The guidelines to Personal Independence Payments

The Department of Works and Pensions have released the a guidance document for providers carrying out assessments for Personal Independence Payment. (You can find it here)  It started well, it was produced on the 22 January 2013, yet it took two days before they corrected a glaring error, it was dated 22 January 2012!

It includes, at long last Governmental recognition for the requirements to state Safely, Acceptably, Repeatedly and In a timely manner.  The one draw-back, there is no real definition of "Timely".  They give an example of someone walking 200 metres in four minutes and say that "although a little slower than normal, this is a reasonable time period for someone to walk this distance and therefore he can complete the activity in a timely manner."

Erm, my calculations based on the average walking speed for hikers tells me that a fit person should cover four and a half kilometres an hour, says that a fit person should cover 200 metres in about 2 minutes forty seconds. Four minutes is One and a Half times this (OK 1.53 times). So is that reasonable?

I would get worried, when manning checkpoints for cadets, if they were five minutes late for a 4.5km stretch of walking, half an hour late and I would have almost been calling the police for helicopter back-up! 

On top of the time problem there's one of my little bug-bears,

The STRIVER Factor.

Disabled people are not Skivers, Mr Osborne, if they have to get one hundred and fifty metres up the road to charge their gas card or electricity key they WILL do it.  They will then walk back the 150m to the meters and plug the card and key in to get heat in the winter.

They may take 30 minutes to do this, they may be stuck in bed for the rest of the day, curled up in agony, in tears and sky high on pain killers - but they WILL do it as they HAVE to.  Disabled people do not give in and surrender, it takes a lot for a disabled person to give in, after all they have been fighting for a long time to survive, and they will keep fighting. 

So why do Messers Duncan Smith, Osborne, Hoban and Ms McVey seem to think that the Disabled are valid targets under their, now defunct, blanket Skivers and Strivers Attack?

The Work Capability Assessment and the proposed Personal Independance Payment Assessment restrict the disabled person to a minute distance of 20 metres for high level payment and hence the Blue Badge for disabled drivers will be taken from people who can force themselves to walk further than that distance.  Oh and they still won't be fit for work.

I know that personally, suspension of DLA means that my car is hanging in the balance. I lose my car, I lose my ability to get to work (if  had a job), let alone actually work when there!  Why they have to fix a benefit that needs sorting, without a sensible fix, just a plan that two months before it starts is not ready, I do not know.

What's wrong at Westminster?

I spent a couple of mind numbing hours today watching the BBC Parliament feed covering the Backbench business debate brought by the Labour MP Michael Meacher.

Mind numbing? Yes, here were about twenty seven MPs from a variety of political parties, the majority standing up for those that cannot stand.  A lot of sad tales, I can't bear to use the word story, about disabled people some expected to travel overnight and sleep on a railway station platform for a connecting train.  People expected to go to meetings to prepare them for a return to a job that they had been invalided out of on health grounds!

All the stuff about the damage done by the incorrect reports that AtoS sent to the DWP and errors in judgement by the DWP Decision Makers, going on and on.  It was getting depressing, hearing so many bad news tales.  It was difficult listening through the accents of the various MPs, but I persevered.

Then with about ten minutes to go, having been hidden for the first half of the debate, the Minister for Work and Pensions, Mark Hoban, gets up and says, in effect, "I don't believe what you say, there's no way people can have been so depressed that they killed themselves.  Oh and there's nothing wrong with the Work Capability Assessments or AtoS."

He goes on to say that Decision Makers were able to take variability into account, so that if you are good today but bad tomorrow, you would be able to claim ESA.  I have it, in writing from a Decision Maker that he was NOT allowed to take into account variations in my condition caused by climate!

What a flaming plonker the Minister sounded!  Had he even been in the House for the first half when MPs were telling of people in my situation where AtoS got it totally wrong, passed on their report to the Decision Maker who, working on incorrect information gaily decides that the claimant doesn't need money and that they are fit for work.

