New UK Sickness Benefits

From Monday 27 October, Incapacity Benefits are being phased out and being replaced with the Employment Support Allowance. Doctors will have to write 'fit certificates' listing what a sick person can do, instead of 'sick certificates' which lists what they can't do. The government's aim is to get one million sick people back to work, which was a good idea before the Recession.

Economists forecast that there will be two million people unemployed by Christmas, due to redundancies and companies having to cease trading. These people will be fit, well and recently employed, and they will obviously be given preference for jobs over people who have been ill for years. The competition for an ever decreasing supply of jobs will be intense so it seems unlikely that the million the government would like to see employed will come to light.

This is how the government plans the new system to work http://www.dwp.gov.uk/esa/

This new benefit has its advantages and some ideas are very good. There are however, a group of people who will find the new Benefit very bad news. Some of the concerns are listed here

There is a 4 minute BBC Radio Interview with Melissa Viney here
There was an excellent interview on the changes taking place on BBC Radio 5 Live this morning. Taking part was Melissa Viney, a person with ME, who pointed out the main problems that people who have fluctuating long term conditions like ME are likely to have face with the new benefit. The link to this BBC interview is HERE (move the button below the digital clock to find the start of the interview at around 01:03:50. The interview lasts for almost four minutes)