Labour's backdoor changes to welfare : ((

If your money was likely to be reduced I doubt you'd be in favour of "reform". You're just echoing politicians and proving their success in pandering to popular opinion.

People often claim for more than one disability so it is not possible to state with certainty "There is a high percentage of pip and UC claiments just claiming for anxiety and depression alone".

Even if you are correct, these psychiatric conditions often have a neurological base and can therefore be lifelong and as crippling as most physical conditions, some of which are curable.

From my perspective, living most of my with a progressive and extremely painful physical condition, the current emphasis on "social barriers" is wrong and insulting. What disables me is not society but a medical condition that can only get worse as the decades tick on. Yet having had a lifelong award of DLA ceased and, at some expense to the state, replaced by an ongoing award of PIP, I'm going to have to go through it all again as I'm getting older and more disabled.

I very much doubt that the forum user with the dental issues will be found eligible for PIP unless they have other disabling conditions.

interesting as I received a letter today about agreeing a plan back to work. I am on 21 pills a day and will be lucky to make retirement age which is not far away

I remember them, they were saying their false teeth were technically prosthetics, without which they couldn't feed themselves.

A few questions & observations @rubin16

1. Why can't the county survive without further welfare reform? Austerity has always been a political choice.
2. How would you survive were your DWP income to be cut or stopped?
3. Although you're right to say that anxiety and depression are high on the list of conditions claimed for, these conditions may not be a claimant's *primary* condition.
4. Yes. We ought to be funding NHS mental health (and physical health) care but until a claimant gets better they need financial support. The NHS is so run down that it will take decades to offer health care for disabled people. The only other option is to push people into "treatment" by inappropriate DWP/ 3rd party funkies.

I lost someone because he took his own life due to depression in 2008, when I read nonsense like "it's a put on for benefits" it really annoys me. Let me get this straight Depression was verified as an incapacity for work long before 2010 when the Equalities Act came in place.

The Media and Politicians have fuelled this witch hunt against Depressives after Covid where the isolation, lockdowns, fear, the losing of loved ones directly effecting the minds of younger people.

More investment within the NHS mental health teams would help, more team skills building, voluntary community work, just to be outside to try to communicate with others face to face in a positive light helps.

"Duty to engage" remember those words from last year? Engagement will ultimately have tiers be it from face to face meetings, to phone calls to emails, twice weekly, monthly, quarterly ect. This is where it's going especially when Labour phase out LCWRA and LCW.

Bright side is that this will be voluntary for the time being.

do not understand what LCWRA is.