David Cameron has announced that former service men and women who are injured on duty are to be left to fester on disability benefits, possibly for the rest of their lives.
Soldiers with disabilities are to be denied all the benefits of the upcoming Personal Independence Payment assessments and may not even qualify for the mandatory Work Programme. It is believed that squaddies injured in battle will now be simply waved through conditionality for disability benefits, condemning them to wasted lives of fecklessness.
Astonishingly soldiers are set to be abandoned to payments for life, with no continuous testing to check whether conditions have cleared up, or disabilities disappeared.
Soldiers will be judged workshy by default, by a perverse system that is set to punish hard work and reward idleness. In a tragic waste of human life it is believed that former soldiers may not even qualify for workfare.
This must surely be Iain Duncan Smith’s reaction on hearing that Cameron has pledged sick or disabled soldiers will not face the upcoming brutal assessment regime in order to qualify for sickness or disability benefits.
After all, this is the Government that have told us benefit cuts are good for our health, and that the short computer based assessments are helping people to ensure they are on the correct benefit.
The truth is that Cameron’s announcement is an admission that the upcoming Personal Independence Payment (PIP) benefit for sick and disabled people is unfit for purpose. Of course it is right that soldiers who have lost limbs or suffered other injuries in battle should be supported without constant brutal and humiliating tests – but so should fucking everyone else.
Are only those prepared to go and kill and die in rich men’s wars the only people who deserve a humane welfare state? What about nurses, teachers, firemen, or the thousands of people injured in industrial accidents?
The new tests for PIP will see everyone on Disability Living Allowance forced into a regime of continuous health and disability assessments by private companies regardless of claimant’s conditions. This is the same process currently endured by those claiming the out of work sickness and disability benefit Employment Support Allowance.
Yet the Prime Minister himself judges this process so toxic he has moved the goalposts for disabled squaddies in the hope of pacifying a few Sun readers.
In others words if you haven’t got a gun and are sick or disabled this Government doesn’t give a fuck and won’t listen.
the void 
So now all us ex-squaddies will be left to a lifetime of sunning ourselves on the beach amongst the golden sands and palm trees, pina colado in hand nursing our “post-traumatic stress disorder” – C.R.A.P for short 🙂 (how would you feel if you had strangled an Iraqi child with your own bare hands, blasted an Afghan farmer in the face, nuked a “mother with a “bomb” in a pram” from 60,000 feet 🙂 … oops 😦 ) whilst all you hardworking taxpayers toil away to keep the money flooding in 🙂 What, no workfare 🙂
More evidence of a divided nation … A nation divided by the politicians for political purposes.
It appears that this rule only applys to recent soldiers because I read an article saying about the concerns in aldershot about ex army self harming because of wca tests! They need to make a proper ruling on it it should apply to all ex army
And don’t singe about them festering! You can’t have it all ways
ever heard of irony?
In response to Sharon, here is the letter from The Guardian you referred to:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jul/10/fears-ex-soldiers-work-capability-programme
Does Cameron’s plans include those service personnel who are “invisibly” mutilated mentally?
Destroying jobs and creating terrorists that will be the legacy this despicable bunch of hate-mongers
Read the small print on Cameron’s kind concessions to injured service personnel.
The new exemption will only be “COVERING THE MOST BADLY WOUNDED TROOPS”, so some kind of assessment procedure will still be needed to determine who is AND who is not the most badly wounded!!
See the follwing link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/18/injured-troops-exempt-disability-tests
The reason i suspect is in the next few years the torys want to avoid gun toting vengeful ex squaddies going after them and leave it up to new tory lite (Labour) to pick up the peaces and perhaps face someone with a gun.
So this is just divide and rule…again.
Noone should be without help, not people living in civvy street nor those abused by our political ‘betters’ to die in pointless wars.
My daughter serves at the moment (RAF) and I have a few friends who have been seriously dmamged by their experiences in theatre.
BUT – this is in breach of discrimination law.
I personally think it would be better if the MOD funded decent allowances for those who are injured whilst serving; but until they do, which is, like, never, the same rules must apply.
