BBC News: “New benefit system labelled unfit”

BBC News: “New benefit system labelled unfit”; Benefits and Work: Daily Mail and Carer Watch

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p5foE-2Tw

The ME Association reported on 28 May:

There was a 18-minute item about the Coalition Government’s Welfare Reforms programme on the BBC2 ‘Newsnight’ programme last night (27 May 2010) – a film package with Peter Marshall reporting from Coventry and studio discussion chaired by Gavin Esler. The government spokesman who faced three benefits claimants in the studio was Steve Webb (Lib Dem), the new Minister for Pensions.

To watch this item on BBCi Player, click on the following link and then move the cursor on the time bar to 13:58.

Newsnight programme (27 May 2010)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mk25

BBC iPlayer

BBC Scotland Investigates – 2010 – 6. Who’s Cheating Who?

Mark Daly investigates new government plans to end the UK’s sicknote culture by getting a million people off benefits and back to work. We reveal how, in Britain’s modern welfare state, private companies are paid billions to carry out medical assessments on claimants to determine if they are fit for work, and ask if they are putting profits before welfare. The film hears claims that patients across Scotland with severe mental illness and cancer are being denied benefits and told they must find a job.

Broadcast on:

BBC One, 10:45pm Wednesday 26th May 2010

Duration: 30 minutes
Available until: 11:14pm Wednesday 2nd June 2010
Categories: News, Scotland

BBC News: “New benefit system labelled unfit”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/10159717.stm

A new benefits system promising to end the UK’s sicknote culture has been condemned as unfit for purpose.

Employment Support Allowance (ESA) was introduced 18 months ago to replace incapacity benefit.

But its new medical assessment has led to allegations by Citizens Advice Scotland that it targets the most vulnerable.

However, the Department for Work and Pensions believes ESA is the best way to ensure people get back to work.

A BBC Scotland investigation found that under ESA, more than two thirds of claimants are being found fit to work, almost 20% more than the government had planned.

Full article on BBC Scotland here

From Steve Donnison Benefits and Work

Atos medicals on TV [26 may] plus more secret recording

26 May 2010

Dear Subscriber,

In this issue we have what we regard as an absolutely brilliant letter by a member who decided that he was going to record his medical secretly, but informed Atos in writing in advance that he was going to do so. It worked for him and you may well want to give it a try yourself: Recording medicals – excellent strategy from a member (This article is members only)

Atos won’t be happy about this and they probably aren’t very pleased about featuring in a TV programme tonight, Wednesday 26th May. Who’s Cheating Who?, which questions whether employment and support allowance is fit for purpose and whether profits are being put before welfare, is on at 10.45pm on BBC1 Scotland. (Even if you don’t live in Scotland, you should be able to watch if you have freeview, Sky or cable TV). We know that many Benefits and Work members provided information to the makers of this programme and we’d be very interested to have your comments after you’ve watched. More details and your opportunity to comment: Who’s Cheating Who?

Another group of people who aren’t feeling too happy at the moment are MP’s There’s outrage at Westminster over the impression that Ipsa, the new expenses authority, is treating our honourable members as if they were – in the words of one ex-minister ‘benefits claimants’: Shed real tears as you read about the tribulations of our honourable members: Outrage as MPs treated like claimants

Sadly, there are clouds on the horizon for claimants too, as the Queen’s Speech includes a welfare reform bill intended to simplify the benefits system and, somewhat miraculously, move 5 million claimants currently ‘languishing’ on benefits into work as a result: Major changes to benefits ahead

There’s more cheering news from north of the border, though. A member of the Scottish parliament has tabled a motion asking for an urgent review of employment and support allowance on the grounds that it’s unit for purpose. Whilst the motion won’t have any practical effect, we think that supporting an elected representative anywhere in the UK who has the courage to speak out in favour of sick and disabled claimants is worthwhile. Find out more and send Hugh O’Donnell a message of support here: Scottish motion against ESA

TRIBUNAL LOVE
Finally, there’s no shortage of sad, angry and desperate tales in the forum at the moment, but we’ve managed to find a few happy ones to keep the mostly positive tone of this newsletter going right through to the end.

