News Benefits and Work
PUBLISHED: 30 APRIL 2024
The DWP has suggested replacing PIP with a catalogue or a shop in the Green Paper on personal independence payment (PIP) reform published yesterday. The department also asks people to choose whether it is more important that disabled people have money for food or money for medication.
Modernising Support for Independent Living: The Health and Disability Green Paper was published yesterday and is accompanied by an online consultation survey which the DWP say they want as many disabled people and other interested parties as possible to complete (see links at the end of this article).
Different type of assessment
In the first section of the consultation, readers are asked for their view on whether some claimants with medical evidence of specific health conditions should get PIP without any assessment at all.
Your opinion is also requested on whether only claimants with “evidence or a formal diagnosis by a medical expert” should be awarded PIP.
You are then asked to explain how to prevent the requirement for a formal diagnosis from a medical expert having an impact on the NHS – because it will undoubtedly mean a great deal more demands on consultants’ time.
Changes to eligibility
In the second section the DWP want to know whether the need for aids and appliances and for prompting should score PIP points.
They also question whether someone who get a lot of low scoring descriptors should be eligible for PIP at all.
And whether any PIP activities should be removed or any new ones added.
Finally, you are asked whether the current three month qualifying period and nine month forward test should be changed.
Meeting extra costs of disability
The consultation explains that PIP contributes towards the extra costs of disability. It asks people which are the most important needs that should addressed – suggesting that not all of them can be.
Respondents are asked to rank in importance from 1 to 10, such items as:
Medications and medical products
Additional food costs
Additional energy and utility costs
Additional housing costs
So, people really are being asked to decide if it is more important that disabled people get their medication, eat properly or heat their homes.
The same section asks people to list the benefits and disadvantages of moving to a new system for PIP claimants, which could be:
A catalogue/shop scheme
A voucher scheme
A receipt based system
One-off grants
The consultation then goes on to ask if there are people who, instead of cash, would benefit more from improved access to support or treatment, for example:
respite care,
mental health provision
physiotherapy
This does raise the question as to whether benefits claimants would get different/better/faster access to things like NHS counselling and physiotherapy? Or whether they will be pushed onto short courses provided by private sector contractors hired by the DWP?
Passing PIP costs on to the NHS and local authorities
The final section asks some very bizarre questions about NHS and local authority provision, which most people would imagine the government would be better able to answer than the average member of the public. For example:
“Which of the following do local authorities or the NHS help with?”
Equipment and aids
Medical products
Personal assistance (eg. help with household tasks)
Health services
Social care
The purpose of the questions, however, is clearly to sound out how much support there would be for pushing much of the cost of PIP onto the already desperately overstretched NHS and local councils.
What this Green Paper is really about
Modernising Support for Independent Living: The Health and Disability Green Paper is supposed to be a Green Paper setting out serious, carefully considered proposals for reform of PIP.
Instead it is a ragbag of random, cruel and foolish ideas thrown together by the DWP to serve the political needs of the Conservative Party, without any likelihood of any of them being acted upon.
The Green Paper is simply intended to make the current administration look tough on claimants whilst goading the opposition into speaking out against it, thereby supposedly making them look soft on welfare.
The fact that it is causing enormous distress to many disabled claimants and their carers, as is clear from the comments sections on this site and elsewhere, is of no concern to the DWP or the Conservative Party.
At Benefits and Work, we don’t believe that this Green Paper will ever form the basis of new legislation.
However, we do think it is important that readers who feel able to, do take part in the consultation.
It’s important that whoever forms the next government understands the strength of feeling against dismantling the disability benefits system and instead concentrates on dismantling the department that was cruel enough to publish these proposals.
You can download Modernising Support for Independent Living: The Health and Disability Green Paper
You can take part in the online consultation, which closes on 22 July 2024. You are not asked to give your name or any other personal details.
Or you can email your response to: consultation.modernisingsupport@DWP.GOV.UK