1. Sign our petition calling on Cochrane to withdraw their review of Exercise Therapy for CFS here.
    Dismiss Notice
  2. Guest, the 'News in Brief' for the week beginning 18th March 2024 is here.
    Dismiss Notice
  3. Welcome! To read the Core Purpose and Values of our forum, click here.
    Dismiss Notice

Channel 4 programme about deaths on disability benefits

Discussion in 'Work, Finances and Disability Insurance' started by MeSci, Dec 17, 2021.

  1. MeSci

    MeSci Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    4,441
    Location:
    Cornwall, UK
    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)
     
  2. Arnie Pye

    Arnie Pye Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    6,048
    Location:
    UK
    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:

     
    Michelle, Ariel, Ash and 8 others like this.
  3. Wonko

    Wonko Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    6,674
    Location:
    UK
    My email about it was from benefits and work.
     
    Ash, Sean, alktipping and 4 others like this.
  4. Arnie Pye

    Arnie Pye Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    6,048
    Location:
    UK
    Oh, sorry. I guessed wrong then.
     
  5. Wonko

    Wonko Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    6,674
    Location:
    UK
    As I am not privy to emails other than my own I cannot make any judgement ;)
     
  6. Sly Saint

    Sly Saint Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    9,574
    Location:
    UK
    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.
     
    Ash, Sean, alktipping and 4 others like this.
  7. Lou B Lou

    Lou B Lou Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    429
    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.
     
  8. Arnie Pye

    Arnie Pye Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    6,048
    Location:
    UK
    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.
     
  9. Lou B Lou

    Lou B Lou Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    429
    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



     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2021
    ukxmrv, Michelle, Ariel and 9 others like this.
  10. alktipping

    alktipping Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    1,197
    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 .
     
    JemPD, chrisb, ukxmrv and 8 others like this.
  11. Sean

    Sean Moderator Staff Member

    Messages:
    7,046
    Location:
    Australia
    Unfortunately I doubt this is the worst they can do. :grumpy:
     
    chrisb, Michelle, alktipping and 3 others like this.
  12. Sly Saint

    Sly Saint Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    9,574
    Location:
    UK
  13. Sly Saint

    Sly Saint Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    9,574
    Location:
    UK
  14. Ariel

    Ariel Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    1,055
    Location:
    UK
    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.
     
    alktipping and Peter Trewhitt like this.
  15. Adam pwme

    Adam pwme Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    624
    I watched it a few hours ago on All4, it took them ages to put it online for some reason.
     
    Ash, Wits_End, Lou B Lou and 10 others like this.

Share This Page