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Views & Reviews No Holds Barred

Margaret McCartney: Who’s measuring the harm caused by the new benefits system?

BMJ 2015; 350 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.h280 (Published 20 January 2015) Cite this as: BMJ 2015;350:h280
  1. Margaret McCartney, general practitioner, Glasgow
  1. margaret{at}margaretmccartney.com

The Disability Living Allowance benefit started to become Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) in 2013. These payments, which are not means tested, go to people with long term disabilities who need help to cook, eat, travel, wash, or dress, for example.

The UK government’s stated aim was to reassess each person receiving Disability Living Allowance to reduce “caseload and expenditure” by 20%.1 After a “spending to save” philosophy the government gave two private companies, Atos and Capita, contracts worth about £500m2 and £140m3 to administer the assessments and, supposedly, to save us £3bn. The rationale was a need for objective functional assessments and continual reassessment.

Many in the media have focused on “benefit cheats.” Anxiety is a common, unintended outcome of health and social …

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