Channel 4 programme about deaths on disability benefits

There's a programme on Channel 4 tonight at 1930, described thus in the Radio Times:

"Richard Butchins reports for Dispatches on a series of deaths, including suicide, by disabled benefits claimants, examining how failings by the Department of Work and Pensions may have contributed. He looks at findings from a survey into the impact on the mental health of claimants, and meets people who say they have lost loved ones as a result of the way the system is run."

I think that the programme will be viewable from here:

Truth About Disability Benefits: Dispatches - All 4 (channel4.com)

 

Someone on a different forum had received an email about this program and posted it. I'm not sure of source but I assume it is from the Disability News Service website:

 

My email about it was from benefits and work.

 

Oh, sorry. I guessed wrong then.

 

As I am not privy to emails other than my own I cannot make any judgement

 

The issue of the capability to work assessment is beginning to get renewed coverage with a lot more new claimants as a result of the pandemic who are only starting to understand how awful the system is now they are experiencing it for themselves.

But as with long covid, I suspect that it will be turned into a 'mental health issue' rather than one of incompetence and an abuse of power on the part of those administering the system.

 

In 2017 the UN did an Inquiry into the UK's DWP's alleged violations of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, concluding that

'The UK government has inflicted “great misery” on disabled people and other marginalised groups, with ministers in a state of “denial” about the impact of their policies, a UN human rights expert has concluded.'

'Professor Philip Alston (pictured), the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said disabled people had faced “endless problems” as a result of the government’s social security reforms.

And he said it was clear that there needed to be a better assessment of the impact of the government’s social security cuts and reforms, including any links to the deaths of people found unfairly fit for work.

He said work capability assessments that had found disabled people unfairly “fit for work” had caused “a huge cause of frustration and disbelief” and that he had no doubt that disabled people had been “hit particularly hard by the changes in the benefit system”.
Disability News Service 2018
https://www.disabilitynewsservice.c...as-inflicted-great-misery-on-disabled-people/




There is little evidence of the UK government making any significant improvements to DWP assessments of sick/disabled people, or even any credible response to the conclusions of the UN Inquiry of 2017.



Yesterday (16/12/2021) the Disability News Service reported:
'The government has been accused of publishing a “laughable” and unevidenced report that was supposed to provide an update on its progress since being accused in 2016 of “grave and systematic” violations of the UN disability convention.

The 10,500-word report by the government’s Disability Unit and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was quietly published last Thursday.

But instead of a detailed analysis of progress the UK government has made in addressing the violations in the last five years, the report appears instead to simply list a series of disability-related policies introduced in each area of violation, while ignoring evidence that suggests continuing breaches of the convention.

The UK government is supposed to update the UN’s committee on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD) every year on its progress in addressing the treaty violations, but it appears to have failed to produce a report in 2020.'
https://www.disabilitynewsservice.c...un-update-on-grave-and-systematic-violations/




It's hoped the Dispatches program (tonight, 7.30) will seriously publicise the terrible treatment of sick/disabled people by the UK benefits system and reach more people than the occasional national press report ever does.

 

I thought I would be able to watch this on Catch-up - I'm almost always cooking at 7.30pm. Guess what? It isn't available.

 

There is a very full iNews article based on the Dispatches program, with even more material than could be fitted into the documentary program itself (which was very clear and hard hitting).


'The truth about disability benefits: ‘People are killing themselves because of this system’
'In a shocking new documentary, Richard Butchins reveals the devastating toll it takes on people’s mental and physical health'

iNews
https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads..._Rs48NAOZj54dWq7Fx3j0WCYBkR3kYn1_t_r-kQPahDMQ

 

when the powers that be decide that cutting the benefits bill is so necessary to save public funds but then go on to create a parasitic partnership with at least 3 private companies that have swallowed over a billion in public funds . Ideology at its worse .

 

Unfortunately I doubt this is the worst they can do.

 

thread on the survey they did for the program

https://www.s4me.info/threads/uk-su...its-system-deadline-end-of-august-2021.22166/

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1471111429872836618



he might be interested in watching the latest 'Dialogues......'video
to see the origins of the bps approach and the capability to work assessment.

https://www.dialogues-mecfs.co.uk/films/the-tangled-story-of-me-cfs/

 

Does anyone know how to watch this program as it's not available? I don't have a TV and assumed it would be online.

 

I watched it a few hours ago on All4, it took them ages to put it online for some reason.