Appeal Success at loooooong last

DLA APPEAL WON!!!

ESA Success of sorts!

Tribunal-I Love You!

Good luck,

Steve Donnison

(c) 2010 Steve Donnison. You are welcome to reproduce this newsletter on your website or blog, provided you do so in full.

Daily Mail  |  26 May 2010

New disability benefit system is flawed and could cost taxpayer MORE, says one of its architects

One of the architects of a new benefit system for disabled people urged the Government to delay rolling it out today after evidence that medical tests are wrongly finding thousands of people fit for work…

Full article here

Carer Watch  |  30 April 2010

A campaign group for carers across the UK run by independent, unpaid carers

Silence from Leaders re Carers Benefits is deafening

We thought this may be of interest to you ( and your members). As much as social care has been given such a high profile, we feel once again family carers have been overlooked.Comments can be added to the blog post.

http://carerwatch.wordpress.com/

Forward-ME: Minutes of meeting 24 November 2009

Forward-ME: Minutes of meeting 24 November 2009

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p5foE-2yq

Ed: Forward-ME is a caucus group to the All Party Parliamentary Group on ME (APPG on ME) convened by the Countess of Mar in order to “hammer out areas where [the national patient organisations] shared common ground”.

Membership of Forward-ME is by invitation of Lady Mar, who also chairs these meetings. Members of the public are not permitted to attend the meetings, either as participants or observers. When the Countess of Mar had announced her desire, in mid 2008, to convene a group away from the APPG on ME, no discussions had taken place with the ME community around how, and on what basis it would be decided to whom invitations to participate in these meetings would be extended.

Nor had it been discussed whether the ME community would welcome such a group convening behind closed doors in between meetings of the APPG on ME (which members of the public are able to attend). Nor was it discussed who would be setting the agenda for these meetings.

Forward-ME meetings are attended by representatives of Action for M.E., the ME Association, AYME, The Young ME Sufferers Trust, BRAME, reMEmber (The Chronic Fatigue Society) and Mrs Sue Waddle, on behalf of ME Research UK.  

The 25% ME Group had been a member of Forward-ME but withdrew from the group following the “Countess of Mar NICE Guideline” issue.  Lady Mar was also asked to stand down as Patron to the 25% ME Group.

Invest in ME are also members of the group but have been dithering for sometime now over whether to also withdraw their support.

Since Forward-ME was convened, no further meetings of the ME Alliance have been held. It would appear that these meetings chaired by Lady Mar have become a substitute for (an extended) ME Alliance, although no formal statement on behalf of the Alliance has been issued around its current status or its future.

Correspondence between RiME and Lady Mar

Statement from Invest in ME on Forward-ME

Statement from 25% ME Group on Forward-ME

FORWARD-ME

http://www.forward-me.org.uk/24th%20November%202009.htm

Minutes of the meeting held on Tuesday 24 November 2009

At the House of Lords

1. Present:

Christine Harrison – BRAME
Bill and Janice Kent – ReMEmber
Peter Spencer – AfME
Charles Shepherd – MEA
Sue Waddle – MERUK
Margaret Mar – Chairman

2. Apologies:

Mary-Jane Willows – AYME
Jane Colby – TYMES Trust
Tanya Harrison – BRAME
Kathleen McCall – Invest in ME

3. Dr James Bolton, Deputy Chief Medical Adviser, Department for Work and Pensions.

The Chairman introduced Dr Bolton and thanked him for agreeing to address the Group.

Dr Bolton began by saying that the health and work agenda provided a lot to talk about. He had been looking at some graphs which showed that proportionally, there were more people of pensionable age, fewer people of working age, and those of working age were getting older. As the working population grew older they suffered from more adverse health conditions. The question then arose as to how to support people with health conditions in work. It was not only for economic reasons. There was a huge amount of evidence that showed the benefits of being in work and that being out of work was harmful.