Michael Meacher in his summary said he had never seen a debate where such cross party agreement occurred.  If Mark Hoban came out into the real world and looked at a few diverse blogs, fora (forums, for those that like incorrect plurals) and information websites, he'd realise that every lie he has been fed by his master was another nail in the coffins of disabled people.

Mr Hoban, Ms McVey (at some conference today), Ms Amber Rudd (my MP), if you've got a chance, look at:

http://calumslist.org/
http://wearespartacus.org.uk/
http://thehardesthit.wordpress.com/
http://fullfact.org/

And then there's blogs like:
http://benefitscroungingscum.blogspot.co.uk/
http://thebrokenofbritain.blogspot.co.uk/

[Addition: I am running low on energy today and forgot the main point I wanted to make]

I believe that the method of debating in the House of Commons is flawed, two to three hours of questioning and then the Minister has five minutes to reply to all questions asked.  It should be more like Prime Minister's Questions:

The MP for Someplace asks a question, with others asking to add in, and sits.
The Minister/Secretary of State/Prime Minister answers the question and we move on to the next question.

That to me is a debate, not ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, answer.

Seven Seconds...

Back in the 1990's Neneh Cherry and Youssou N'Dour recorded a song called Seven Seconds, basically the song talks of the fact that every seven seconds a child is born into this world.  That child does not care about the colour of it's skin or the language or religion of it's parents.  That child does not care whether mum or dad or big brother or big sister is disabled, either through the hand of fate or the hand of man.

While floating around the video jukebox that is YouTube looking for something totally unrelated with that song, I came across a video blog recorded by a young girl named Emily Perry from the USA (I think that was an American accent).  This awesome young lady had had a debate in her classroom that day about whether "People with disabilities are less valuable to society than "Normal" people".  Young Emily has disabilities in her family so she obviously argued against the subject. 

She stood up against the rest of the class as they were arguing that disabled people should be culled first if there was a global catastrophe.  She stood alone in a room of her peers baying for blood.  She alone stood up for those who could not stand up for themselves.

You can find Emily's video here.

This young lady is an example of why I cannot give up on young people. There is good in most of them, it is just their parents and families that give them the wrong slant on life. 

One of Emily's detractors annoyed me so much that I had to comment.  He, like so many people (yes, I am looking at those in the Palace of Westminster!) forget that it takes a split second to go from "Normal" to "Disabled".  Christopher Reeve, the actor that played Superman in three films, was a fit active man who went riding one day and was in a wheelchair on a ventilator for the rest of his life. 

He went from Normal to broken and it only took a millisecond.

The time it took to fall from a horse to the ground...

less than a second,

less than one thousandth of a second to separate his spinal cord and spend the next nine years tied to a machine to do his breathing for him. 

One seven thousandth of the space between two babies being born into the world on average.

And once about fifteen years ago, one of those seven second intervals produced an angel.  Would that there were more angels like Emily in this world that would get up and stand up for those of us that can't stand.  People who would get up and shout out about the injustices done to those of us who can't shout.

It's strange how looking for something that said I was overlooked by my fellow man should lead to a connection between a wonderful young lady and babies being born.  This world is a STRANGE place.

Oh and for the entertainment value, 7 Seconds by Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry

The Death Sentence Arrives.

It arrived yesterday, with an ominous slap on the floor by the front door.  A small brown envelope from Belfast!  OK, unsuspecting, I opened it. 
 
It took me thirty minutes to read and re-read it.
 
"Dear Mr Turtle" it starts, how dare they!  Also, if I was dear to them they wouldn't have done this to me!
 
"I decided to look at your DLA again to make sure you are getting the right money" - No you didn't you looked at it again because I failed the ESA assessment and appealed!
 
Some how, without the knowledge of my GP they looked at "Current Treatment, Medication, Symptoms and Test Results"  How you could have looked at the blood tests I've had in the last three months without consulting my GP?
 
