In this video, Roy Bard explains his lifelong problems with critical depression. He also takes us on a short tour of his home and explains how difficult he can find it to look after himself and his flat when things are going badly. This is how a serious mental health condition can affect day to day living:
One of Roy’s friends was a bit shocked when he saw this video, so he came to London to help Roy clean the flat up.
When we made the video, Roy was on incapacity benefit. He was waiting for the forms that would tell him to apply for employment and support allowance and to prepare for an Atos work capability assessment. He has since received those forms and returned them. He is now waiting to hear about the Atos face-to-face assessment. He could be waiting a while on this, too, given that there are hundreds and thousands of people in the ESA assessment queue. You’ll hear Roy say in the video that he finds all the waiting torturous. Struggling with serious depression is difficult enough. It is made considerably more difficult if you have to wait for a useless private contractor to get around to deciding if you’re entitled to financial support.
Which brings us to this week’s court action on the work capability for claimants with mental health conditions:
In 2012, the Public Law Project and two people with mental health conditions brought a judicial review of the work capability assessment – and the courts found in their favour. As Disabled People Against Cuts reports here, the judges decided that the WCA did indeed place mental health claimants at a substantial disadvantage and that the DWP should make reasonable adjustments for claimants because of that.
“Often mental health claimants struggle to provide further medical evidence to support their claim for ESA. They may not be able to accurately self report how their mental health conditions affect them, either when completing forms or at face to face assessments. Many claimants are wrongly found fit for work and subjected to the stress of appealing the decision.
“The claimants who brought the case, DM and MM, asked the court to rule that the DWP should be responsible for obtaining further medical evidence at every stage of the process to improve the chances of a more accurate decision being reached about whether a person is able to work, or to start preparing for work, and to avoid the need for a face to face assessment in cases where this would be especially distressing for the claimant.”
Needless to say, the DWP appealed that judgement – “we believe we have made – and continue to make – significant improvements to the work capability assessment process for people with mental health conditions,” the DWP told me when I asked the department why it had decided to appeal a decision which would have made life so much easier for so many claimants.
Fortunately, the original ruling was upheld. Now, the original claimants want to know exactly which reasonable adjustments the DWP plans to make to improve WCAs for people with mental health conditions.
This week’s hearing “will be concerned with establishing what adjustments the DWP should make to the WCA process,” says DPAC:
“We already know from the original hearing that they plan to run a pilot study to assess the “reasonableness” of obtaining further medical evidence. We want to ensure that any study will be fair, honest and approached with an open mind.
“Unfortunately we find it hard to trust that this will happen.”
Indeed.
The vigil will be held at:
12-2 pm
Tuesday 8 July, 2014
Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand, London WC2A 2LL.
See DPAC’s report for the full details of the case and the vigil.
completely identify with what roy says in vid – i’m presently waiting for dreaded brown or white envelope – dont answer my house phone because atos have rung me before – its so stressful cant even put it into words – have same problems with self care and eating – never cook from scratch – and also dealing with financial affairs really difficult – have just ended up with court summons for non payment of council tax – then forgot to go and so had extra court charges on top – i’m either in pits of depression and cant do anything or really manic and running around doing everything outside of the home but still nothing at home . The fear of losing the one security i’ve ever had – my social housing home is forever present and haunting me because i know if i lost my esa and was put on jobseekers allowance i would buckle under the pressure of all the criteria that has to be fullfilled to receive it and would end up in bed and unable to function – its tortorous – my heart goes out to roy xx
completely relate to this. the mail box has become a threat delivery mechanism. I have also had a 5year battle with mental health services. from the outset of being referred which itself took nearly 2 years. I have got nowhere I have even got desperate enough to make a suicide attempt, promoted by the frustration and yet another discharge notice from therapy services without even an assessment, I told cmht about this and they discharged saying i had made threats to myself and others and should i act on this it should be treated as a criminal matter. in 5 years I have fallen through every net even ending up on a ward. Again resulting in no treatment just shaming blaming and discharging. the a4e letters just keep coming despite being put in the non attending group. a once monthly threat to sanction. I drives me nuts the combination of a punitive benefits system and an indifferent at best MH care provision.
If i had received the treatment i was originally referred for in 2010 instead of a fobbing off and grinding down that has left my situation more precarious than ever I would have been working and paying taxes again hopefully not being a burden on the system. Its Kafkaesque.