Tuesday 4th September – More than eight out of ten GPs say they have patients who have developed mental health problems due to a controversial benefits test, according to new polling released today by the charity Rethink Mental Illness.
Over 1,000 GPs were asked for their views on the impact of the Work Capability Assessment on the mental health of their patients.
The test is being used by the Government to determine eligibility for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), which replaced incapacity benefits in 2008.
Around 1.5 million people are currently being re-assessed for ESA through the Work Capability Assessment, which is the subject of a Parliamentary debate taking place today.
The polling, commissioned by Rethink Mental Illness, reveals that more than one in five (21%) GPs have patients who have had suicidal thoughts as a result of undergoing, or fear of undergoing, the Work Capability Assessment, while three quarters say that patients who have been negatively affected by the test have needed increased support from them.
Paul Jenkins, Chief Executive of Rethink Mental Illness, said:
“These shocking statistics really show that the Work Capability Assessment is pushing some of the most unwell and vulnerable people in our society to the brink. Many people who have a severe mental illness like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder say that their condition has been made even worse as a result of the stress caused by the test. It’s the number one concern for our members, and our staff have been inundated with calls from people who are extremely worried about the impact it is having on their mental health.”
“These figures demonstrate how urgent it is that the Government overhauls the test. It is putting a strain on individuals, families and the NHS. The human and economic costs are too great for the Government to continue with it. We urge the Government to halt the system now – it could be the difference between life and death for some of the most vulnerable people in our society.”
Over 61% of GPs said assessors do not make enough use of their knowledge of the mental health of their patients. Paul Jenkins said:
“This highlights one of the most serious problems with the Work Capability Assessment. People undergoing the test are expected to gather their own medical evidence to prove that they are unfit for work, which can be an almost impossible task if you are dealing with symptoms like hearing voices, having delusions or being incapacitated by depression.
“This puts the most vulnerable people with severe mental illness at a serious disadvantage. It means that GPs’ knowledge of their patients’ mental health often goes unconsidered when claims are assessed”.
Dr Clare Gerada, Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), said:
“The RCGP supports and works with Rethink Mental Illness because it is championing the rights of people who have a mental illness. We live in a stressful society and GPs are seeing an increasing number of patients with mental health issues and stress-related illness. It’s important that mental health has parity with physical health issues in the way that patients are regarded and looked after in society.”
Ursula Sinclair, 42, from Gloucester, has depression and post traumatic stress disorder. Just days after going through the Work Capability Assessment, she attempted to take her own life. Ursula says:
“I was devastated when I was initially told that I didn’t qualify for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) because I know that I’m not fit to work at all. I became extremely distressed, and that this was one of the reasons I took an overdose a few days later.
“We appealed and my ESA was reinstated. However, we now need to go to a tribunal to make the case for me to keep getting ESA in the long term. These past few months have been nerve wracking to say the least, and I’m really worried about what will happen in the future.”
Key findings from the polling:
• 84% of GPs say they have patients who have presented with mental health problems such as stress, anxiety or depression as a result of undergoing, or fear of undergoing, the Work Capability Assessment
• 21% of GPs say they have patients who have had suicidal thoughts as a result of undergoing, or fear of undergoing, the Work Capability Assessment
• 14% of GPs have patients who self-harmed as a result of undergoing, or fear of undergoing, the Work Capability Assessment
• 6% of GPs have patients who have attempted or committed suicide as a result of undergoing, or fear of undergoing, the Work Capability Assessment
• 75% of GPs said that patients who are negatively affected by undergoing, or fear of undergoing, the Work Capability Assessment for Employment and Support Allowance, need increased support from their GP
• 61% of GPs say that JobCentre Plus (via Atos Healthcare) does not makes enough use of their knowledge of the mental health of your patients during the Work Capability Assessment process
• 67% of GPs think that the assessors should seek information from GPs directly for those patients with mental health problems who are too unwell or vulnerable to arrange this themselves
ENDS
Please see attached case studies of people affected by mental illness who are undergoing the Work Capability Assessment.
