Prove it or lose it.....Mental illness incapacity benefits that is....

Incapacity benefit shake-up raises concerns over mental health discrimination - Workplace Law Network: "Incapacity benefit shake-up raises concerns over mental health discrimination

I hate bureaucracy. I hate personality tests and the like that peg mentally ill people as slackers. I hate that another article entitled (1 Jun 2006)
Employees Not Using Their Legal Allowance for Rest Breaks maybe does ot give a person a thought as to why mental health is suffering these days. Oh- and did I mention that I have had experience personally with these kinds of subjective tests that made it so that a Worker's Insurance Board cooked it so that someone I love was classed as a faker and their benefits were turfed.

Oh----- the hate is on once again.

3 July 2006
news item
In advance of Government proposals to change incapacity benefit the charity Rethink has called for an 'anti-stigma campaign' to encourage employers to hire jobseekers who have suffered from a mental illness.
Under Government plans � set to be unveiled tomorrow (4 July) � employees who sign off work through stress will be targeted for therapy to get them back to work quicker.
The Welfare Reform Bill will also toughen the criteria on which people are judged fit either to seek work or be refused benefit if they do not.
The move follows a rise in the proportion of people claiming benefit on mental illness grounds, up from 16% in 1988 to 40% today. Ministers will alter the so-called capability test, which assesses whether claimants are fit to work, so that it measures stress better. Claimants assessed as able to work will have to take part in initiatives designed to help them back into jobs, such as counselling, training and advice. People who refuse to take part in these schemes could lose part of their benefits.
Rethink Director of Public Affairs, Paul Corry, said:
'The Government's report says clearly what needs to be done: make sure employment support is appropriate for people with mental illness; reduce discrimination by employers and protect the income of people who cannot work.

What we need now is action on all these points. The Government hasn't promised anything new today, even though its own research has shown that the proposed measures do not work for people with mental illness.

People with mental illness already face no entry signs from employers and its a concern that it’s a concern that the government isn’t proposing any action to counter this."

Rethink’s concerns seem justified in the light of recent research. Research by the Shaw Trust suggests that employers often under-estimate the extent to which their employees are suffering from mental ill health problems. There is a continued lack of understanding about mental health in the workplace; one cause of this is that most businesses don’t have effective policies or provisions in place. Stigma attached to mental health problems remains rife with around a half of those questioned thinking that organisations take significant risks when employing people who have suffered mental ill health.

The Mental Health Foundation also recently said that there should be more protection for people with — or who have suffered — mental health illness. The Foundation said that the only effective way of ensuring this protection was through Government enforced legislation.