MORE people will die because of work capability assessments unless they are scrapped, disability campaigners have warned.

The claim follows the release of figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that show more than 80 people are dying each month following work capacity assessments.

Stephen Cruickshank, director of the Scottish Disability Equality Forum, said that though the figures were open to “some interpretation” it was clear that at least some deaths were as a direct result of “deeply unfair” treatment by the DWP.

“When you think of the suffering and the stress that people are going through as a result of this, is it not surprising that there have been suicides,” he said. “The deaths are only going to increase if nothing is done about it.

“I just wish someone with sense would finally stand up and say enough is enough. The people that are affected worst here are the sick and the disabled. They are targeted because they can’t fight back.”

Cruikshank, who has spinal neuropathy, called for work capability assessments to be scrapped as they were unfit for purpose.

“If you are on Disability Living Allowance (DLA) you have to have medical evidence,” he added. “By carrying [assessments] out they are basically saying they don’t believe your own doctors.

“I’ve heard of people who are too ill to attend an assessment being sanctioned. People have been sanctioned because they wake up one morning and they can’t move so they can’t get there.

“But the DWP seems to have no concept of how disability affects people. This is a human rights issue. Someone who has lived experience of disability needs to be involved in redesigning the system.”

The figures revealed that 2,380 claimants died between December 2011 and February 2014 shortly after being told to get back to work and that their benefits were being stopped.

In the same period, 50,580 people who received employment and support allowance (ESA) died within two weeks of their benefit claim ending.

Ian Tasker, assistant secretary for the STUC, said that he feared things would only get worse under a Conservative government. “We share the concern that there will be more deaths,” he added.

“If the Conservative Government’s record is anything to go by they will continue to target the sick and the disabled. This has the potential to get much worse unless there is a drastic rethink. However, sadly, we doubt that there is any chance that there will be.”

According to the DWP’s own figures, in the last five years 67 Jobcentre offices have closed and by May 2015 the number of disability employment advisers had fallen to 297, a fall of 40 per cent.

Earlier this week, The National reported on the welfare sanction postcode lottery, revealed by a New Policy Institute (NPI) study.

The statistics showed that people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance in Dundee were about 50 per cent more likely to be sanctioned than claimants in Glasgow.

John Dickie, director of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, echoed the call for the need for work capacity assessments, which he said were often carried out by people unqualified to make proper assessments, to be scrapped.

In 2014 a Government review of work capacity assessments found that there were still “lingering doubts about health-care professionals’ qualifications or experience of working with people that have mental health conditions” despite previous recommendations that the DWP ensure that these qualifications were in place.

“A system that appears to find people fit enough to work only for them to die shortly afterwards clearly needs urgent review,” added Dickie. “We need to see a fundamentally new approach to social security based on respect, adequacy and genuine support.”

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