For more information, please contact Brian Semple, Media Relations Officer for Rethink Mental Illness brian.semple@rethink.org 
0207 840 3043. For out of hours enquiries, call 0207 840 3138.
Notes to editors
The survey was carried out by Vitaris Research Consultancy, part of the ICM Research Group.
Rethink Mental Illness is a charity that believes a better life is possible for millions of people affected by mental illness.
For 40 years we have brought people together to support each other. We run services and support groups that change people’s lives and challenge attitudes about mental illness.
We directly support almost 60,000 people every year across England to get through crises, to live independently and to realise they are not alone.
We give information and advice to 500,000 more and we change policy for millions.
For more information go to www.rethink.org
4 Responses
And Dave Camoron Sais we should be grateful the Tory’s are in power & helping the economy overcome its diet wile there policies drive many disabled and ill people to despair & even suicide. Dave Camoron & the Tory’s should be ashamed of the ill health they are coursing to hundreds if not thousands of people. It’s an absolute disgrace that they feel they are doing the right thing to help the economy overcome its diets by coursing even more ill health.
This deplorable situation must be ended. GPs, in fact everyone who is qualified in healthcare(that of course excludes ATOS healthcare professionals ) are stating just how criminal this WCA is in terms of the damage it does to vulnerable people. If ATOS really employed people who were able to call themselves ‘ professional’ they would not participate in such a barbaric program, as they are not, that is exactly what the grubby little monsters do.
If one was very cynical it would be a very small step to consider that this creation of stress and suicidal tendancies was another part of the T4 Agenda being put in place by the ConDems and supported by Liebor, who have yet to speak out in any convincing way against it.
At present only 40% appeal against negative WCAs but when they do, with good representation, almost all of them are capable of winning. It is not believable that the other 60% feel that they should not be receiving the benefit. These are the ones who are too stressed to appeal or who have been beaten down to the point where they give up or are told they will not get the support of the doctors and specialists who could demonstrate their incapacity.
In future, with the removal of legal aid, will even 40% be able to appeal in the absence of support from the established charities who are already using Workfare fodder to man their shops?
At the moment we, the disabled, have the support of GPs and the BMA thanks to the Black Triangle but there are moves to place financial pressures on all these doctors to start rationing care and specialist referrals. How soon, given that our appeals rely on so much of their time and goodwill to be so successful, will it be before they are placed under similar pressure to put a halt to this?
Suicide or euthanasia in the absence of the means to live life with dignity is likely to be the rational choice of many who already suffer from conditions that, through pain or difference (mental or physical) see them pushed to the far edges of society. Cutting £71 pounds a week from a maximum of £96 and turning emergency grants into loans can only add to these already extreme pressures and so emerges the T4 Agenda. The slow addition of more and more reasons why society should push us out and more for us to wish to go.
We already know that the politicians are cynical, using family disability as a smokescreen even as they implement these policies just as in the past the eradication of the Jewish people was used by a man fearful of his own heritage as a means of denial. We do not have to look far to see at least one more doing the same type of thing, trying to eradicate disability by removing the disabled because of what disability did to one of his family.
Every policy so far adds to the others and gives them more power to destroy our lives, benefits removed or cut back, the goal posts changed to make them harder to claim and changes to the appeal system (which comes under the Department of Justice and guess who is now in charge of that?) plus withdrawal of legal aid.
For us the writing is very much on the wall but there is one huge miscalculation – what can be done to people who have nothing left to lose? If prison will be an upgrade with its regular meals, heating and medical care the what will be its deterrent value once those who have lost all three realise they have only gains to make by unleashing the righteous fury that they feel? If the answer is – not a lot – then this and other governments will have real reasons to fear the response to their actions.
How Long before it is Ended Things move in this Static Country with the Speed of
Slower than Staticness when it comes to Sorting Things Out through when
Politicians Want Gravy Trains then it Accelerates
Down with Euthanazia Eugenics and Forward to Increasing Welfare Benefits
and the State Pension