Incapacity Benefit........Your views please?

Question

I get yearly tested for incapacity benefit and each medical has proved that I am not capable of taking a job, although I'd love to. IF genuine claimants like myself ARE forced into a job, what employers are going to put up with someone whos condition forces them to go to bed because they are in so much pain or whos medication makes them very drowsy?, this applies to me and I have yet another two major operations still to come. No two days are the same for me. A woman from the job centre called and when I explained everything, she even said there was nothing they could do for me. It's so fustrating having to fill out the incapacity form every year, then having to travel miles away for the medical by a doctor who doesn't know you from adam!! By the time I got there (Glasgow), I was so ill, that I nearly ended up in hospital that night!! Surely for claimants like myself, there could be a simple condition update form, and have your medical in your home town, I don't think that is asking too much from the government. Would love to know what other genuine claiments think? Yes we are out there and are treated like c**p. Yes I do agree there ARE benefit scroungers with nothing wrong with them, but me and many others are NOT.

Answer 1

I know somebody who gets Incapacity Benefit and there is nothing wrong with him that a job wouldn't cure. He's a typical scrounger and does do work on the side. Neighbours have reported him and he gets away with it every time. I think this is what makes people so mad. It's the likes of him that gives genuine people like yourself a bad name. I hope that your health improves and you feel better.

Answer 2

I put a claim in for Incapacity Benefit as I was due to go into hospital to have a total hip replacement.  I had to attend for a medical (2 months after claiming Incapacity Benefit) I informed the doctor who was supposed to examine me.  The examination consisted of me getting onto the bed and he lifted my left leg and told me to get up!!!!! ugggh it was my right hip, he was more interested in the fact that I have a 3 bedroom house, 1 bathroom and a toilet downstairs!!! He considered me fit for work!!! Incapacity Benefit was suspended I had to appeal, this was 2 weeks prior to my operation.  4 weeks after my operation the Job  Centre Plus requested I attend "to get back to work" are they in the real world.  They should concentrate on all those claimants who have nothing wrong with them and receive every benefit under the sun!!! I agree get all the scroungers off benefits and get them into work and for the many genuine cases give them the support they deserve.  

You can request a closer medical appointment venue and don't forget to claim your expenses, something I was unaware!!

Good luck x

Answer 3

I am in the same position and I agree with you 100%

My local Job centre Plus office are very helpful,  they admit that their hands are tied by bureaucracy, it,s the DWP that are the complete numptys, they have no interest in listening to the fact that you cannot travel and are made ill by being forced to journey an hour or more to get there, then are kept waiting for another hour to see a Doctor who gets paid per patient, so, there for your interview lasts about 15 Min's if you are lucky.

Contact your Job centre Plus office they can advise you if there is an office nearer to home in which any medical exam can take place, if there is then it is your right to request that you go to the nearer place.

Answer 4

good luck, but the unfortunate fact is that while others are taking the mick very few people will take the real cases like yours seriously. i have lots of sympathy cos i dont like injustice but hate scroungers.

Answer 5

The welfare state is dead. In this day and age, you're expected to work an 8-hour job regardless of your mental and physical incapacities and if you don't find a job, you'll be severely penalized by having your benefits slashed or removed altogether and left to fend for yourself. This is called 'workfare'.

The main theme of the new Welfare Reform Act (2007) is 'not what you can't do, but what you can do'. It's focussed directly on getting as many people on IB like yourself, deliberately ignoring your sickness or disability and tailoring your 'competences' to a job which some random moron thinks you are capable of performing. Which is utterly ridiculous.

Empathy, compassion and understanding for the needs of the weakest members of society no longer prevails in the mindsets of the policymakers. Today's world is all about punishing those not strong enough to survive without help.

Answer 6

Lots of people have been fiddled onto the sick by the benefit office to get them off the unemployment stats.  This has been happening for years.  One million unemployed but five million on the sick.  It is just part of Labour's smoke and mirrors.  

Answer 7

I think that you should apply for Disability Living Allowance as you sound very incapacitated, please ring the benefits office.

Don't worry too much about this government initiative, no one knows how it will work, no one will be forced to work if they are as sick as you are, the benefits office have to sound tough as they get payment on results, please please don't worry, if it cam to getting a job no employer would take you on until you are better, the government have ignored this angle when forming the policy.