DISABILITY rights campaigners are calling on GPs to help prevent Scotland’s most vulnerable being ruthlessly targeted by Iain Duncan Smith’s cruel welfare regime.
The patient-led Black Triangle disability rights campaign is urging the British Medical Association (BMA) to issue an official advisory to every doctor in the country informing them that they can use government regulations to prevent even more people dying after being declared fit for work and having their benefits axed.
The call came after The National exclusively revealed how severely disabled Stuart Chester, who has Down’s syndrome, epilepsy, autism, cannot speak, read or write, and needs round-the-clock carefrom his mother, has been forced to prove he is unfit for work and how nearly 90 people a month are dying after being declared fit for work.
Statistics released by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) revealed that during the period December 2011 and February 2014 2,380 people died after their claim for employment and support allowance (ESA) ended because a work capability assessment (WCA) found they were found fit for work.
Stuart, from Glasgow, has been given a deadline of September 18 to return the complicated 20-page work capability assessment form that will investigate his fitness for work and whether he deserves his Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and ESA.
The 25-year-old’s mother Deborah McKenzie, 51, said receiving the form had caused her “undue stress” and said Duncan Smith’s plan to deliberately target the sick and disabled was tantamount to “genocide”.
She has since received overwhelming support from our readers and first to offer help for Deborah was the Black Triangle campaign which has been battling against the Tory’s £12 million welfare cuts since plans were announced.
Black Triangle has written to the BMA calling on them to “urgently publicise and make known to every GP in the country the existence and a lawful application of these regulations”.
The ESA regulations (2013) 29 and 35 deal with flagging up a substantial risk of harm to patients if they were to be found fit for work or have limited capability to work.
The campaign insists that GPs could save patients the nightmare of being hounded to fill in forms and attend assessments simply sending a letter to the DWP that there would be a substantial risk to the mental or physical health to themselves or other people if the benefit claimant was forced out to work.
Campaign manager John McArdle said: “I read Stuart’s story in The National and we immediately offered to help him and his mum in any way we can.
“In cases such as Stuart’s that boy should be protected from the DWP, it is perfectly clear he is unable to work and sadly his case is by no means isolated.
“We have been lobbying the BMA to issue a safety protocol for cases like Stuart’s where the GP just has to state it in their medical opinion that if their patient was to be found fit for work or have limited capability for work that there would be a substantial risk of harm, either to the patient or other people which is stated in the ESA regulations 29 and 35.
“Regrettably, it remains the case that most GPs remain ignorant of these regulations.
“We have hit a brick wall with the BMA council who promised us that they would issue an advisory but rather than do that they just inform GPs that information was available online which isn’t good enough and is frankly ridiculous and insulting.
“This is why we are in talks with the Scottish Government and the SNP group at Westminster because this is a public health crisis in Scotland.”
BMA Scotland said it had “flagged up” the relevant guidance to GPs.
A BMA spokesman said: “The BMA position remains that the work capability assessment process should be scrapped with immediate effect and replaced with a rigorous and safe system that does not cause avoidable harm to the weakest and most vulnerable people in society.
“The BMA has consistently lobbied politicians on this issue in the past few years and will continue to do so.”
The spokesman added: “We have highlighted the current regulations around work capability assessments to our members, so as to help patients get the best outcome for their needs.”
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here