Brown and nulabour are obsessed with this idea that all who are not working MUST be made to work.
I was diagnosed as incurably disabled ten years ago. They have bypassed my heart, the operation was successful only in that I survived but the outcome was not as desired and the bypass failed completely. They then tried "stenting" with similar lack of success. In the intervening years they have caused me, by dint of medication, to become depressed and agoraphobic. All this is documented and for six years the "Authorities" accepted this. Now, however, the Government say I have to be annually reviewed to see if I have "improved" to the extent that they can insist that I attend a " getting back into work" course. I am 62 next birthday, my heart stops from time to time and an implanted defibrillator, so far at least, restarts it and I am taken to hospital. Who the feck is going to employ me no matter how many courses I attend? BTW That defibrillator was paid for privately, without it I would be dead. But still they wish to reassess me annually. My cardiologist has written to tell them that in his professional opinion my condition cannot improve and can, over time, only worsen but they listen not. They refer me instead to a non specialist GP who works under contract to the Dept Work & Pensions. He has no diagnostic equipment available to him other than his stethascope so can do no other than write to my cardiologist and ask for his opinion again ~ which is given and I am then signed off as unfitted for employment for another year.
What a waste of time, effort and money. The contracted GP tells me (I have recently undergone this performance again) that he has never yet referred anyone sent to him as "Fit to recommence work" and expects that his contract will not be renewed when it falls due as his professional opinion is at odds with that of the clerks in the Job Centre who in turn are dancing to the tune called by Gordon Brown and co.
Yes there is benefit fraud but this is not the way to solve that problem.