This was the challenge. It would be necessary to get individuals, GP’s and employers to talk to each other and to work together. The current medical certificate or ‘sick note’ showed only that an individual was fit or not fit for work. This was in contrast with the proposed new ‘fit note’, for which legislation would be required, which would be used for people in work who would be capable of doing some kind of work which was not necessarily the same work as they had been doing. The GP would be expected to recommend which types of work were suitable. This would mean that appropriate and reasonable adjustments may have to be made in the workplace.

It was intended that pilot schemes would be run to make sure that people got appropriate treatment as soon as possible and that they were helped to get back to work. If these were successful the procedures were introduced universally. Most big businesses had access to occupational health services and were already able to cater for some changes. For small and medium enterprises (SME’s) an occupational health line with employment advisors would be appointed to provide an advisory service. This, again, would be piloted.

The Elephant in the Room Series Three: Channel 4: Benefit Busters; A4e and the Sykes brothers

Image | belgianchocolate | Creative Commons

Keywords

APA    DSM    DSM-IV    DSM-V    WHO    ICD    ICD-10    ICD-11    American Psychiatric Association    Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders    World Health Organization    Classifications    DSM Revision Process    DSM-V Task Force    DSM-V Somatic Distress Disorders Work Group    Somatic Symptom Disorders Work Group    DSM-ICD Harmonization Coordination Group    International Advisory Group    Revision of ICD Mental and Behavioural Disorders    Global Scientific Partnership Coordination Group    ICD Update and Revision Platform    WHO Collaborating Centre    CISSD Project    MUPSS Project    Somatoform    Somatisation    Somatization    Functional Somatic Syndromes    FSS    MUS    Myalgic encephalomyelitis    ME    Chronic fatigue syndrome    CFS    Fibromyalgia    FM    IBS    CS    CI    GWS

The Elephant in the Room Series Three:

Channel 4: Benefit Busters, A4e and the Sykes brothers

WordPress Shortlink for this posting: http://wp.me/p5foE-1RY 

The CISSD Project (Conceptual Issues in Somatoform and Similar Disorders), co-ordinated by Dr Richard Sykes, PhD, between 2003 and 2007, and administered by UK patient organisation, Action for M.E., was funded by The Hugh and Ruby Sykes Charitable Trust to the tune of £62,750.

The recommendations of the CISSD Project and papers that resulted out of its workshops have fed into the revision processes towards DSM-V and ICD-11.

Dr Sykes is currently engaged in the London Medically Unexplained Physical Symptoms and Syndromes (MUPSS) Project for which he receives a research award from the Institute of Psychiatry for £27,000 per year.

This award is also funded by a grant from The Hugh and Ruby Sykes Charitable Trust.

We are still waiting for the ME Association and for Action for M.E. to provide analyses of the CISSD Project and commentary on the DSM and ICD revision processes.

I call upon both organisations to report on the nature and purpose of the MUPSS Project, too, for it is not yet known how the MUPSS Project is being carried out, who is involved in it or who its stakeholders are, but Dr Sykes is reported as having said that the Project has relevance to “all conditions characterised by medically unexplained symptoms, not just CFS/ME”.

Virtually nothing is known at present other than that the Project relates to what Dr Sykes perceives as “medically unexplained symptoms (MUS)” and that he includes within this category, “CFS/ME”.

Dr Richard Sykes and Sir Hugh Sykes are brothers.

Sir Hugh Sykes is a non executive director of A4e (Action for Employment) – the largest European provider of Welfare to Work programmes.

For links for information on A4e see:  The WHO Somatisation Project: The Elephant in the Room Part Six

Sir Hugh has authored pamphlets for the right-wing think-tank “Politeia”, see:

http://www.politeia.co.uk/about/default.asp

“Politeia, a forum for social and economic thinking, opened in November 1995 as a focus for thinking on social and economic policy. Its aim is to encourage reflection, discussion and debate about the place of the state in the daily lives of men and women across the range of issues which affect them, from employment and tax to education, health and pensions.”

