Disability Living Allowance will not be reduced. All claimants will be given medical assesments from 2013.
Initial thoughts: Introducing medical assesments for DLA initially seems sensible. But it is based on a flawed assumption that there are many people claiming DLA who either do not need it or who are abusing the system.
If medicals are carried out by well trained, experienced medical professionals who understand and crucially are allowed to take into account the affects of fluctuating conditions this may be sensible. However, it will be a costly mistake to reassess many lifetime award claimants who have conditions which will never improve and likely to continue to degenerate.
However, should medicals be carried out in a similar manner to those for Employment and Support Allowance by companies like ATOS origin any potential savings will be drowned out by the vast cost of appeals. That does not take into account the huge personal cost to traumatised claimants, who will be the most vulnerable as those few fraudulent DLA claimants simply do not care & will find another way to abuse the system.
My suspicion is that these proposed changes to DLA are coming from an idealogical rather than practical position and in the long term will actually be more costly on both financial and personal levels rather than introducing any economic savings.
Updated, 1558: There is a more detailed look at the changes to DLA in today's budget over at Arbitrary Constant
Updated; 18.44 One claimant details her experiences of 'medical assesment'
Updated; 19.40 Thoughts on today's budget announcements about DLA from a mental health claimaint
Updated 23.06.2010 DLA:Clearing up Confusion
See Me
What do you see, nurses, what do you see?
Are you thinking, when you look at me-
A crabby old woman, not very wise,
Uncertain of habit, with far-away eyes,
Who dribbles her food and makes no reply,
When you say in a loud voice - "I do wish you'd try"
Who seems not to notice the things that you do,
And forever is losing a stocking or shoe,
Who unresisting or not, lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding, the long day to fill.
Is that what you're thinking, is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse, you're looking at ME...
I'll tell you who I am, as I sit here so still;
As I rise at your bidding, as I eat at your will.
I'm a small child of ten with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters who love one another,
A young girl of sixteen with wings on her feet.
Dreaming that soon now a lover she'll meet;
A bride soon at twenty - my heart gives a leap,
Remembering the vows that I promised to keep;
At twenty-five now I have young of my own,
Who need me to build a secure, happy home;
A woman of thirty, my young now grow fast,
Bound to each other with ties that should last;
At forty, my young sons have grown and are gone,
But my man's beside me to see I don't mourn,
At fifty once more babies play 'round my knee,
Again we know children, my loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me, my husband is dead,
I look at the future, I shudder with dread,
For my young are all rearing young of their own,
And I think of the years and the love that I've known;
I'm an old woman now and nature is cruel
'Tis her jest to make old age look like a fool.
The body is crumbled, grave and vigor depart,
There is now a stone where once I had a heart,
But inside this old carcass a young girl still dwells,
And now and again my battered heart still swells.
I remember the joys, I remember the pain,
And I'm loving and living life over again,
I think of the years, all too few - gone too fast,
And accept the stark fact that nothing can last
So I open your eyes, nurses, open and see,
Not a crabby old woman, look closer, nurses - see ME!
This poem was found amongst the possessions of an elderly lady who died in a geriatric hospital ward. No information is known about who she was, or how she died. We could all see a little more when we look at people. Thank you @WirralMums for reminding me of this poem.
It's a message to remember; after all, one day we'll all be like Chuck or Aunty Betsy.
On Sunday, over lunch, the subject of Disability Living Allowance came up. I know, I know. I need to get out more. But see what happens when I do? In depth discussions about welfare reform. In a Harvester of all places. Which, by the way, did have a disabled toilet. It's just that it was locked so I couldn't take any photos for you. I was all out of 'traipsing around the pub to find a member of staff, to follow to another member of staff, to scratch both their heads about where the key might be' spoons. Must've been the welfare reform debate exhausting me.
It was lunch with an old friend from university. We both studied law and did reasonably well at mooting back in the day. It obviously made more of an impression on him than it did me as he now teaches law. Mind you, he wasn't the one who got touched up by a senior member of the judiciary. The thing about debating with legal-y types is that you better damn well know your stuff. Otherwise so many holes will be poked in your argument it'll sink without a trace before the starters arrive.
My friend was curious about Disability Living Allowance. 'Why', he asked, 'in a time of such financial crisis are we paying people just because they are disabled?' 'Surely there's no need for that payment when we have an NHS to provide medical care and local authorities to provide social care?'
Why indeed?
Disability Living Allowance is one of the most misunderstood and yet most practical and vital benefits we have in the welfare state. It is NON means tested, so it can be claimed by anyone who meets the required standards for needing assistance with either a care component or a mobility component.