The rules for cancer patients changes after Macmillan pointed out that people on oral chemo suffered the same side effects as people in intravenous/intrathecal chemo (vomiting, etc) so to make it REALLY fair it was decided that all cancer patients get treated the same – ie. they ALL have a WCA if they fail to die in 6 months.
In the DWP’s decision makers guide, there’s a section on “recovery time” so get your poison Monday, capable of work by Wednesady; have it overnight Monday, raring to go by Thursday.
People having chemo or on regular dialysis can be judged “available” and “capable” for a few days a week – when they’re not having life-saving treatment, that is.
Whilst I have every sympathy for ex-forces personnel who end up in a position like mine, I don’t agree that their service is somehow more important (if more traumatic) than my 30 years in the NHS.
The WCA and the DLA/PIP assessment are supposed to be objective analysis of functional ability (yeah, I know) and if different rules apply to people based on who they are or why they’re claiming, then it’s discrimination, end of.
I think the army or MOD really need to support people who are left with physical and mental problems; they should be given whatever they need as they have become ill or disabled in the service of their country; I don’t think many people would argue with that.
The MOD’s inability to provide properly for ex-servicemen is a national disgrace – but it’s another argument entirely.
This is just another way to set us apart; and it’s reprehensible.
That was well said I think many people including myself are nervous of saying that but you are right any body else who was injured at work would get a no win no fee company to win them a huge compensation payout. But I am not sure army can do that as it must be part of what they sign up for. So the MOD should look after them properly no question
I agree with Ephemerid’s comment. This is a breach of discrimination law, and it should be fought on these terms. The idea is not to ask for these benefits to be taken away from soldiers, but on the contrary to be applied universally. I am wondering whether Cameron did not shoot himself in the foot in setting a minimum for benefit. The amount which is mentioned (£131) is clearly not compensation money. (‘Seriously injured troops will also be given a guaranteed disability payment worth around £131 a week under the reforms’.)
This is limited to injured forces with the most extreme of injuries ie double amputees, totally blind or totally deaf. All others injured in service must suffer the same bogus assessments as all others, and the assessments by Atos were first planned by Thatcher back in 1994 – see the website.
You’re right, of course, Mo.
it’s disgraceful – and there really should be a duty of care on the part of MOD to guarantee whatever support is needed, whether a little or a lot.
What concerns me here is that, once again, this government is separating the “deserving” from the “undeserving”, and using the plight of injured ex-services personnel to do it.
My family’s service skipped a generation – my father served in the RAF and my daughter does now, as you did – and whilst I feel very strongly that separate arrangements should be made for servicemen/women, as long as they are subjected to claiming ordinary benefits like the rest of us the rules must be the same for all.
The fact is that benefits are way too low anyway – had they kept pace with inflation since Thatchers day they’d be double what they are now. But they’re not, and everyone with no chouice other than to claim them has to go through the same demeaning and error-prone procedure and it’s the entire system that needs to change.
It is manifestly wrong to expect anyone – soldier, sailor, candlestick maker – to be subjected to this failed bio/psych/social model which has been deliberately imposed in order to deny disability and to enable successive governments to shirk their responsibilities to their most vulnerable citizens.
I don’t care much any more who started it all – the work that you, Mo, and others are doing is helping, so thank you.
I’m also pleased that the GP’s have finally expressed their concern about the WCA. Not before time.
It’s pretty clear that DLA is going the same way – the PIP descriptors are draconian.
I try not to despair but it’s bloody hard work to stay upbeat.
@Mo Stewart, What about the most extreme mental injuries ?
Yes, at last medical doctors are now boldly speaking out publicly against the unjust Work Capability Assessment. See this link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jul/02/abolish-harmful-work-credibility-test
Doctors exist to diagnose and treat disease. It is not good practice to have medical personnel acting instead as a tool of the state for political ends by finding ill people fit for work – the result is to bring the integrity of the medical profession into question.
The “not fit for purpose” Work Capability Assessment has its roots in the American insurance industry – once again to save money!! It has no place in clinical practice.
Apart from ATOS costing £100 million each year to run the WCA, it costs the Government (and the tax-payer) another £80 million to fund the subsequent appeals procedures!!