Current areas for work include:

Tax and benefits: a fairer framework for incentives;
The potential consequences of the Euro or other European measures for British social and economic policy, employment, taxation and trade;
International comparisons of educational standards;
Policies for high employment: the role of the state, the employer and the employee;
Covering for lost income: health, long term care, pensions and unemployment Welfare reform, pensions, benefits and taxation;
Constitutional change and stability;
Policing in the UK”

Sir Hugh is the author of

“Working for Benefit”
Hugh Sykes
£5.00

Although it continues to fall, unemployment remains a serious problem both economically and socially. Does it not make better sense, asks Hugh Sykes, to pay people to work than, as the present benefits system does, to remain idle? The workfare scheme he proposes here would achieve a reduction of at least 200,000 in unemployment over three years. Developing from and extending the government’s own schemes, it is – unlike other schemes suggested by left and right – both straightforward and detailed enough to be put into practice immediately. It gives incentives to employers to create, and to the unemployed to take, real productive jobs, whilst also providing opportunity to work where such jobs are not available. NERA, the leading experts on the economies of workfare, have provided technical advice and data for the scheme.”

and

“Welfare to Work – The New Deal: Maximising the Benefits”
Hugh Sykes
£5.00

The New Deal – the government’s welfare to work scheme – aims to increase employment in the long term by helping some of the unemployed to become more employable, thereby increasing the pool of effective labour and so facilitating sustainable economic expansion. Sir Hugh Sykes, until recently Chairman of the Sheffield Development Corporation, welcomes the scheme and its aims. But, he argues, there are serious problems in implementing the scheme which should be urgently addressed. The fact that the scheme does not aim to create new jobs in the short term will cause widespread disappointment, unless the public is given a better understanding of the scheme’s aims. Sir Hugh also contends that the scheme should aim at short-term job creation – something which will be possible if it can be flexibly implemented in the regions, rather than rigidly run from the centre, and if it takes proper account of regional and local priorities.”

 

Later this month, Channel 4 begins a series called “Benefit Busters”:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/benefit-busters

Benefit Busters

Series Summary

In 2009, Britain will pay out more in benefits than it raises in income tax. Welfare and pension payments cost more than education, health or defence.

Now, as the government attempts to revolutionise the welfare system – controversially rewarding private companies according to their ability to coax people off benefits and into jobs – this documentary series follows the people on both sides of this new welfare state.

Watch again on:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/benefit-busters/4od

Series | Episode 1 | Benefit Busters  [48 mins]

Hayley Taylor’s job is to persuade single mothers on benefits to go back to work.

The company she works for, A4E, which is helping to tackle the Government’s target of getting 70 per cent of lone parents into paid work by 2010, is the largest welfare reform company in the world.

A4E is run by multimillionaire entrepreneur Emma Harrison, who believes her business is ‘improving people’s lives by getting them into work.’

Until recently, the 700,000 lone parents receiving benefit didn’t have to look for work until their youngest child was 16. Soon, they must either work, or be looking for work, once their youngest child is seven.

At Doncaster A4E, Hayley runs a course called Elevate that aims to give lone parents the skills and confidence to enter the workplace and convince them they’ll be better off doing so. Cameras follow her group of ten single mothers during their intensive six-week course to prepare them for work.

Next Episode: Thu 20 Aug, 9PM on Channel 4, Monday 24 August 4AM Channel 4

 

Series 1 | Episode 2 | Benefit Busters

Unemployment is rife in Hull, but for one company business is booming: A4E has won the lucrative contract to help get the long-term unemployed back to work. Mark Pilkington is an ex-soldier who hasn’t worked for 10 years. He welcomes help and within a fortnight he finds a job. But the joy of receiving his first pay cheque is short-lived; after just four weeks a business downturn results in Mark being laid off.

Facing a return to A4E and potentially a four-week wait to restart his benefit payments, Mark begins to wonder if there is more security in a life on benefits.

It appears to be a shockingly common perception amongst the clients at A4E, who are at the mercy of an increasingly casual labour market.

Date Time Channel
Thursday 27 August 9PM Channel 4

 

Series 1 | Episode 3 | Benefit Busters

One of the government’s targets is to shift one million people off long-term sickness benefits and get them back to work.

In Oldham, the charity Shaw Trust* has won the contract to implement this policy.

Sherrie Jepson, a former car saleswoman, has the job of selling the idea of employment to people who were previously considered too sick to work.

