People like to try to retain some independence and also retain some dignity, people even in massive genuine need, hate to ask for help and particularly for money even from family and friends.

They see bills not being paid and know they are not able to, when benefits are cut or reduced, often some people just try to soldier on believing tomorrow is another day.
If these benefits were rightly his and were cut or removed then that is the DWP's fault because of the new savage fitness testing and ruthless near harrassment of those genuinely vulnerable, sick or disabled.
Maybe this man's family didn't know the full extent of what had happened as to his benefits,people also don't like others,even family going through their affairs.

I know the problem of ringing the DWP and trying to get things sorted out, for instance the ATOS assessments, dealing with them is like dealing with some secret police, their attitude stinks and they are totally unbending.

I took someone to one of them, his appt was 10.20am, he hadn't been seen by 11.50am, I myself went and asked when he would be, they couldn't say. So as I had to be somewhere else in the afternoon, I said I may have to take him home and make another appt,
I was told that if he went home, his name would still be called and if he wasn't there,he could lose his benefits.
It mattered not a bit that his appt was for 10.20 am and that someone had taken time off to come with him.They were not in the least interested.

I have for others, asked the DWP to look at decisions again, they wait 10 days to 2 weeks then say they are not changing their decision.
Then it goes to appeal and of all the appeals I have had a connection with for others every single one has been upheld for the claimant against ATOS and the DWP.
As you rightly say it is time consuming also very tiring too,if someone is doing this without knowing confidently how to go about it, then it can cause even more frustration and stress,not only for the claimant but those helping them too.

Without these reforms and savage attempts to dig out the 0.8% of people who claim wrongly or fraudulently, then this kind of incident would be less likely to happen.
Ian Duncan Smith has been told repeatedly of the chaos his hurried reforms are causing for the most vulnerable and he just totally dismisses it all.

This govt could and should relax this witchhunt of those on benefits, the greater part of the benefits bill is for pensions and pensioners and nothing is going to be done as to them anyway,at least in this parliament.
Therefore any savings are going to be far outweighed by the costs of appeals and backdated payments and the cost of bringing in the new benefit structures.

More and more of these sad cases will happen unless someone looks at this whole benefits reform again, clearly that will not coming from IDS and the rest of this heartless bunch of cowards we have in Govt, who can only dare to get at and pick on the weakest and poorest,even if it means the sick and disabled too.
I have come across people left without benefits, all due to them, for over 3 months.
Friends and family cannot possibly always support with the needed support for that time,what needs to be done is ensure that people cannot be be without rightful benefits for anything like that time.

I come back to my point that the reason this is happening is because of shockingly and unfairly planned benefit reforms that are being done in a too hurried fashion.
For that, only one organisation can be blamed and that is Ian Duncan Smith and this coalition Govt.

They were under the impression that it had been sorted out, and it had.. he had been assessed and had a diagnosis from healthcare professionals that highlighted the fact he was unfit for employment.
ATOS then overruled that decision, his family quite rightly want to know why that was.

Sorry Kizzy but there are a few things that don't add up in this case, they openly acknowledge he had a food phobia, and that he gave money away so they send him 250.00 quid what was sending money to him going to achieve?

Hi Cherie.
The main point for me in the whole sad saga is they,his family, shouldn't have even had to send him money anyway, he was due rightful benefits that he had a right to which were unfairly and wrongly taken from him.

That is not his family's fault or his at all, it is the DWP's fault and ATOS for the way they are working these new unjust reforms enacted by this present Govt.

Lot's of things rarely add up in these cases sometimes but, usually in the main, the one outstanding fact is that someone who should never had seen his benefits took off him at all for any period,did in fact have that happen and that is the absolute main reason for this tragedy coming about.

To have any case like this happen in the UK is a total disgrace in my view,even worse when caused in the greater part by the welfare policies in place which are brought into being by the Govt. of the day.

I agree, the main issue is the fact he was disregarded following an assessment, you may feel he was failed by his family cherie but what of those with no family to fight their corner at at all?