"You can walk:

• About 130 metres
• Slowly
• In a reasonable manner" 

Where did they get 130 metres? I'd never use a weird figure like that and if I walk 30 metres I'm in pain, as I told the Health Care Professional and wrote on my assessment form. 
 
Slowly, yes, because I'm in pain.
 
In a reasonable manner?  What, 2 minutes to walk 100 metres is reasonable?  What is a reasonable manner?
 
Do they ask if, after walking that distance, I have to sit or lie down for at least an hour to recover?  No.
 
Do they ask if, after walking that distance, I can get to sleep at night because of the pain? No
 
Question: where do the government get these silly figures from?  The new High Rate Mobility distance (i.e. the worst people can't do it) will be 20m.  Shorter than the length of the House of Commons from "the Bar" to the Despatch boxes.  Shorter than the length of a cricket pitch.  Shorter than the length of a "bendy"  bus.  It's the width of the steps in Trafalgar Square!
 
The next level is 50m - walk further than that and No Mobility Mate!  50m the distance from the side of Trafalgar Square to the centre of Nelson's Column.  Less than the distance from the gate to the pitch at Lords!  20m less than the length of the walk down Downing Street to Number 10!
 
So, Iain Duncan Smith and his cronies have decided that if you can't walk down Downing Street to hand in your petition, you can't deliver it!
 
Next bit on the "Let's meet our quota", oops sorry, Decision;
 
"Preparing a cooked meal
 
You don't ned help to: 

• Use a cooker
• use kitchen tools
• carry and lift safely 

Although you have difficulty with standing, you can sit from time to time when cooking a meal for one person."

Ex-squeeze me, her over there exists, I'm married, it's a meal for TWO!

You expect me to sit and stir pans of food at eye-level?  What does the Health and Safety Executive say about that? Oh, just tried it, can't lift my arm high enough to stir a pan sitting down!

Erm, Carrying safely while cooking, NO, I have difficulty getting a pan of pasta off the cooker to the sink to drain it!  Lift the kettle? Only just, more than enough water to fill two mugs means I have to slide the kettle across the work-top and tilt the kettle to pour it.  Did they ask this? NO.  Can I lift a pint of milk, just, but talk to she-who-must-be-obeyed and she'll tell you I spill more than I pour when I use a small carton like a pint.  A litre, just right for sliding and tipping.


Then comes the biggest shock - "I can't consider any of the following:

• Walking on Slopes or uneven surfaces
• weather conditions"

HANG ON SUNSHINE!!!  Walking on slopes can't be considered, have you seen a contour map of Hastings?  Put your hand on the table, imagine the finger tips all edged up to the sea so your arm is actually north, and you see Hastings.  Five hills connected at the North end by "The Ridge", the name of the road along the ridge top.

Weather Conditions?  Have you never suffered from arthritis?  Oh, no, I forgot you work for the DWP so you would have had to pass a medical to get in there as your masters are senior members of the Eugenics Society!  Cold, wet weather makes it worse, medically proven fact. 

They got it right in 2007, but changed their minds in 2012 as I have obviously got better, how, I'd love to know! 

Oh, "Clinical examination shows: ... He has slightly reduced left knee bending... ability to lift straight left leg while lying down was reduced due to low back pain!"  NO, reduced due to Knee Pain!

"In his statement of a typical day to the Approved Disability Analyst (who I've never seen, unless the Human Cull Participant was him) Mr Turtle states gets out of bed despite joint problems and back problems"  Back problems? Where? When?

I tell you one thing, the person that wrote the "Reason for Decision" never went to a decent school, his grammar is attrocious!  Someone in the line of decision was in cloud cuckoo land, in my opinion!

Strangely, when I telephoned the Darling Wonderful People, I asked what planet their staff were on and whether the Hopeless Can't Practice person from the Acceleration to Suicide group had reported on me or someone else?  I naturally said "Add me to the 70% of people who appeal your decisions, thank you very much indeed"!