Keiron Tandy fell from a third-floor balcony while celebrating his 18th birthday in Turkey. He has metal pins in his back and has restricted mobility.

His family doctor had confirmed him as ‘unfit for work’ but under the new system he’s examined by an independent medical examiner employed by a private health care company, which will determine whether he is fit enough to return to work. Meanwhile, Sherrie starts to try to convince Keiron that he could work if a suitable job that allowed for his condition could be found.

*The Shaw Trust

 

Shaw Trust accounts show crippling cost of DWP contracts

By John Plummer | Third Sector Online |10 August 2009

Charity blames Pathways to Work programme for huge deficit

The Shaw Trust made a £2.8m loss in 2008/09 compared with a surplus of £7.4m the previous year, according to its annual report.

The charity, which is the largest voluntary sector provider of employment services for disabled people, blamed the loss on the huge start-up costs involved in delivering Pathways to Work programmes on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions.

“The DWP funding structure is making it more difficult for charities to deliver services,” said Catherine A’Bear, chief officer for corporate affairs at the trust.

“We are one of the few charities still in the business of providing services for disabled people under DWP contracts, and when you see how heavily we have had to invest in it you can see why.”

She said the start-up costs involved in setting up services and recruiting staff for Pathways to Work were so high that private companies were increasingly the only ones that could afford to bid. “The voluntary sector is seen as a sub-contractor,” said A’Bear.

The trust’s annual income increased by £8.48m to £81.39m during the same period, of which £45.8m came from the DWP. But this was offset by rising costs. Wages and salaries rose from £37m to £43m.

John Briffitt, chairman of the trust, says in the annual report: “There’s no denying that the Shaw Trust’s financial performance, like that of many other organisations in our field, has been adversely affected by the challenging economic environment.”

He said “past prudence” had built up sufficient cash resources to help it cope.

The 2008/09 financial year was a turbulent one for the trust, with chief executive Ian Charlesworth put on gardening leave pending dismissal in July 2008. The annual accounts say he resigned on 12 December.

——————————

For information on the development of DSM-V which is to be harmonised for congruency with ICD-11, and on the CISSD Project, see:

http://meagenda.wordpress.com/dsm-v-directory/

Compiled by Suzy Chapman
http://meagenda.wordpress.com

ME in Westminster: Debate: Welfare Reform Bill 18 June 2009

Source: UK House of Lords
Date: June 18, 2009
URL:  http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldhansrd/text/90618-gc0003.htm
Ref:  http://www.me-net.combidom.com/meweb/web1.4.htm#westminster 

[Debates]

Welfare Reform Bill

Amendment 55 – Moved by The Countess of Mar

55: Clause 2, page 7, line 5, at end insert -
‘( ) must be reasonable, having regard to whether the person has a condition with fluctuating signs and symptoms, and the nature of that condition;’

The Countess of Mar

I shall also speak to Amendments 90 and 93. In doing so, I declare a non-pecuniary interest as chairman of Forward ME and patron of a number of ME charities. The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, was about people  who want to go to work and are sometimes not thought fit to do so. I want to discuss people who are deemed fit to go to work but who are not fit to do so. The Minister will understand from long experience why I am concerned about this particular group of people. I explained in some detail at Second Reading the problems that they have when encountering the benefits system.

ME, or CFS/ME as it is known by some, is a condition that affects approximately 250,000 people. Many are young and a majority are women. Some who developed the illness in their teenage years have never been able to work; they have not qualified for contribution- based benefits and are totally dependent on income support. I wish that I did not have to say it again, but I feel that I must. CFS/ME is recognised by the World Health Organisation and the Department of Health as a neurological disease of unknown aetiology. Some 5,000 peer-reviewed and published scientific papers indicating various aspects of the central nervous, immune and hormone systems that are affected go some way to explaining the fluctuating nature of the condition. Yet, the view persists that this is a psychosomatic illness that is easily cured by a course of CBT and GET.

