In memory of those lost through benefits-related death

There is increasing concern about the role of the Benefits System in the serious harm and death of claimants with physical and / or mental health issues. As Clinical Psychologists who support claimants through the Personal Independence (PIP) application process, we want to share our observations on this worrying relationship.

Firstly, potential claimants are already at higher risk of poor mental health due to the issues that necessitated their PIP application. These can include job loss, relationship breakdown, experience of abuse, bereavement, and the onset of physical and mental health conditions.

Follow this with a lengthy assessment process with claimants currently waiting an average five months, without income, for a decision. Many initial applications are subsequently rejected and require challenging, sometimes through court tribunal. This is a process that requires a tenacity, articulacy, and confidence that many struggle to summons when faced with the power of state bureaucracy.

"More research on the impact of the benefits system is desperately needed and we would implore you to consider using your voice to bring about change to the current system."

The claimant is then required to collate evidence from medical professionals for their claim, quite an undertaking with services so overstretched. Some claimants will have no evidence as they reside on lengthy assessment or treatment waiting lists.

To justify their claim, the claimant is then asked to lay bare their personal information in detail to an assessor they have not previously met. This can include explaining how often they visit the toilet (incontinence), the quantity of sanitary products they use (endometriosis), the duration and type of abuse inflicted on them (domestic violence, childhood sexual abuse), and the number and type of suicide attempts they have made (mental health condition).

As Psychologists, we have experience of empathetically responding to and validating these types of disclosures. By contrast, the job of the benefit assessors is to evaluate and challenge inconsistency – often claimants experience this as being mistrusted. That assessors do not require any former mental health training becomes further apparent when the claimant receives the benefit decision in the post. The lack of basic knowledge of mental health symptomology is obvious and frustrating. For the claimant, feeling misrepresented or disbelieved about the most personal and distressing aspects of their life is the ultimate 'double whammy' when coupled with a decision that leaves them without basic subsistence. Now desperate for income, the process of challenging the decision and submitting themselves to further scrutiny commences (at further cost to the taxpayer).

This is a system that makes no moral or financial sense. It detrimentally impacts mental health and suspends people in poverty. It increases the burden on mental health services and is directly at odds with our attempts to support and empower those we work with. It often affects the most vulnerable in society who have the least power to agitate for change. More research on the impact of the benefits system is desperately needed and we would implore you to consider using your voice, however you can, to bring about change to the current system.

In the two years to 2021, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) completed 124 internal investigations where the benefits system was implicated in the death or serious harm of claimants. No-one knows for sure how many people have been affected as this is not routinely recorded. This letter is written in memory of all those that have been lost.

Dr Nikki Grice and Dr Kelly Camilleri
South West Psychologists for Social Change