The body of a disabled man was found in his flat in distressing, squalid conditions, just weeks after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) wrongly removed his disability benefits because he had failed to return a claim form.
His sister, his only surviving close relative, believes he may have been left without enough credit on his phone to call for help, while he had not had enough money to fix his broken mobility scooter.
Susan believes the wrongful removal of his personal independence payment (PIP) played a significant part in his death.
She told Disability News Service (DNS): “He was already on the breadline, so I think it would have been devastating for him.”
She also believes DWP failed to make the necessary safeguarding checks before removing his PIP.
She has now warned that the death of her much-loved brother must act as a warning of the horrors to come if the government goes ahead with its planned £4.5 billion cuts to PIP.
Even if he had been able to return the forms, there’s a chance he wouldn’t have got it.
I used to do a load of reconsideration and appeals for work and the ignorance of the decision makers is staggering.
One claim was denied, among other reasons, because my client could play a guitar. Another client, with epilepsy, was told that he didn’t need supervision when showering, as he should just sit down in the shower to mitigate injury from seizures.
I found they ignored what we put in the form so frequently that it wasn’t worth doing more than the bare minimum and instead putting the work into the reconsideration.
This poor man had nobody to fight for him, but the system should not be set up so that so many people have to fight. I don’t believe anyone with any cognitive or learning impairment, or mental health condition, would be able to go through the application process without support; it’s that difficult.
And I would put money on them reinstating it after hearing of his death. The shit I have seen them pull, I think it’s likely.
i don’t understand why admin workers are so consistently horrible, you’re literally just dealing with documents and you can’t be arsed to just err on the side of caution to save lives? come on
Their bosses give them targets for denying as much in benefits as they can. The front line workers are traumatised by their own actions and tend to develop unhealthy coping strategies. One of those strategies is dehumanising claimants but there are many other terrible strategies.
When I was made unemployed a few years ago, I didn’t make any benefit claims in order avoid having contact with the DWP.
Brutal read. Needing people that can’t even walk to the mailbox to fill out 24 page forms, and them posthumously reinstating his PIP to try and appear as them having done “the right thing” is also so incredibly sleazy.
You can see the character of a society by how they treat their most vulnerable.
The hippocracy and ableism in these organisations is so utterly disgusting.
