"Thousands die after being found fit for work"

Havn’t had time to dig into this in any great detail, but if this turns out to be as is presented, it’s pretty fucking disgusting.

It’s widely know that this govts. attacks on the disabled and disadvantaged are pretty abhorent. These sorts of figures are far and above what I had imagined. Is anyone as teflon as IDS? Can this shit keep just bouncing off him?

Anyway, here is the article, read it and do some further digging, as I will later.

But for now, yuk.

You’re not going to win an argument by overstating it, though. Here’s a crucial para from that article:

But there was widespread acceptance that the data should be treated with caution. Because the cause of death was not recorded, it is impossible to show whether a death was linked to an incorrect assessment.

There needs to be some detailed research into this to separate out the causes. It wouldn’t take long, and if it does turn out that in the majority of cases deaths are caused by incorrect assessment then not only is it wrong but the families of the deceased would or should have supported legal redress.

Here’s an example of what I mean by research, in a slightly different field but related to DWP. This is from a university colleague.

Absolutely, we all know correlation does not equal causation and, in this case, there isn’t necessarily any correlation. No matter what your political leanings (or what you think of IDS), throwing numbers into a story without any context is really unhelpful. I would have hoped for better from the Grauniad.

Here’s an interesting case. A coroner has concluded that withdrawal of ESA in this case was the determining trigger. Expressed suicidal thoughts as part of his application for ESA. The DWP was supposed to follow up the medical leads, but never bothered. Killed himself six months afterward, after being forced to go down the JSA route.

In its response to her report, DWP said there was a “clear policy that further medical evidence [should be requested]in cases where claimants report suicidal ideation in their claim forms which regrettably was not followed in this instance”.

I think that might be the first time I’ve ever seen the words “suicide ideation” in sequence.

Someones made up a song

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