In response to “Jon Eldude” above, have you heard of the “Fixated Threat Assessment Centre”? No? Not a great surprise because it has not been very well publicised!
Have a read about it here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-457934/Revealed-Blairs-secret-stalker-squad.html
That report is from May 2007 – under Blair’s New Labour Government. Apparently, measures were in place to ensure people cannot be treated as mentally disordered on the grounds of their cultural, political or religious beliefs. Apparently!
There is a grave danger of the shadowy Fixated Threat Assessment Centre being used to deal with political dissent where insufficient evidence exists for criminal prosecutions.
Of course, it is all being done under the umbrella of anti-terrorist measures, but where have you heard that one before? Are you reassured?
Care is needed none the less when making threatening suggestions to kill political leaders, bankers and VIPs!
Talk of the Devil. The spectre of Tony Blair is back looking for a way to re-enter public life.
Blair does not believe in “hanging bankers at the end of the street” as the solution to the economic mess the country is in.
Read the report here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/9422096/Tony-Blair-hanging-bankers-wont-help.html
Blair certainly will not fall foul of the “Fixated Threat Assessment Centre” set up under his own government back in 2007 to deal with people who make threats to kill – but other peope might have different ideas on how to deal with Tony Blair!!
Incidentally, Tony Blair MP is an anagram of I’M A TORY PLAN B!!!
An economic plan B is badly needed, but who will be in favour of another round of TB at the helm?
Veteran Campaigner Gulf1 90-91 Multi Symptoms Illnesses(GWS as Government refers to it).This is the start off all pre 9/11 Veterans War Against recognition for our suffering due to no less than a War Crime committed under Tory’s watch in Guinea Pig trials in an illegal forces administration of a cocktail of drugs!Post 9/11 is being used by our Government of the day as their contribution to The Veterans Charter they fear being made law?Why not pay us Veterans in Treatment via D.L.A. AND War Pensions Awards to train alongside Veterans Champions in all areas of assistance to help others coming through much the same?Better The Devil You Know and all that?What Mr Cameron and IDS don’t realise is that their are a majority of Veterans on Benefits genuinely which out weigh those de-frauding the system because they know it so well.
This could work,once the powers that be accept the bigger picture and the fact one shoe doesn’t fit all.
This debate I fear will go on much like The Chillcot Enquiry,the millionaires and the jobs for the boys lot will benefit most and we the suffering in Silence will remain in stale-mate mode.
We need better representation on Political Committees,RBL(S)(W)(N.I.)as too in treatment centres across the country.
We were good enough to Serve,NOW SERVE US!!
For ALL FORGOTTEN VETERANS SUFFERING IN SILENCE AND IN FRAGMENTED THERAPIES/TREATMENTS!!
S.Colquhoun.Gulf Veteran Campaigner.
Slainte!
But Killer Miller says that PIP isn’t about the kind of disability (eg types of war injury) but the impact your disability has on your life.
Hi Johnny. This isn’t for posting, just something brilliant that I’ve read and I’m sure you will want to read it and maybe pass it on, if you haven’t already. It’s written by Chris Hedges on truth-out.org/opinion/item/10476-the-careerists and it’s an amazing piece.
By the way, I so enjoy reading your column. On numerous occasions I’ve laughed, punched the air in elation and even cried once, I love it.
Is there any end to the misery the sick and disabled face with the endless cycle of ATOS assessments?
Following hot on the heels of the flawed claim in the media about sickness benefit claimants’ being criminals, Chris Grayling launches the latest attack on the sick by saying “it’s in everybody’s interest that we get WCA right first time”, and he now wants to know the reasons why ATOS victims are winning appeals so the DWP can “improve standards of decsion making” – in other words how the DWP and ATOS can make even more people fail the WCA in the first place!
Presumably, that measure will save the £80 million being spent on the appeals procedure!
Read the relevant report here:
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/newsroom/press-releases/2012/jul-2012/dwp083-12.shtml
Some good news for ATOS victims:
http://www.ukdpc.net/site/news-archive/103-high-court-rules-work-capability-assessment-posted-26072012
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