If it wasn't for Mrs T and my grand-daughters, calums list might have a new entry.  I am that desperate, it's earth shattering, I don't know how I'm going to be able to get to my appeal if I have to go to Eastbourne when/if it comes up.

Foot in Mouth Syndrome

We've all done it, opened our mouths before putting our brain into gear. I've done it plenty of times myself, both vocally and online, it's very easy to do. The big thing is, I'm not a minister in the Government, and they should know better than to spurt out idiotic comments anywhere near journalists or in the house where it is reported.

What has Iain Duncan Smith gone and done now? The minister for the Department of Work and Pensions has only gone and said that ...

"Figures ... show jobless benefits rose 20% in the last five years, compared with an average 12% rise in private sector pay."

So, here comes the mathematics lesson.

Your basic pay (using the minimum wage and a working week of 35 hours) is £216.65
So 12% raise on this is £26 per week.

Personal Allowance rate is £71

And 20% of £71 is £14.20 pw;

Who has the bigger rise?

OK, I will allow that full rate High Care and Mobility components give you £131.50 and a 20% rise of that is £26.30 but this is a 20% average rise.

As Leonard H. Courtney, (1832-1918), later Lord Courtney, said in a speech in New York in 1895.

After all, facts are facts, and although we may quote one to another with a chuckle the words of the Wise Statesman, "Lies - damn lies - and statistics," still there are some easy figures the simplest must understand, and the astutest cannot wriggle out of.

So let's look at the real figures. I got so locked in to all the Minister's 8%s (the difference between Wages and Benefits, the 8% Working Tax increase that he quoted as 58% and the 8% of Foreign Claimants that were fraudulent) that I used 8 years not 5.

I looked around the net for four sets of figures, and rather than using percentages alone, I thought I'd add in the ACTUAL cash difference in each case.

The results are amazing and do, sort of, bear out his figures, the average wage rose by 13% and benefit rose by 28% (politicians always round up anything over 0.5 and down if it's under).  However, and here's the big shock, the Pound In Your Pocket change was five and a half times MORE for the worker than the "Scrounger".  In fact, their money went up by the total of what the benefit claimant gets a year.

 

	2004	2012	£ Change	% Change
Average Wage	£25,780.00	£  29,157.00	£  3,377.00	13.10%		(a)
Benefit	£ 2,299.41	£    2,936.25	£     636.84	27.70%		(b)

 

(a) Figures from www.ons.gov.uk

(b) Figures from www.ifs.org.uk  

 

So then we look at the other BIG winners over the past eight years, the Members of Parliament themselves.  I know "Call Me Dave" has made them take an actual pay cut this year, but I have this strange feeling they can afford it!

 

For, in the past eight years the basic backbencher has had their income from the House raised by £8,273, two and a half times that of the average worker! Even the percentage is higher at 14%. 

 

The thing you really need to sit down for is ... the honourable(?) member for Woodford Green and Chingford, Mr. Iain Duncan Smith has had a pay rise of ... wait for it ... ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FOUR PERCENT!!!!!!

 

	2004	2012	£ Change	% Change
MP	£57,485.00	£  65,758.00	£  8,273.00	14.39%		(c)
Iain Duncan Smith	£57,485.00	£134,565.00	£ 77,080.00	134.09%		(c)

(c) Figures from www.parliament.uk

 

 

Seventy Seven Thousand pounds per year increase!  That's two and a half times the average workers gross pay in a rise!  Kettles being called black by certain pots methinks!

 

Now I know we are struggling for money in the country, but hang on a minute Mr George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave "strivers" a tax cut (before capping their Working Tax Credit), I thought the idea was to make money, not throw it out?

Hysterical History

I've been asked why I mentioned the demon in the Chain Theory, the best answer is to explain about the first Demon to enter our house.  OK, this may be OLD history, but it's not as old as some things, like Henry VIII or the Romans, but close.

