Not the whole truth
If I, Daniel Blake was Ken Loach’s Introduction to Benefits 101, this series of posts is intended to lift the curtain a little higher. I Daniel Blake tells the story of a man claiming benefits after a heart attack. He has a second, fatal heart attack just as he is about to appeal to a Tribunal. The iniquities of the benefits system do not lie with a first time claimant who might be fit for some kind of work. Best summarised as “I, Ken Loach: Could do Better” .
The system is better than it was 40 years ago, when Thatcher used it sickness benefit to cover up mass unemployment in the wake of her destruction of the industrial base of middle England. It was called Incapacity Benefit. It was easy to get. You filled in a form, no questions asked, sat back and waited for your free money to arrive in the mail. You cashed your Giro cheque every Thursday in the local Post Office. Sometimes your Giro would be delayed, lost or stolen. The money was enough to feed and house a family as well as support a modest drug habit, especially if you were prepared to do a little dealing on the side. The result, a poor white culture where work had become a dirty word. For some, the Service User Movement thrived flourished – that is disabled people, with secure state incomes came together to start to level the playing field. I know, because, in a rather middle class way, I was part of the Service User Movement – (Fact Checker Google!).
Changing Incapacity Benefit to Employment and Support Allowance was a huge Wake Up Call. Despite protests, Tony Blair pushed it through in the mid 2000s. It introduced medical examinations and strict, legally defined categories to identity exactly who was entitled to be off work through sickness. It has numerous faults, nonetheless overall it is an improvement. People are no longer left for years to fester without intervention or interest, able develop a counter culture around drugs, Sky TV and a something for nothing lifestyle. Now, there is ongoing reassessment and intervention, so that if by some miracle, someone’s health actually improves, or they were not sick enough in the first place, they have to look for work. Equally the system is getting tighter and benefits are harder to get.
Employment and Support Allowance comes in two flavours
1 – Employment and Support Allowance, Work-Related Activities Group –
for the less sick
2 – Employment and Support Allowance Support Group, without WRAG – for the very sick
WRAG` – Work related activities to help a sick person get back to work? And here the system starts to tie itself in knots. If a person is sick, they are not fit to work and may not be fit for some time. Not unreasonably the government does not want these people to sit all day with their feet up. That is what went wrong with Incapacity Benefit. What should they do to prepare for work? You can see what they are thinking – but a far more useful approach might be Health Related Activities.
Instead of expecting people to spend their days writing blogs about their local library and documenting what time they got up, might it not be better to take the opportunity for some Health Education and Health Improvement ? supervised walking/ swimming and gym work under the beady eye of a local physiotherapist; learning how to prepare Healthy Meals with one of Jamie Oliver’s apprentices; learning about sleep, alternatives ways of managing pain, and some social skills from a psychologist.
Health Related Activities
If the government wants its people to be healthy, the community needs more practical education and participation in health related activities. Individuals have to take personal responsibility for their own health, because one thing is certain, no one else will. No one else cares whether you are alive, dead or somewhere in between. Not your doctor, not your physiotherapist and definitely not your DWP work coach. The benefits of good health are personal and if we are again to be a wealthy and creative nation, we need to be fit, healthy, and with plenty of energy to steer through the storms and seize the opportunities of the next ten years.
21st century ill-health is almost completely preventable, and largely treatable, but not if we rely on doctors and their prescriptions. We could all live for a hundred healthy years or longer, if we start early enough and stop doing the things that make us sick. Most damaging events are well documented – stress, poor diet, lack of exercise, mismanaged pregnancy and childbirth, and poor mental health.