Also Kizzy, please excuse me for answering while you are replying to Cherie, however it is amazing how many people connected to someone in this situation don't actually want the 'active' bother of dealing with the problems.
Now also with so many organisations being scaled down or closed that were available for help with these matters the situation is far worse as to that and also the CABs are almost stretched to their limits too.

Everywhere more doors are being closed as to help and advice for people on benefits and no more opened either.
That means long delays for others trying to get things sorted.
The DWP also often just dismiss requests for looking at things again from Family too anyway.

I have seen cases take over a year to get resolved,that would wear anyone out.

No don't worry you raise an excellent point joey,the structures in place to facilitate between support structures medical/social and family in communities are crumbling as funding is pulled or reduced.

Not everyone has family to fall back on. Nor should they need it, especially ill people like this man. The state has a duty to look after them IMO. We all pay taxes for stuff like this..I doubt many people resent some of their taxes helping the disabled to have a decent quality of life...possibly with the exception of a few diehard torys.

Yes in this case (from what we know...) the family could have done more. But for me, the main problem here is that a man who is very clearly ill has been kicked off the benefits he is entitled to.

Last year, a family friend suffered a very bad heart attack. She had to have a bypass and was put on strict bedrest from her consultant. However literally 2 weeks after her op, she was called for a 'medical' and found to have nothing at all wrong with her, scored 0 points and was told to find work. Its just ****ing ridiculous and deflecting blame onto the families of these...victims tbh...doesnt help things at all. We should ALL be mad at this pathetic excuse for a government attempting to save a bit of money by pretty much attempting to kill off disabled people. Rather than finding extra money by closing tax loopholes and such if its needed.

That guy sounded like a troubled soul.

And sadly I feel that even with all the money in the world I don't think he could have been prevented from staving himself to death. Having a phobia to food is pretty much terminal.

he was 44 and had managed to eat enough to keep himself alive living independently since 2006, the stress due to this decision I feel was a contributory factor to his death.

It's not even always that simple - people have their own lives to live. That may sound callous, but it's true, there are very few people who can (or should have to) dedicate their own lives to being a full-time carer.

For example, my mother has been disabled with crippling back problems (and besides that is now a chronic alcoholic) since I was in my early teens. Her and my dad are divorced. She could probably do with more help than she gets but, I have my own family and my children will always come first by a country mile. They are my absolute priority in terms of both finances and time and they always will be. We're not "well off" by any means, we do OK. If we were well off it might be a different story but as it stands, any financial help I could give would be a direct financial disadvantage to my own children. I work full time in hideous shift patterns that mean I don't see my kids for up to 4 days at a time as it is (out before they're awake, home after they're in bed) and so even offering up time to help would be less time spent with my own family. It's just not something I'm willing to do.


The current system absolutely NEEDS easily accessible centers that have people there purely to help. For a start... they've started to computerise the entire system. My mother has been mainly on disability, but she was stuck on Jobseekers Allowance for 6 months after (surprise surprise) a dodgy ATOS decision (that was eventually overturned). She - without exaggeration - CANNOT use a computer. She can't work a mouse. Turning one on baffles her. This isn't even to do with her disability - BEFORE the start of her issues, when she was a top-grade nurse and ward manager, she was completely tech-illiterate. She couldn't work a DVD player.

They've computerised the system and left the slightly older generations completely without help with it - and then they implement punitive sanctions for not complying. The cynic in me suspects it's deliberate. I had an older guy come into my work really worked up with a letter from the Jobcentre, asking me to help him with it because he couldn't understand it. It was just an information leaflet about browser cookies on the Jobmatch website. Completely irrelevant, but it might as well have been written in Japanese to him, and he was very distressed about it.

They NEED to have staff available to help people with simple things like this. To sit with them and fill in the online forms for them in a Q&A, to help them with online applications and that ridiculous Jobmatch site. Even the very basics like this, they're getting completely wrong. People are set up to fail and then they have benefits sanctioned entirely for weeks at a time. By the time they're reinstated, bills have piled up on the doormat. They start to get bank fines, charges through interest, debt collectors start knocking... and of course they're STILL struggling to meet govt. demands and get hit with sanction after sanction.

