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Ministers have been accused of ignoring a public consultation and ploughing ahead with plans that will make their “fitness for work” testing regime even more stressful and unfair for sick and disabled people. A presentation delivered by two senior Department for […]
Nearly half of disabled people subject to “planned reviews” of their eligibility for the government’s new disability benefit are having their existing award either cut or removed completely, according to new figures obtained by Disability News Service (DNS). The unpublished Department […]
Ministers have been forced to scrap a drastic change to benefit rules that meant seriously ill claimants found unfairly “fit for work” were no longer allowed to take an extended period of sickness absence, even if they had a sicknote from […]
A local authority is to hear evidence from up to a dozen disabled people later this month as part of an inquiry into serious concerns about the system of assessing eligibility for the government’s new disability benefit. Stoke-on-Trent City Council launched […]
One of the outsourcing giants paid to assess disabled people for their eligibility for benefits appears to have admitted that it is standard practice – approved by the government – to ask claimants with mental health conditions why they failed to […]
Calls for government cuts to disability benefits to be reversed are likely to be debated separately – and voted on – by both Houses of Parliament later this month. The amendments to personal independence payment (PIP) regulations were announced last month […]
Nearly nine in 10 Citizens Advice offices have reported problems with the accuracy of personal independence payment (PIP) assessment reports, MPs have been told. An urgent session of the Commons work and pensions select committee was hearing evidence from four welfare […]
A group of nine disabled people with the same rare neurological condition have written to MPs to warn of “systemic malpractice” by healthcare professionals who carry out benefit assessments and then write “fraudulent reports” for the government. The nine who signed […]
The announcement of billions of pounds of cuts to the government’s new disability benefit is a discriminatory attack on people with mental health problems, will push many of them further into poverty and isolation, and will put lives at risk, say […]
There are fresh calls for an inquiry into the way the government assesses eligibility for a key disability benefit, after claimants with mental health conditions described how they had been asked in assessments why they had not taken their own lives. […]