine than the people who run all the junk clinics and trials used to hold us captive. They can be aware of how much harm they're doing, but surely not more or less than someone who also works for bureaucracies meant to deny people support, but does a different part of it. That this sentence still works if the groups are swapped says it all.

They probably hate the work conditions, the actual time spent at work, more than what it means in the grand scheme of things. It's an awful desk job facing a computer spent doing mindless droning unrewarding work, it has no variety, no challenge and no meaning. Those jobs tend to be the most hated out there, and yet lots of people do them, even when they largely consist of exploitation or fraud. This idea that medicine is some special "grand purpose" thing is a bunch of crap. It's just a job, lots of people in other professions do their job for similar purposes, yet the reality of most jobs is usually soul-sucking. It's also quite common in law, where grand ideals quickly cede ground to the fact of spending hours litigating some rich asshole's drunk fender-bender, which is a job someone has to do, because there is plenty of demand for it.
 
rvallee said:
I'm not sure it's a genuine explanation, it rings fake to me. The people who work on junk rehabilitation pseudoscience seem to enjoy their work
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They're mostly nurses, ambulance techs, etc. There are hundreds of them and there's no reason to think any were involved in this. They're just ordinary workers who're very unlikely to have been in positions of influence (it doesn't pay well enough).

Judging by interviews I've heard/read, some of them are attracted to it because they've got young kids and the hours are better than shift work. Some tried it because their age meant they were starting to struggle with the physical demands of long nursing or paramedic shifts, but then realised they only got paid for about two thirds of the work they did (it apparently takes much longer to write up their notes than they're allowed).

There might be a minority who went into it for the wrong reasons, but a lot of them are just trying to find better or more manageable work. Years ago the assessments were done by doctors, and a lot of them were retired GPs. They could choose to work as many or as few days a week as they wanted, the fees (which used to be better than they are now) topped up their pensions nicely, and it got them out of the house. The chap who did my DLA assessments sat chatting afterwards and told me about it. (ETA: I got the impression he mainly did it because he missed feeling useful.)
 
Working as a PIP assessor is so stressful that leaving healthcare seems like a better alternative.

Plus there are plenty of healthcare workers who don’t do it because of a vocation but for interesting work, job security etc.
 
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