[joeysteele]

Originally Posted by Cherie

and this brings me back to the point that if you have a vulnerable adult in your family you cannot trust the agencies or the state to support them anymore, you have to be involved whether you are 2 miles or 200 miles away from them, you have to make calls on their behalf, follow everything up, because even positive decisions can be left hanging for months in someones intray, or get forgotton.

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.