In 1994 I met Dr Aylwood when he was head of the Benefits Agency medical services. At that stage, he arranged for the doctors? training manual to be rewritten to take into account people with fluctuating illnesses. Fifteen years on, the message has still not been received. I do not know whether the noble Lord has received a copy of the letter that I left for him yesterday. It is a letter from a lady called Jayne Thomas who wrote:

‘Dear Countess,
I am enclosing, for your information, a copy of an appeal letter that I have just sent to the Department of Work & Pensions/Job Centre as they seem to think that my condition has no impact on my ability to work’.

I have no compunction about reading this letter because it says exactly what I have been trying to say for years. This is her appeal letter:

‘With reference to your decision to stop the above’

- her ESA claim -

‘I am writing to appeal against this decision as I believe it is wrong and was stunned to see that you have given me 0 (ZERO) points for my claim. Firstly, please note that you sent the ESA65 to the wrong address’

- we go back to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, earlier this week -

‘(I advised you at the end of April and many times since of my new address), the letter advising your refusal to continue to pay me arrived at the right address at the top of this letter. Both these letters had the same date on them and I would appreciate it if all future correspondence has the right address (as at the top of this letter). This may explain why a cheque went missing at the beginning of May (I am still awaiting reimbursement for this missing cheque). I would like to appeal on the following grounds;

1. At the medical assessment the Doctor from your contractor, ATOS, saw me for just 20 minutes and assured me that NO decision would be made to stop my ESA without full consultation with my GP/specialists who have been seeing me since my illness began. I spoke to my GP/ Specialist yesterday and they confirm that they have had no correspondence with yourselves.
2. With reference to your ?point scoring?, I disagree as follows;
a. Walking 0 points
I have explained to you that I am unable to walk any distance without exacerbating my condition and increasing the pain in legs. At times, I am unable to walk even short distances and a specialist only recently suggested that I may have to ask the school, where I take my son, that I get special permission to drive onto the school site to avoid the walk from the car to the school.
b. Standing & Sitting 0 points
Again, I have already explained that I cannot stand in one position for very long at all and if I sit down for too long, the pain in my legs becomes intolerable.
c. Bending & Kneeling 0 points
Again, I explained that I am totally unable to kneel or squat. When your Doctor at the assessment asked me to squat, I was unable to do this and he urged me to stop when he could see I was in pain.
d. Remaining Conscious 0 points
The extreme fatigue I suffer from can cause periods of debilitating tiredness.
e. Memory & Concentration 0 points
My condition causes short-term memory loss and if I push beyond my boundaries, concentration can become very difficult. If I try to read a novel, I am restricted to only a couple of pages where I can concentrate on the plot, if I push on I end up in pain (this was explained to your Doctor)
f. Starting Jobs & Keeping on with them AND Doing & Finishing Jobs 0 points
I have explained to you that I am unable to start some tasks, let alone finish them. The debilitating fatigue and pain I suffer from can make performing a task such a cooking a meal very difficult and I quite often rely on my husband for this as I do for other household tasks’.

She then says – and this is significant:

‘By refusing to continue giving me benefit, you are saying that I am fit for work. I had held down a very responsible job, which I thoroughly enjoyed, for 10 years until I was dismissed on grounds of ill health on 27 February 2009. Both my employer and myself made every effort to get me back to work last year. I entered a long period of rehabilitation with them from July? the end of September where I gradually returned to work. I went back to work properly at the end of September but was unfortunately only able to sustain this return for 6 weeks. At this point, I suffered a terrible relapse which left me unable to cope with the most basic of tasks’.

I will not go on. I think that I have said enough to make it clear what is going on. I am aware that benefits claimants who have CFS/ME, when called for a medical examination or interview, will do their best to perform the tasks given to them. They will have rested for the day prior to their encounter. They may find it difficult to describe their illness or what they are feeling at the time because they have recognised cognitive problems. They may omit to reveal important factors because they are tired after travel. They will often be able to do what is asked of them physically but very soon afterwards they will collapse from their exertions and may take several days to recover.

I know that the noble Lord is aware of this. However, unless all DWP staff, including the agency medical practitioners and the contractors, are convinced that ME/CFS sufferers are not inadequate attention seekers looking for sympathy and are trained and made thoroughly aware of the nature of this illness, there is a risk that people with ME/CFS are going to be harassed and distressed and made more sick than they already are. Who will be legally responsible if a claimant complies with nstructions for fear of losing benefits and is made seriously or irreversibly more ill?

