The Government has ‘failed its duty of care’ to people with mental health problems, according to a senior figure in Mind charity.
The comments come after Conservative MP Priti Patel was last week condemned for claiming that there is no evidence to suggest that more people with mental health issues received cuts to their benefits than others.
NEWLY discovered artwork by a man who starved to death after his benefits were wrongly cut is to go on public display from tomorrow.
The works by Mark Wood were uncovered by his mother as she went through the task of clearing his house.
As she went through his belongings, Jill Gant discovered her son’s full collection of paintings, cartoons, writings and musical compositions.
Mental health workers and their clients marched on a jobcentre in south-west London in protest at a scheme they say frames unemployment as a psychological disorder.
The Department for Work and Pensions announced in March that Streatham’s jobcentre would be the first to have therapists giving mental health support to help unemployed people back into work.
The DWP has now said that announcement was a mistake. But by coincidence, next week Lambeth council will open a £1.9m mental health clinic in the same building.
Information watchdog to probe DWP’s secret reviews on benefit deaths
The information watchdog is to investigate the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over its refusal to publish secret reviews into 49 benefit-related deaths.
Welfare cuts will push Britain’s mental health services towards crisis
Secretary of State for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), Iain Duncan Smith, recently proposed a further £12 billion of cuts to benefits. Making such cuts is likely to disproportionately affect the most vulnerable, including those with mental health problems and other disabilities. After all, approximately half of people who need support from the disability benefit Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) do so because of their mental health.
“Welfare suicides don’t exist. Suicide is a mental health issue.” That line, by the former Labour official Luke Bozier, pretty much sums up the standard rightwing response to the website Calum’s List. According to its founders, the aim of Calum’s List is “to list the number of deaths where welfare reform has alleged to have had some culpability, and to make the best effort possible to work towards reducing this death toll.” Bozier’s Twitter comments were a gloss on blogposts by The Spectator’s Isabel Hardman and the Telegraph’s Brendan O’Neill.
The UK government is said to be considering removing the right of appeal for people denied social security benefits. The implications of this are horrific.
The UK government is said to be considering removing the right of appeal for people denied social security benefits. The implications of this are horrific. Thursday 12 May 2011 Tags: GOVERNMENT, BENEFITS, UK It is a scenario we should all dread, for whatever your circumstances today, nobody can predict tomorrow. Rumours are rife […]