My legal chum was curious, 'why would we pay rich people this benefit?'* The answer is that we probably don't, in all but a few, rare, cases. Disability is disability, regardless of income level. Whatever one does or doesn't earn, the additional costs arising from disability remain. Had the Cameron's wanted to detail their son's disabilities in the explicit and minute form demanded by the Department of Work and Pensions, Ivan Cameron would have been fully entitled to the highest levels of Disability Living Allowance, his parent's financial wealth has nothing to do with the level of disability he had*. That, and the costs arising from it would be the same whether his parents were on means tested benefits or multi millionaires. In fact, the costs of disability often rise once people are in employment as they require additional care and support to remain in work. 'What if I'm really greedy?' my friend asked 'and I have millions but still want to claim DLA?' I explained that if you meet the qualifying criteria you'd be entitled to DLA regardless of your income, but that if you already have plenty of money you'd be unlikely to want to fill out a form as thick as a novel, giving explicit details about every aspect of your life. How you pee and poop being no exception.
DLA is one, if not the most difficult benefit to claim as the qualifying criteria are so very strict. For example, to claim the higher rate care component a person must require help for at least an hour during the night, whether that hour is split up into separate periods of help or not. At least an hour a night, for at least 4, probably 5 nights every week. My frequent nightly jaunts to the toilet, dislocating as I go, which often mean falling over, or stumbling face first into a door frame at 4am were not considered enough to qualify for higher rate care. Nor was my airway collapsing sufficient reason for the DWP to think I required someone to watch over me at night.
That all made alot of sense to my friend, so we moved on, as the overall concept of the state paying people money because they are disabled still didn't quite make sense to him on a financial basis.
To answer that question I had to explain to my friend how the social and health care system in England works. There is an assumption by the wider public that disabled people receive all the support and services they need. That disabled people are provided with a nice little bungalow to live in, paid for by the state, given all the equipment they need by the NHS and endless streams of carer's provided by the local authorities. Occasionally this does actually happen, and not just on the pages of the Daily Mail, but for most disabled people life is a constant battle to receive any support, let alone the Holy Grail of support packages tailored to their needs.
Local authorities do provide some care, and without a full understanding of the system it's enticing to think that Disability Living Allowance is paying for that care twice. It's only once you fully understand the system that you realise, not only is DLA not paying for that care and support twice over, but in all likelihood it is saving the system a fortune in a similar fashion to the pittance paid in Carer's Allowance.
The care that local authorities provide is rationed. Again, that sounds good. Until you realise that rationing isn't designed to prevent lazy people exploiting the system. Most local authorities only provide care to those who's needs they define as being 'critical or substantial', and demand payment from the care component of DLA towards the funding. To give an overview of what those categories might mean, my needs are classified by the local authority as moderate, which means I am not eligible for any support.
So, as someone who can't even sneeze without dislocating a rib I don't receive any support from the local authority, the justification being that I can manage. And, to an extent I can. But I only manage because I receive DLA. The care component of DLA allows me to purchase support, and the mobility component to fund transport costs in whatever way I see fit. I use my DLA for things as diverse as paying someone to provide care, through to the additional heating I need to keep warm, pretty much year round, ready prepared food, physiotherapy or grocery shopping on the internet. At the moment I'm using my DLA to fund the cost of a mobility scooter and the costs of the adaptations needed to allow me to have that mobility scooter at home. Without DLA I would immediately lose my ability to cope by paying for these extras and have no choice but to throw myself on the mercies of the local authority. As would every other disabled person, and as most of us fall into the 'considered to be coping' category that would be an awfully high proportion of disabled people suddenly having to be admitted to hospitals until the local authorities could figure out some way of either providing the support they require or passing off the responsibility to the NHS. The NHS is already vastly overstretched and an influx of the million or so disabled adults suddenly unable to continue coping because their DLA had been removed would cause it to grind to a halt instantly.
My friend is an extremely astute, self made business man**, who immediately saw the potential consequences and crucially the potential financial impact of removing what could initially appear to be a surplus benefit. His final comment was to ask how people who don't have the benefit of higher education to enable them to understand the complexities of the system cope?
The deeply distasteful answer is simply; they don't.
*The Camerons did receive non means tested benefits in the form of Direct Payments towards Ivan's care package. This is because, unlike in adult social care, children's care packages are not means tested. David Cameron referred to this support in his 1st speech as PM
**And highest rate tax payer.
The Cherylee Houston interview which was aired on ITV's This Morning show last week is now available to view with sound as well as pictures. Thanks to This Morning for fixing the sound!
If you've ever wondered what I mean by a characteristic bendy movement, just watch Cherylee's body language and you'll be able to see. Cherylee talks about having Hypermobility Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and fibromyalgia as well as what might be happening with her Coronation Street character, Izzy.
