Strike Three?

Where to begin: it's amazing how nothing happening can produce such tension and thought.

So yesterday I was supposed to have a home visit from the WCA people - supposed to, guess what didn't happen.

This would have been their third attempt after initially telling me -at the assessment centre - I needed to be seen by a doctor because I presented with eyesight issues. No one showed up. It was only after I rang them I learned the assessor had called it a day for 'personal reasons'. In other words, we ain't telling you shit. That they knew this and hadn't bothered to let me know says it all really.

Imagine treating people like that. Imagine dealing with people with conditions severe or less so; people that suffer anxiety, stress, etc, and this is the best you can manage. Is that not unacceptable? It should be!

So let's unpack this. First some context: my first go was Autumn of 2017 Despite a summons, the assessment was cancelled on the spot; because I had reported eyesight issues a doctor was required. Of course there wasn't one available and nobody had bothered to read the case notes. I then asked for a home visit and mentioned that this would need to be carefully arranged due to my living arrangements.

I was summoned back just before Christmas. I just assumed they'd ignored my home visit request, but in fact I wasn't booked in at all: I was on the list for a home visit. Only no one saw fit to actually inform me. Dealing with the assessment centre is stressful. Not least of all because everyone else present is a mirror reflecting your own stress, while tinpot Hitlers press home minute issues. One poor guy was threatened with being sent back because he'd said the wrong thing in respect of being made to wait. And wait you will. Even the security guard ended up taking his side. Persuading the receptionist, a veritable human emotional Medusa, was like pulling teeth it seemed.

This is no place for the infirm.

So I've been waiting, suffering traumatic post stress disorder invoked by the sound of a letterbox. What could be more absurd? No idea when or where I'd be seen except a fortnight prior to the appointment. That's the notice you're given of an impending assessment at a time of their choosing. The appointments are block booked a month or so at a time (or so I was told). You are not a part of that process and yet you are the focus. We have no say in our fate today.

I got a phone call at 9-30am from the assessor asking if I'd like to be seen an hour early because her first appointment had already finished. I said no because I only had the house to myself from 11. She agreed and said she'd see me then. I then spend the entire morning stressing like a beast, climbing the wall and staring out the window like a caged animal or a kid on Christmas eve. This isn't a good place to be. In these situations your own home becomes a different place. It was only at 2pm that I rang them and discovered what I mentioned above.

I find myself sceptical about that phone call. Again, I don't know what happened, but had she seen me at 10am - as she requested - it's very possible that appointment would have had to be abandoned for the same reasons. What a mess. It's entirely possible of course her phone call was genuine, but my mind is racing and I'm joining the dots!

I mentioned above that I needed to be seen by a doctor. On the letter it tells me the name of the person that's coming to visit me. There is no prefix to that indicating a title of any kind. Now again this may be my racing mind, but I checked online to see if that person was registered as either a doctor or an optician (you can actually do this). I'm not going to mention her name here but it's not an uncommon name. I got zero results. I know the search facility works because I double checked using other names. Now this is hardly conclusive but I'm not convinced this person actually meets their own criteria for this process! I suppose there's little I can do about this.

So I'm having a conversation with their office about all this. Naturally this is an officious conversation; you can sense the attitude of the staffperson. They imperceptibly bristle when you raise a problem. You can hear it in the tone when they inform me that they can't inform me of what exactly has happened - not even in general or vague terms (if possible). They offer a perfunctory bureaucratic not-sorry apology. It's officious it isn't informative and it certainly isn't caring.

My only option is for them to rebook the appointment; to them I'm just a piece of dry cleaning. I have no more emotions than a dirty piece of formal attire. I'm a wedding gown with spilt wine. I'm not a human being repeatedly undergoing a situation I find very stressful. Let me also be clear: there are people far worse off than I that, in a similar situation (and there will be people in similar situations), will just shatter. The booking process is similarly mechanical: they seem to 'block book'. Staffperson tells me that all their 'doctors' are booked until April, so I don't anticipate (probably a mistake) hearing until the start of next month. But who knows? It's back to dreading the sound of the letterbox.

I tried explaining just how stressful this is and, in a supreme example of aforementioned superciliousness (beat that dictionary corner!), am asked: "so you want us to close your case and refer it back to the DWP?".

That is passive aggressive and disingenuous. They know exactly what happens them and I try to prise an admission of that from them. Of course their reply is equally non-committal: "it's up to the DWP what happens, we don't know". Yeah you do: if a claim gets referred back it will certainly be closed - who knows what reasons they will give the DWP for their actions? I tell the staffperson that three attempts is too stressful I can't deal with another (I doubt it'll be a year before they write back!), but that falls on deaf ears. What would the DWP make of that reason? What can they?

And that is the problem. What can they do? It's a machine. It cannot understand human capacity or feeling. That you find it stressful is totally irrelevant. You either go through it or you close your claim - thereby tacitly admitting you are work-capable anyway (proving the point in their eyes). This system does not work because it cannot work. It is inimical to the problems it's designed to highlight. In fact so far gone is this broken system that to even describe it thus is to imply it can be fixed - it can't. It must, immediately, be completely and utterly scrapped. Dropped like a hot plate.

Also, don't forget these assessments are carried out on the public purse. We already know that the cost is more than the savings in terms of means testing people's benefits. But the reality is that a large corporate entity receives hundreds of millions. A portion of that, called profit, is immediately trousered, beyond the minimum they are prepared to spend to run the scheme.