For a family member to deal with all of this, to keep so many balls in the air and at the same time have their own full-time job and family, is verging on impossible.

Well there we have it... work helping others get injured, and nobody wants to help. You fall into depression and addiction and nobody wants to know.

I know someone who has had family around them helping as much as they can, with food, money, rent, emotional support and simply being there for them yet that person has ended up over and over in the same place, an institutaion.

You cannot put his problems down to lack of family contact when you dont know anything about how much contact they had with him. He has several mental health and medical conditions which were backed up by the gp and therefor none of his benefits should have ever been stopped. The parents probably trusted that he was being taken care f as he did not disclose any information about his situation until it was to late.

His condition caused him to be set in his ways, like he needed certain things a certain way so when his rent was stopped he was screwed. All he needed was his rent paid and a professional to check on his progress every week and im sure he would still be here today.

People need to stop blaming the parents fgs this was a major professional blunder and the 3rd reported this week.

Indeed. The specifics (of her back injury) are that she worked happily in a private hospital for 20+ years and then took a promotion to an NHS home, which was under-equipped and under-staffed for lifting and wrecked her back due to being under-financed of course. And this was pre-recession. They have the get out clause of "your level of experience means that you should know that doing this sort of lifting unaided is dangerous" ... but that would mean leaving patients in pain or discomfort. Meh.

Anyway, her addiction issues are slightly more complicated but you're right it's certainly been a big factor; her work distracted her from other issues in her life and when she lost that, it was the start of a downhill spiral.

So, screwed by government penny-pinching to then be firther screwed by government penny-pinching. A fairly common story, to be fair. People lose their jobs BECAUSE of government policies, and then are told they can't get help because of ... other government policies.

I am not discussing that issue though, I am discussing this particular case, and his families "help" such as it was and whether or not it was appropriate due to his particular circumstances.

That is all well and good but can we stick to the case that is being discussed here which is this unfortunate gentleman? His family have time to get involved now and might instigate legal proceedings? though their solution to his plight was to send him a few quid even though they openly acknowledged that he gave money away and had a food phobia? By all means don't get involved, but stay uninvolved then, don't turn up afterwards looking for answers.

To be fair the thread talks about someone's death after having benefits reduced and/or stopped altogether.

That makes for and opens up discussion as to other examples of such cutting such as ToySoldier's which actually goes a great deal to explain the limitations that some family members may have especially when they are working and have their own families.

I take this thread to be as much about the wrongs of ATOS and the DWP and the Govts reforms to benefits and it is greatly relevant to debate that as well as the sad loss of life for this victim of those benefit cuts and decisions.

ToySoldier,again an excellent post,a worrying and very interesting informative read that demonstrates other areas of problems and thank you for sharing that with us too.

Sadly more of these cases are likely as long as this Govt. sticks stubbornly and rigidly to its failing reforms,I say failing reforms because in truth they cannot be saving much,if any, funding at all.

Of course Joey this story opens up a whole can of worms and we could argue the ins and outs all day, I just think his death might have been avoided if the family gave him some practical help rather than throwing money at the problem.

True.

not true at all

you speak a lot of sense daniel . that bold part is the only facts people need to know

Well it's easy to be dismissive isn't it? I'm sure they're hoping that nobody questions the mistakes and dubious practices adopted.
To suggest its acceptable to make blunders that ultimately cost lives is a viewpoint I don't agree with at all, when adults with mental health issues live independently then the support framework sometimes involves family and sometimes not for many reasons.
As highlighted by joey even if the family had been made aware due to the bureaucracy what practical help could they have been? The decision would have stood until such time as an appeal could be heard which takes months.
So as I see it whether or not the family had contact the decision and the timescales to get help and/or advice would have been the same.
Ultimately the failing is with ATOS and their checklists that are far too simplistic to adequately assess complex mental health issues.

Where have I been dismissive? Where have I said that the decision of ATOS was acceptable?

Excellent points Daniel and sadly likely many more cases to come similar to this one too.

is no one gonna point out the typo though. It's really bothering me