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CASH NOT CARE:
~ the planned demolition of the UK welfare state
A detailed research text by
Mo Stewart
COMING SOON:
‘Cash Not Care ~ the planned demolition of the UK welfare state’ will be published in
September 2016 by New Generation Publishing.
The book is a research text and is the culmination of six years of self-funded, independent
research into the background of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA), introduced in 2008
by the New Labour government, as claimants of Incapacity Benefit were to be migrated to the
new Employment and Support Allowance. (ESA) The ESA is an income replacement benefit,
acknowledged as the long-term sickness benefit, and used to fund benefit claimants who are
unfit to work.
The WCA is used by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to resist funding the ESA
for the chronically sick and disabled community, aided and abetted by extreme comments by
the right wing press and ably assisted by Iain Duncan Smith MP who, as the Secretary of State
for Work and Pensions until March 2016, successfully manipulated the British public by
making unsubstantiated claims that later proved to be unfounded. Despite Duncan Smith’s
constant accusations there is not, nor has there ever been, any evidence of vast numbers of
chronically sick and disabled people enjoying a life of idleness on long-term benefit because
they are too idle to find work. The most recent DWP figures identify no more than 0.7% of
ESA claimants as being fraudulent, with DWP errors being much higher.
The WCA was significantly altered by the Coalition government in 2010 to make it much more
difficult to qualify for the ESA benefit. By totally disregarding diagnosis and prognosis,
desperately ill people have been prevented access to ESA because they were physically capable
of collecting a pen from the floor, when using the fatally flawed WCA functional assessment
model of disability that removes all credibility from occupational medicine.
Enforced destitution was inevitable as claimants were refused access to the ESA but were also
deemed too ill to work, and so were prevented access to Unemployment Benefit by the Job
Centres. Death totals were always guaranteed to soar as a British government now starve to
death some of the most vulnerable people in the UK.
As a former healthcare professional, and following six years of research, I can confirm that the
WCA has no clinical credibility and it is demonstrated to be a dangerous assessment model,
disregarding diagnosis and prognosis and using unqualified basic grade DWP ‘Decision
Makers’ who disregard all medical evidence provided by claimants to support any conclusions
of the WCA, which is nothing more than a compromised computer assessment.
The WCA was co-designed by UnumProvident Insurance, now known as UNUM Insurance,
an American healthcare insurance giant who were identified in 2005 as ‘an outlaw company’
by the California Department of Insurance Commissioner, John Garamandi. By 2007, the
American Association of Justice identified UNUM Insurance as ‘the second worst insurance
company in the US’ and BBC News identified the British government as consulting with an
American insurance company with a history of ‘racketeering’.
This disturbing past history failed to prevent the DWP from using the ‘expertise’ of UNUM
Insurance when designing the WCA which, since its introduction, has proven to be catastrophic
for countless numbers of genuine chronically sick and disabled people in the UK, with deaths
related to the WCA now very close to 100,000 people as of August 2015. Destitution is now
an expectation as ESA benefits can be sanction, which means totally removed, because a
claimant is unable to keep an appointment due to ill health, which DWP staff disregard.
Regardless of a long list of detailed academic research from a variety of universities, exposing
the inevitable harm of the WCA, the assessment system uses a discredited functional
assessment model and was supported by the Coalition government, and by the new
Conservative government since 2015, despite the WCA being demonstrated to be causing
preventable harm, and death, for those for whom the disability benefits system was originally
designed to protect.
It is confirmed that successive British governments have adopted American style social
security policies, which means that many who need the regular income of the ESA will not
receive the financial help needed to survive.
‘CASH NOT CARE ~ the planned demolition of the UK welfare state’ will be available from
September 2016 and contains the research evidence that the Cabinet Office attempted and
failed to stop.
ISBN 978-1-78507-783-8 [paperback]
ISBN 978-1-78507-784-5 [hardback]
ISBN 978-1-78507-785-2 [eBook]
Mo Stewart
1st June 2016