This is a perfect example of capitalism's failings: in order to maintain their bottom line, they will only invest the minimum they feel necessary to provide this service. I don't even know if they pay the assessor's mileage for home visits! It's a giant corporate scam, and the worst part is that the staff, all of whom will have some connection with the medical sector perhaps in a previous life, could be working for the NHS. They could actually be doing some good, but instead they are economically persuaded away. That is outrageous; it's gutting the health service to fund ideological means testing.

This post is already long enough, more on this as my mindpsace congeals into something resembling coherency.

Return of What Is Help?

It is pretty clear that what passes for support is nothing of the kind. It's nothing more than bootstrap mentality bolted onto American self help guru buzzwords granted the gift of funding from the likes of the EU Social Fund. I guess that won't be happening anymore!

Schemes that have go-getting names like 'Aspire', or use numbers instead of words, like 'Aim 2 Succeed'. It just sounds like self reassurance rather than actual positive support. Like an affirmation: say it enough times and you'll start believing it. That, at least, is the theory.

In practice it just amounts to industrial scale gaslighting. If you do not fit in with very narrow definitions of what support actually amounts to then expect to be held responsible: "we just don't know how to help you". Then why are you spending public money? Why aren't you addressing fundamental structural problems rather than blaming the individual for their circumstances when those circumstances are largely dependent on the environment?

For example, Second Step, another local provider, has been caught in lie. I applied to their Peer Employability Programme. In fact I met with the person running it. I explained my circumstances, but ultimately they had nothing to offer other than the usual vague talk of action plans and 'confidence building', which I think is their euphemism for everything else. I've no idea how that would address structural unemployment problems nor the conditions of the labour market that people out of work with mental health issues would have to face. How can it? It's the employer that will decide not to hire the person with such a 'colourful' history and there's nothing you can do about it.

So I complained a month or so ago that the scheme wasn't delivering what it was purported to offer. Subsequent to that the line manager for the person running it told me, emphatically in two separate emails, that the scheme wasn't intended for people with mental health problems. Something they neglected to tell me either at first contact or during the meeting I had with them. If you don't cater to that then surely you'd say something, right?

Last week I contacted Second Step's North Somerset provision (the scheme was run in Bristol - separate office, the usual nonsense). They said they had nothing comparable but might I be interested in something called the Peer Employability Programme being run in Bristol - because it caters to mental health sufferers! Here's what they told me:

I have just found this service that we have which you may find useful please contact them using details below:

For people with experience of mental health problems

We understand that it can be daunting to return to work after having time off because of mental health problems. That's why we're working with the Rank Foundation - a grant-giving charitable trust - to look at the barriers faced by unemployed people with mental health problems to get back to work.

The result of this partnership is a new project called the Peer Employability Programme which will support people who have experience of mental health problems to get ready to enter the job market once more. 

The project is open to people who have used health and social care support services and have been unemployed for at least three months. The idea is to work closely and collaboratively to help you become job-ready and maximise your potential for paid work.

Participants will be offered a combination of one-to-one support, employability workshops and help to explore work goals. Our highly personalised approach will mean we can work on the barriers people come across and do our best to overcome them together.

To find out more about the programme, which runs until September 2019, please contact 

Caught in a lie. Writ large: for people with experience of mental health problems. I emailed back and told them this. Their reply was to abrogate responsibility:

I have forwarded your previous email to our complaints officer. Please direct any future correspondence that you may have to her. 

This is help. The ability to take no responsibility once caught in a lie. All while dealing with vulnerable and potentially vulnerable people. Such as those suffering with mental health issues to one degree or another.

Brown Letter Day

Is there any other shade of envelope? Is there any shade more terrifying?

Yes, it's that time again.

You just know. You see the envelope and there is some barely perceptible quality your senses latch on to with predator-like accuracy. The summons from the Department for Work and Pain.

You will be assessed. And assessed. And assessed. Never helped. Always assessed.

This time it is a little different. Long time readers may dismally recall that last time I was told that I would be getting a home interview after they screwed up two appointments at the Misery Centre.

You might think that's a victory, but of course it isn't. My appointment is for sometime between 11am and 1pm on the 13th. They can't be accurate of course, but I guess that's to be expected. The problem is that I'm going to somehow either contrive to get the house to myself, which will be fun, or I will have to beg for a replacement appointment. Something that will not be easy. "Why?" they will demand - as I'm sure the phone will be answered by the hawkish old mare that works in the Misery Centre. Maybe it's the job that just leeches joi de vivre from your bones like rotting meat in the desert, or maybe they just have a knack for finding the most joyless officious miserable creatures and hiring them. But that woman is...not the sort of face you want greeting you when you're rocking up to be assessed by the DWP.

So that just happened. Nothing else to say really; I'm just venting. I don't expect to pass. That will mean having to deal with Universal Credit or somehow finding work before my savings expire. I've got £1300 in the bank. I've kept it back fearing that rainiest of rainy days. Sooner or later, in the welfare state, it always rains, if you catch my drift. What's sad is that I could have put that money to good use. Some people are very good at just buying a travel tick and buggering off and having adventures. Not me though, I've no idea how they manage.

Perhaps I should try it; leave a sign on the door telling the assessor "gone fishing"!