UK Parliament / Open data

Welfare Reform Bill

I have an extra question for the Minister. I was struck, as always, by the noble Countess, Lady Mar, and her description of the problems of chronic fatigue syndrome and ME. One of the problems that she highlighted was the poor approach by the medical adviser who rated the condition. It is a long-standing difficulty that the doctors doing the assessments have been rather the creatures controlling the gateway to money. They are not always sensitive to mental health problems, the type of syndromes described by the noble Countess, or the more sophisticated and difficult medical conditions. They are not well trained to assess them. We have the same problem with people looking for benefits such as attendance allowance, where little thought is given to the fluctuating nature of dementia, for example. I am not sure where this comes in the Bill but I wanted to add the question: are we sure that the medical advisers are also properly trained?
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
711 c313GC 
Session
2008-09
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand Committee
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