I have come across none who are not eager to be able to lead a normal life. They desperately want to be able to rejoin society and to become financially independent. Most have tried repeatedly to return to a normal life only to suffer repeated setbacks. This is why they are so strident in their requests to Her Majesty’s Government for funding for biomedical, rather than psychiatric, research into their illness. At the moment there is no definite cause or cure. This is not a reason to penalise sufferers or even to frighten them with threats of benefit cuts if they do not comply. I am not suggesting that everyone in this group should be left to moulder in their illness and not be offered assistance in an attempt to resume a normal life. I am asking that they are not penalised if they fail to meet the expectations of their adviser or cannot maintain a consistent work pattern.

There are a number of other illnesses in this group, such as irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia and multiple chemical sensitivity, which equally should be recognised and their sufferers treated with sensitivity. I beg to move.

Baroness Thomas of Winchester

We are assured at every turn that those with fluctuating health conditions, such as ME, MS, rheumatoid arthritis and mental health problems, who are in the employment group of ESA, and therefore in the progression-to-work group, will be considered sympathetically by Jobcentre Plus staff before being directed to work-related activity. The now former Minister in the other place said that, ‘a person’s health is always considered, so there is no need for that to be prescribed in the Bill’. – [Official Report, Commons, Public Bill Committee, 24/2/09; col. 140.]
However, that is not the experience of many people with fluctuating conditions, as the noble Countess, Lady Mar, has so powerfully said today and on many occasions. It is all too possible for someone who is experiencing a good day when they see either a disability benefits adviser or a personal adviser for their condition not to be recognised adequately. The adviser should have a report following a work-related health assessment about a person’s condition, which indicates whether it is a fluctuating condition. I would be interested to hear if this is always the case. However, this assessment would not include any report from a person’s GP or consultant which might confirm the fluctuating nature of the condition. I wonder why that is so. It is a matter of public record that the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has suffered from ME. We therefore hope that she will be sympathetic to this point, if not to the wording of the amendment.

(…)

Lord Skelmersdale

(…)

Again, I have to declare an interest in that I have a son-in-law with severe ME. He finds that at moments he is able to do quite normal things. But then, a few hours later, he will collapse for another two, three, four or five days. If you have an assessment in a good period, it is extremely difficult- this was the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Ashfar – to come to a realistic conclusion of what may happen in the rest of the week or month. How you train people to have proper observation or realisation of that fact is beyond me. But there must be better brains than mine around the system who could get to the bottom of it. Until we do, all hope for the people whom the noble Countess has been talking about is lost.

(…)

[Amendment 55 withdrawn].
(c) 2009 Parliamentary copyright

European Court rules on accrual of annual leave for the long-term sick

ME Association News page | 23 January 2009

European Court rules on accrual of annual leave for the long-term sick

The European Court of Justice has ruled that workers who are off sick for the whole of an annual leave year are entitled to a period of four weeks paid annual leave despite the fact they they are not actually at work. National courts can decide whether the leave is taken during that year or carried over to the following year – but, either way, the employee is entitled to be paid at some point.

And the court has ruled that the right to paid annual leave is not lost at the end of a leave year if the worker was off sick for the whole of that year, or if he or she was off sick for part of the year and is still absent when the employment terminates.

The European Court has handed down judgement in the case of Stringer v HMRC – overturning a decision of the British Court of Appeal who in April 2005 ruled that the right to paid holiday did not accrue during periods of sickness absence. This judgement was appealed to the House of Lords, who referred the case to the European Court.

Richard Woodman, an employment specialist at Royds Solicitors, with whom the ME Association works on private health insurance disputes, said:

“The House of of Lords will now give a final judgement but will no doubt overturn the Court of Appeal’s judgement in the light of the ECJ decision.

“This will be a most unpopular decision with employers, because in essence it means that there is a right to accrue annual leave for those on long term sick for an unlimited period of time if they are ill for a number of years.”