Mo Stewart, an Independent disability studies researcher and fellow of the Centre for Welfare Reform, sent a letter to the Guardian newspaper last week to acknowledge the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), as used to resist funding the Employment and Support (ESA) long-term sickness and disability benefit to those in greatest need. Influenced by corporate America, the deplorable treatment by the DWP of chronically ill and disabled people, who live in fear of the WCA, is well documented and the Guardian had published letters in the past on the same subject yet failed to acknowledge this significant anniversary and failed to publish the letter. Co-signed by over 80 individuals made up of doctors, academics, charities, carers, campaigners, journalists and researchers along with other members of the public, it is cause for concern that the Guardian would fail to publish this most important of all letters.
Is this ongoing scandal becoming too politically sensitive, hence the Guardian’s refusal to publish? Mo Stewart’s research over the past ten years has exposed the fact that successive UK governments adopted a disability denial assessment model, co-designed by the second worst healthcare insurance company in America. The WCA is used to deny genuine claimants access to desperately needed financial support, with links to thousands of deaths and a disturbing increase in suicides linked to the fatally flawed WCA which disregards diagnosis, prognosis and the past medical history of the ESA claimant. The overall objective of this government-backed project is truly alarming. As official government advisers for welfare claims management, a notorious American healthcare corporation has been covertly influencing UK social policy since 1994, with the final goal being the planned demolition of the welfare state to be replaced with an American style private healthcare insurance backed system.
A more in-depth report, written by Mo Stewart for TruePublica can be READ HERE. The contents should shock anyone mainly because of the numbers of deaths involved as successive UK governments reject the welfare state, adopt American social policy, and watch as the entire national press resist identifying this American corporate influence with UK social policy.
***
The tenth anniversary of the WCA which introduced American designed hostility against chronically sick and disabled people
The identified government hostility against disabled people isn’t disputed (disabled people facing government hostility in the UK, theguardian.com, 11th May), yet there has been little mention of the consequences, with disability hate crimes climbing by 213%, and a link to the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) with a vast increase in suicides.
Five years of rhetoric by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) during the coalition government’s term in office was successfully used to belittle chronically ill and disabled people who claimed the Employment and Support Allowance. To access the benefit, claimants are obliged to endure the fatally flawed WCA, which disregards diagnosis, prognosis and past medical history. Death was always inevitable for thousands of people. Introduced by the DWP in October 2008, the WCA was created following research funded with £1.6million by America’s second largest health insurance giant, who were advisers to the British government on ‘welfare claims management’ since 1994.
To date Coroner’s Inquests, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the British Psychological Society, MIND and the Work and Pensions Select Committee have all deemed the WCA to be ‘unfit for purpose’. The DWP disregard all official reports not commissioned by them, demonstrating the preventable harm created by the WCA as used to guarantee that the psychological security of the welfare state would be destroyed to make way for the eventual adoption of private healthcare insurance to replace the welfare state; as all planned since 1982. October 2018 is the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the WCA. When will it be stopped?
Mo Stewart – Independent disability studies researcher
Ellen Clifford – Campaigns & Policy Manager, Inclusion London
Professor Peter Beresford – Co-Chair, Shaping Our Lives
Dr Jay Watts – Consultant Clinical Psychologist, London
Dr Richard House – Chartered Psychologist, Stroud
Dr Christopher Johnstone – Retired GP, Glasgow
Dr Rich Moth – Social Work Action Network
Dr Maria Berghs – DeMontfort University, Leicester
Dr Kay Inckle – University of Liverpool
Dr Nigel Williams – University of the West of England
Dr Colin Goble – University of Winchester
Professor Tanya Titchkosky – University of Toronto, Canada
Lewis Elward – MA graduate, University of Liverpool
Julia N Daniels – University of Sheffield
Alyssa Hillary – University of Rhode Island, USA
Liz Adams Lyngback – University of Stockholm
Gail Ward – Disability campaigner, Newcastle
Sioux Blair-Jordan – Disability advocate
Barbara Hulme – Disability campaigner
Susan Pashkoff – Political activist
Lorraine Harding – Disability Labour
Fran Springfield – Disability Labour
Sophie Talbot – Disability Labour
Dave Townsend – Disability Labour
Kathy Bole – Disability Labour
Simon Lydiard – Disability Labour
Claire Harris – Disability Labour
Nico Pollen – Disability Labour
Pat Onions – Pat’s Petition
Rosemary O’Neil – CarerWatch
John McArdle – Black Triangle Campaign
John Frost – Disability campaigner
Jean Devlin – DPAC Glasgow
Leanne Theresa Purvis – Disabled
Julia Bell – Disability rights
Tony Dowling – People’s Assembly, North East
Annie Bishop – Advocate
Susan Archibald – Scottish Disability Rights
Julie Forshaw – Disabled activist
Carole Robinson – Disabled
Jonathan Fletcher – Project 125
Karen Whelan-Springer – Derbyshire DPAC
Wendy Denton – Disabled
Paul Anderson – Glasgow MIND
Ian Kerr – DPAC Glasgow Rail
Sian Roberts – Disabled
Dawn Wilson – Benefit advocate
Kerry Tubbrit – Carer
Vicky Gisborne – Carer
Dawn Quinonostante – Mental health campaigner
Sam Downie – Actor and disability rights campaigner, disabled actor
George Berger – Retired academic
Chris McCabe – Carer
Kathryne Wray – Disability activist
Ian Jones – WOW campaign
Neil Vaughan – Appeals representative
Kate Belgrave – Journalist
Denise McKenna – Mental Health Resistance Network
Abbie Chambers – Disability campaigner
Linda Pike – Carer
John Kelly – Musician
Natalie Miles – Medical Student
Dominique Payne – Disability campaigner
Jayne Gowland – Carer
Sue Jones – Disability campaigner
Trevor Bark – Welfare Activist
Ken and Tracey McClymont – Founders of Dudley CIL
John McGovern – Disability rights campaigner
Rick Burgess – Disabled activist
Anne Pridmore – Director, Being The Boss
Ruth Bowling – Carer
Alasdair Cameron – Launchpad/ReCoCo
Jan Turner – Director, Being the Boss
Helene Ayton – Carer
Mirium Binder – Disability campaigner
Carl Liddle – Disabled
Pat Aitchison – Disabled
Jennifer Dunstan – Sheffield Heeley Labour Campaigns Officer
Morvenna Richards – Disability campaigner
Tony Aldis – Open Eye Films
Andrea Burford – Community campaigner
Barb Roberts – Disability Coordinator
Jack Gray – National Autistics Society
Paul Ferry – Disabled
Graham Vanbergen – Journalist
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Featured image is from TruePublica.