Let's start by taking you back about 18 years to early 1995. I had been divorced for a couple of years and thinking that my pension would be a Single Person Pension (alright I was only 32), when I met Sally, it was through her daughter that we met. Christina had said to her mum,

"I'm not always going to be around, you need to find someone to look after you. 

There's three people I know might fit the bill, the first's a Male Chauvinistic Pig, so no, not him. 

The second is a bit young so, no. 

Mr Turtle, he's the one, you should go out with him!" 

Good logical thinking from a 12½ year old! The only problem, we'd been seeing each other for a week before the night my daughter chose her dad. Oh, and yes, I take every opportunity to remind her that she chose me as her dad!

Oh My God! I realise I’ve been putting up with the wife for a long time, but I had forgotten what we went through in the early days (He lied! I hadn’t forgotten, just repressed it as we all do with horrible memories.)

My darling wife, was diagnosed with bowel cancer thirty years ago, long before I knew her and, just after we started going out together she was given the chance of life saving surgery to fit, what was then a revolutionary idea, an ileo-anal pouch, in effect an internal ileostomy. This pouch was going to change our lives in such a BIG way… well, let me tell you in the words I used in the newsletter of the Red Lion Group (the support group set up by patients of St Mark's Hospital) back in February 1997:

 “Do I have the operation or not?” - a brilliant question to be asked less than two months into a relationship! I will agree that for married couples this question might not cause too many easy nights, but I had only just started going out with Sally!

So there I was, mid-33, not quite realising how much I felt for this thirty-five-year-old divorcee, and, thanks to a cousin in Lewisham, “commuting” to Northwick Park every day! (Who could have expected that within one short week, I would have been on the receiving end of every one of her bodily fluids?

The next moment having hardly got to know the girl, she starts off by vomiting all over the floor of the ward...with me in the firing line! By day four blood, urine and faeces had been added to the list along with copious tears on the shoulder!

Still, as the nursing staff agreed when they found out how long we had been together, I must be a godsend. (I don’t know if I agree with that?)

Once we had got over the one-part operation which went slightly astray (the nurses realising that things weren’t quite right when a shout of “Get lost, you don’t care about me!” was sent in my direction), we made the not-so-short journey back home to Hastings along with an unexpected ileostomy bag. Isn’t it strange, you don’t realise how hilly your home town is until you start pushing someone in a wheelchair? Thank heavens for my experiences at Lourdes in the 80s, but then, in Lourdes, things are adapted for wheelchairs. Hastings is not wheelchair friendly, like most UK towns and cities. {Please remember this was late 1990's}

It does make a change when, in planning things from the complex day out to the simple shopping trip, you start trying to visualise in your mind the shortest , quickest routes to “ friendly ” shops or public conveniences that you can get into easily!

So, a piece of advice to the partners of both pre- and post-pouch patients. Get a map of your home town, mark the shops or cafés with accessible toilets and get in touch with the Red Cross for assistance with a wheelchair until your partner is able to walk easily.

Finally find the best taxi firm (and this includes price, assistance and willingness to break the speed limit) if you don’t have your own car, and remember: others have gone through this. I coped - so can you. By the way, Sally and I are getting married on May 14 next year! {And somehow, we're still together!}

And from Summer 1999:-

As experienced pouch-pairs will know only too well, the first few months of coping with the new addition can be sheer hell. This food goes straight through, that food slows it all up too much. And as for beer... Ha!!!! For someone as stubborn as my wife Sally (her description, not mine), it is a big change having to restrict the diet. For someone as adventurous in the kitchen as I am (and he is a good cook - Sally) it’s the biggest challenge possible.

The change from being brought up knowing when you need to go to the loo to suddenly needing “nappies” just in case can be downright degrading. Soiling the bed or your clothes, without having felt the need to go, can bring the Demon Depression flying out of its hiding place!

That’s the Demon, creeping up behind you and jumping out just when you didn’t expect it and it does not just aim itself at the pouch owner but targets the spouse-of-pouch as well. Still, as Sally keeps reminding me in the long gaps between the Demon’s appearances - .It lives with you, not you with it!

