Among the disenfranchised communities in the world, the ill who are unable to work in England have now come under attack by the leaders of the government there. The familiar story of some people feeling the ill are draining the economy and threatening the progress of the nation by not contributing to it… choosing instead to accept government benefits instead of working. Their laziness, according to some, reduces the number of citizens actively engaged in the workforce.
The British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made a speech threatening tougher laws on state benefit provision to the sick and demanding stronger measures to get them into work. The Prime Minister derided what he termed a permissive 'sick note culture' for allowing able people to refuse work and claim benefits. Critics claim that once more the most vulnerable are being made a scapegoat for the United Kingdom's deepening economic crisis.
“We don't just need to change the sick note, we need to change the sick note culture so that the default becomes what work you can do, not what you can do,” stated Sunak. He further stated that we need to build more rapid and easier state schemes “to help them {the sick] get back into work. We need to be more ambitious.” He took aim at the risk of the over-medicalization of illness lamenting that cost of social benefits to the sick and disabled was “unfair to the taxpayer.”
One measure he advocated was stripping the right of general practitioners {i.e. local doctors} from issuing sick notes which allow the sick not to work and claim benefits. {One estimate claims that 94% of doctors issue sick notes to help the sick to claim benefits.} The aim of such measures was to save an estimated 69 billion pounds spent on welfare. All this was part of 'a moral mission' to allow the sick to return to work. Sunak aims to redesign the main disability benefit the Personal Independence benefit as well as other benefits. The claim is that too many people, especially those with mental illness are receiving Personal Independence Payment which is non-means tested.
The notion that many claimants are fraudsters was supported by the Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride who stated, “If you go to a G.P. and say you are feeling a little bit depressed, you are signed off on 94% of occasions. On occasion a box ticked that says you are not capable of work whatsoever.” The institute of Fiscal Studies has estimated that 1 in 10 of working age Britons are receiving health-related benefits.
The basic assumptions behind this speech are that the sick and disabled don't want to work while they can, are idle and are largely to blame for the shortage of labor afflicting the British economy. Such dark rhetoric will stoke more hostility from people who harbor prejudices against the sick and disabled. It will also discourage the sick from claiming the benefits they are genuinely entitled to.
However, there is no convincing evidence of widespread fraud committed by the disabled and sick to obtain benefits. None of the assumptions made in this speech are supported by existing and proper research. The assumptions are subjective. It's pure prejudice. The speech not only indicates a prime minister out of touch and remote from reality. It was also made to court the most prejudiced elements of British society.
Any naive person who listened to this speech might conclude that it is easy for a disabled person to claim disability benefit in Britain. They 'd think you could immediately obtain any benefit with the stroke of a local doctor's pen! In reality, as the homeless newspaper 'The Big Issue' has long pointed out, applying for benefits entails being subjected to many interviews by suspicious officials trying to “catch” genuine claimants out. The interview can be such an ordeal that many genuine carers or sick people don't claim benefits at all. Who wants to be treated like some suspected criminal? …being called into an interview to undergo questioning just like a suspect in a police station? It is quite humiliating.
Ruth Rubin a 50-year-old from Campbeltown on the West Coast of Scotland well understands the ordeal of claiming benefits. She stated, “Personally I think a serious psychiatric diagnosis, proof of time spent in hospital, a list of medications, and letters from a Community Psychiatric Nurse and psychiatrist should be enough to be awarded disability benefits. Any health professional doing the assessments who is worth their salt should know the impact such a diagnosis has on someone's life. Face to face assessments are stressful and intrusive and make people feel like a fraud. The questions on the forms aren't even suited to mental illness. I always write on the form that THIS IS NOT A LIFESTYLE CHOICE.”
In his recent speech Sunak also stated that the very sick should be denied benefits while having their basic needs met in hospital.
1. The facts are that the medical care system in the United Kingdom is broken. A growing number of people who are experiencing serious illness can't get access to medical treatment. Doctor Sarah Hugh of ‘Mind’ { a charity which helps mentally ill people} stated that as many as 1.9 million people are on waiting list to get mental health treatment. They can't even receive medical treatment! There is a huge shortage of psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses because of years of cuts in the National Health Service. Many people who have serious psychological problems can't even obtain a diagnosis—never mind treatment. Those problems have been compounded by the devastating impact of the Pandemic.
The Office for National Statistics recently claimed that an estimated 2 million people are suffering from Long-Term Covid in England and Scotland. {The estimate covered the period between November 2023 to March 2024.} At this moment this illness is still not very well understood. However, existing research finds that symptoms include not only a loss of smell and taste but a crippling fatigue which exhausts them. Even doing little tasks such as doing the shopping can be demanding. Since the Pandemic the number of those claiming benefit has increased by 850,000. About half of those are suffering from anxiety and depression.
The future perspectives for health in the U.K. look grim. The Health Foundation in their recent report stated that a further 700,000 workers are projected to be living with major illnesses by 2040. The authors of the report demolish the myth that sickness is a life-style choice or based on fraud. Ann Raymond, an economist with the Health Foundation stated that the main reasons for ill health are not just factors such as smoking, poor diet, physical inactivity, and harmful alcohol abuse but mainly structural factors such as poor housing, inadequate incomes, poor quality jobs, less investment in the health system, and exploitation by employers.
2. Most people entitled to benefits don't claim them at all. There are all kinds of reasons for this. The people might be unaware such benefits exist and when they do learn of them they can feel intimidated by the procedure to obtain such benefits. They might also lack digital skills and not have access to a computer. Take the example of people who care for someone who is sick or old. There are an estimated 6 million unpaid carers {Amer. caregivers} in the United Kingdom. Of those, only 1 million are claiming Carer’s Allowance.
3. There is nothing new about all those old claims of 'the idle poor' and 'undeserving poor.' You can read about them again and again in history books. The Scottish Highlanders who were evicted from their land during the 19th Century were unjustly accused of being work shy and lazy. In the 1980's the British press wrote that the average worker in Britain worked the lowest number of hours in Europe when proper research indicated that they worked the longest with the lowest number of benefits. British workers were accused of being afflicted by the so-called 'English Disease' {i. e. inherent laziness}.
Despite past massive awareness campaigns of the nature of mental illness such as those about schizophrenia and different forms of depression, many people are still largely unaware of the nature of this illness and also don't know how to respond. Humanists such as Paul Gilbert, a professor of Clinical Psychology are at pains to persuade people suffering from deep depression that they are not to blame for such a complex condition. He wrote that those suffering from such a terrible affliction need to be treated with compassion and care, not less. Paul Gilbert states:
“The moment we give up self-blaming and shaming, refuse to see depression as a personal weakness or even be frightened of it{but instead see it as a brain state pattern that has been created in us}, we can turn around and face it and do what we can to overcome it. Seeing that the basis of our depression is not our fault is not to say that we are not doing things that are making the situation worse, or that we couldn't help ourselves more than we are” {see page 34 of “Overcoming Depression,” by Paul Gilbert, 2009. London: Robinson. This is a self-help guide using cognitive-behavioral techniques}.
This is a voice politicians and people should listen to. The sick should not be blamed or scapegoated for economic ills. They need compassion.