THE FACE OF TODAY

[ayjay]

I'm automatically skeptical about any article that is only published in ONE newspaper.

It was in the Grauniad a couple of weeks earlier.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/19/rnib-dwp-blind-court-action-benefits

 

I think it's significant that the RNIB is reported as having several cases that they are preparing against the DWP. (although it's possible that that's been fabricated too, if the original story was).

[Steve Burke]

This makes me ashamed to be British!

 

I never thought I'd ever say this, but if there were a general election tomorrow I'd vote Labour!

[chesters1]

Please dont it was labour that brought this crap on us by bankrupting the country ,vote greens we KNOW they are loonies! They will bankrupt us bringing in laws we must eat grass and live in burrows whilst giving all tbe cash to whales or porpoises for fun parks

 

The trouble is with this welfare reform is it uses a sledgehammer (and has to unfortunately) the vulnerable will always suffer but hopefully the various charities but in ,but really we nedd to get rid of the huge amount of false "disabled" that labour knowingly and secretly transferred from the unemployed list to the disabled list to cook the books ,i wish i was as fit as some of these bastards on DLA ,my mrs does as well!

 

The trouble really is/was employing a bunch of foreigners to do the dirty work and have incentives they do their job extreme,y well ,the appeals being won (we have been to one they are no pushovers) just show johny foreigner still has a rudge for losing agincourt and an IT company out of its depth

The rest is down to lowly penpushers given a little power and bloody using it because they have nothing else in their shallow lives but that little bit of power over others

Edited March 6, 2014 by chesters1

[Steve Walker]

Looks more like staff incompetence than policy, though.

[chesters1]

Not sure ,who would pay a fortune for a service exactly the same as the one before ?

Everything is still blue pencilled by DWP but using the data supplied by ATOS ,if the data is bent the outcome will be

 

The problem is on one hand 99% of people could work but just how many jobs are out there for a million people who can press a button when a machine would do it for free forever?

No thought to how they could get to that button either ,if they needed a person to take them i doubt that button pushing job would feed clothe and house two people ,trouble is we have a few million foreigners pushing that button vefy cheaply or getting benefits and forbidden to press that button

Edited March 6, 2014 by chesters1

[Sportsman]

As Steve says this is just incompetence by staff in an office somewhere, rather that government policy.

Doesn't make it right of course but I don't think it is due to the government. Civil servants remain in place when governments change and will continue to make mistakes.

[Steve Burke]

I don't believe for one moment that it's incompetence by staff in all but a minority of cases. There are far, far too many instances for it to be that. What's more it goes much deeper than this story about the blind.

 

Instead it's government pressure on the department and thus the whole staff to cut the benefit bill.

[Sportsman]

Sorry, but this level of stupidity / incompetence, call it what you will has been a feature of our caring society for as long as I can remember.

It's just that the phrase "cutbacks" has entered the collective consciousness so everything is now blamed on them.

[gozzer]

There seems to be some confusion as to the definition of 'staff'. If I'm right then Sportsman is implying that it's it's mainly the administrative 'staff' that's the problem, not necessarily the front line 'staff'. If I'm wrong then I apologise Dave.

As some of you know my daughter works for the NHS as a radiotherapist. I hear from her about cuts in staffing levels, and targets they have to meet. Also the refusal to 'upgrade' qualified staff, while still telling them to do the job of a higher banded person. They bring in inexperienced staff straight from university, (on the lowest grade/pay), and expect those such as my daughter to work with them and help them get the experience they need. This sounds ok, but, before treatment it needs two fully qualified staff to check dosages, and set up the machines. When my daughter started, it was two qualified staff and one trainee per machine, now it's often one qualified person, and one trainee. This means either the qualified person can, call someone off another machine to check, trust solely on their own judgment, (against the rules), or ask a trainee and go through it with them, again against the rules. On the occasions this happens, it cuts into treatment times, and then there's questions asked.

The treatment times are set like it is a time and motion study, with each patient allotted the same time. These are people,not machine parts, and the age, physical and mental condition, along with other factors, determines how long they need to set up a machine. They can get anything from a frightened six year old, to a 25 stone adult with an addiction to treat. Some need coaxing, some need a firmer approach, some are arrogant, some terrified, they usually cope, but at times have to stop late, or work through their breaks, to meet the target number. She's lucky that the group she works with mostly work as a team, and help each other out. Add to this the reams of paperwork to be filled in, and the manual handling issues, (they have to manually move and 'wedge' into position because they work to about 3mm in most cases), and is it no wonder that moral is low, and many qualified staff are moving abroad?

The relationship with admin' is not good because it's treated almost like a factory, with 'unit numbers per day', being the concern among some. During the NHS 'strike' (last year?), the Trust published a statement decrying the staff for taking action, what they didn't say was that every urgent case was treated, and overall, 98% of planned treatments were carried out on time. I'm not surprised that the NHS is in trouble when it's split between those that have the patients interest as a priority, and those with little, if any, medical experience, that are employed just to meet financial and 'unit number' targets.

 

 

John.

[Steve Walker]

It is policy to send letters to blind and partially sighted claimants in braille or large print. It is also policy to sanction people who don't respond to letters. If the latter is happening because the former is not, that is a failure of implementation rather than of policy. Either the systems are badly designed or whoever processed the information that the claimant needed accessible communications did not do his job properly. Either way, somebody is incompetent, and that person won't be removed by a change of government.