Still, having got the Demon firmly put into its rightful place (buried about two miles deep on the surface of Pluto preferably), you then have to look into feeding the pouch. I am sure that many of you will have discovered that "pouch" actually stands for Permanently Open Unfillable Constant Hunger, because of the little but often method of feeding needed to satisfy this creature seldom encountered out of the tight-knit social group in which it lives.

First, take a very minimalistic shopping budget (as I am now on incapacity benefit, thanks to arthritis aggravated by pushing her around the hills of Hastings in a wheelchair for six weeks!) and a greatly reduced shopping list (take a chair into the supermarket to sit on while you read the contents lists to avoid the no-no items). Then it’s a case of trying out a variety of meals (one at a time!).

While I am talking of food, a bed of boiled white rice topped with some plain fried minced beef or lamb into which a large quantity of ketchup had been mixed was, and still is, our staple emergency meal. If the owner of the “little f(r)iend” liked spicy foods before the op - sorry, but it may take a long time to slowly build up to something they can handle.

“Slow and Steady wins the day” as the Turtle said to the Hare!

Gee, it's amazing how little realisation the Department for Wonderful People and the rest of Her Majesty's Government have for how simple things AREN'T for disabled people.  It's also amazing that I'm the one claiming the benefits and not her!

It's also strange that "The PouchDemon" and "The ChainDemon" are married and living happily ever after (Sorry, that should be existing, you can't live on Assessment Rate).

I'd like to thank the webmaster of The Red Lion Group for archiving all the old newsletters including the ones that had those two articles in.  It gave me a wonderful afternoon of reminiscing and reformatting the text as I didn't have copies of the articles I wrote soooooo long ago.

The Chain Theory

I have what might be a silly question, I know there are people out there, and I am one of them, who have to budget their energy reserves carefully. These people suffer from a wide variety of maladies ranging from Lupus to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Arthritis to Fibromyalgia.  These people group together under the title of "Spoonies", thanks to Christine Miserandino and her spoon theory.  My question is, what do we call those of us who have an additive problem that is like being pulled back and gets worse as we go through the day?

I was sitting trying to think of a similar description for the way I have to force myself to wade through invisible mud and suffer from the delayed pain that this causes.  This may not be typical of other Osteo-Arthritis sufferers, but it’s my description of my “Demon”.

The spoon theory states that you have blocks of energy, represented by a handful of spoons that get taken away as you do tasks throughout the day.  My “Demon” doesn’t take, until later, but adds, however, he makes sure I throw my spoons about too!

What you need to do is imagine that as I start to walk, or stand, this little blighter nips up behind me and threads a chain through my leg.  Not between them, but sort of sticks a link of the chain right into and through my knee.  Needless to say, the analgesics I am on hide the actual pain of the link being threaded through the knee, but sometimes, the heat used to weld the link shut can be felt.

Like Jacob Marley, in “A Christmas Carol”, who appears to Ebenezer Scrooge weighed down by chains he forged in life, my chains weigh me down throughout the day and drag along behind me as I walk.  It starts off with just small light chains, but these are added to and added to as I move, if I can stop and take a rest with my weight off my legs, some may fall off, but there’s always some that don’t.

The day goes on, with these chains dragging me down, throwing my spoons out as I go along, until at last, I run out of spoons and fall into bed.  This is the time the Demon really has his fun.  He gets to stand at the end of my bed and pull the chains with all his might, pulling on those links that pass through my shoulders and knees.  He doesn’t have the decency to undo the link that goes through the joint, just pulls as hard as possible to yank the chains out, dragging the last link straight through and out!

I had tried to find other descriptions, like a back-pack being filled with stones, but being a “Stonie” didn’t sound too good, that and the pain at the end of the day isn’t there.  The chains seem to be the best description, so, as well as being a “Spoonie”, I’m a “Chainee”.