I agree with both those points. A lack of understanding and basic common decency sometimes seems to creep into these assessments.
I also have vulnerable constituents who are being prevented from getting help in explaining their situation to assessors. For example, I have a constituent who has a brain stem tumour, among other physical conditions. Perhaps not surprisingly, her mother was with her at the assessment. However, she was told that her mother could not answer any questions for her, despite the fact that my constituent has significant difficulty in processing information because of her condition. That goes completely against the PIP assessment guidance, which says that
“companions may play an active role in helping claimants answer questions”.
I have constituents who were prevented from having that kind of help and, perhaps not surprisingly, thereafter had their PIP stopped because it was felt that they had not answered the questions appropriately.
There are extremely long delays in assessments, reconsiderations and particularly tribunal dates for appeals. It is hard to justify the fact that the average waiting time for PIP is now 15 weeks. That is almost four months. It is completely unacceptable to make disabled people, who rely on that money to make their lives a little easier, wait so long for a first payment.
Reconsiderations are a necessary step to be gone through, but they almost never overturn the original decision. In my recent experience, I have not come across a single case in which that has happened, even when it is blindingly obvious that that is the point at which what has gone wrong can be put right with the least possible damage. Surely the purpose of the reconsideration stage is to apply a little common sense, but these days it just seems to be a way of wasting another two or three months, during which the individual does not get their benefit.
The wait for a tribunal is the killer. On Merseyside, the average wait is more than nine months, but I know of people who have waited for 12. It is an absolute scandal. How can the Government or the Minister possibly justify treating vulnerable, sick and disabled people in such a callous and horrendous manner?
I have also come across many reports of compassion fatigue among bureaucratic and indifferent contractors who are paid to assess vulnerable and desperate people. Compassion fatigue is not a new phenomenon, but it seems to be rife these days. It was reported in the newspapers recently that a DWP official had submitted papers to an appeal tribunal in which they referred to the appellant, a disabled person, as a “lying bitch”. How revealing of their attitude is that? Yet there is not much evidence of fraud in claims for these benefits: according to DWP figures, it represents only 1.5% of the total expenditure. That figure is put into context by the heftier 4.2% of total expenditure on making up underpayments to people who have not claimed their full entitlement—one can hardly argue that there is a huge problem of fraud that we need to crack down on.
Let me give a few examples of cases in my constituency that illustrate my concerns. Some people’s benefits have been stopped, quite unfairly, when they have fallen foul of overly bureaucratic practices that take no notice of plain common sense and that apparently cannot be put right without the lengthiest process imaginable, causing extreme hardship and pain. I have a constituent with kidney disease who attends hospital weekly for dialysis. She was diagnosed with a very painful and severe complication
of her condition and was treated for it as an in-patient. When she got home after being discharged last July, she was exhausted, disoriented and in severe pain. She was expecting a district nurse to attend her at home to change a dressing, but her carer was confronted at the door by someone who claimed to be a health professional, but who—sure enough—seems in hindsight to have been sent by the DWP.
The “medical professional”, who was turned away by the carer because my constituent was in no fit state to be seen, appears to have had a compassion bypass. Instead of being given another appointment at a more convenient and sensible time, my constituent had her benefit stopped last August because she was said to have refused to be interviewed. Not only was she in no fit state to be interviewed, but she had received no letter. Even if such a letter had been sent, she had been in hospital for weeks and was very poorly, so she certainly would not have seen it. Why on earth was another appointment not made as a matter of plain common sense? Her request for a reconsideration last October was refused. What is the point of having reconsiderations if we cannot reconsider a case like that?
My constituent applied for a tribunal hearing in December—given her very poor health, it took her that long to navigate the process of filling in all the required forms. For three months, she tried to make the best of things, but she came to see me last week asking how long she would have to wait for an appeal. As I have said, and as the Minister may know, the average wait on Merseyside is 38 to 42 weeks, so I had to tell my constituent that she might have to wait another six months before the matter could be resolved. I have no doubt that the decision would be overturned at a hearing, as happens in 75% of the cases that get that far.
When I asked my constituent how she was doing, she told me that she had no money for food. Her weight had reduced to just 6½ stone. On the day she came to see me, she had eaten two slices of toast—one for breakfast and one for lunch—and was planning a main meal of a bowl of soup. I would normally offer food bank vouchers to a woman in that condition, but my constituent has a special diet because of her dialysis, so she could not have eaten what a food bank would have given her. She was able to take advantage of Can Cook, a charity in my constituency that stepped in at my request to provide some fresh food commensurate with her dietary requirements—but most people do not have Can Cook in their constituency.
I happened to bump into the Secretary of State, so I asked her who I should write to about this scandalous case, given that the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) has resigned as Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work and has not been replaced. The Secretary of State got her officials to sort it out within two days, which is excellent, and I thank her for it. My constituent has been reassessed on higher rates of care and mobility than those from which she was disqualified, and she will receive full back payments this week. Thank goodness she came to see me, but she did not see me for 10 weeks—and what about those constituents who have not come to see me and who are suffering in silence and despair at home? What about those who are too vulnerable to get out to see me, particularly those who are debilitated by mental ill health and are struggling on with no money and no food?