In one instance a claimant was hospitalised due to stress caused by payment delays
In one instance a claimant was hospitalised due to stress caused by delays
People are being forced to turn to high interest loans and food banks to survive because of Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms, according to a new report by MPs.
The Personal Independence Payment scheme has also been a “fiasco” that has put claimants in hospital with stress and let down some of the country’s most vulnerable people, according to the Commons Public Accounts Committee.
The failure of IDS’ department to pilot the scheme before rolling it out has also resulted in basic assumptions being mistaken, leading to a backlog of claims, long delays and claimants left unable to access the support they need.
In one instance a claimant was hospitalised due to stress caused by delays, while another claimant was left unable to afford a special diet for diabetes.
The committee said that terminally ill people were having to wait four weeks on average for a payment decision, three times longer than expected.
Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who chairs the group, said the standard of service provided by IDS’s department and its contractors had been “unacceptable”:
“The implementation of Personal Independence Payment has been nothing short of a fiasco. The Department of Work and Pensions has let down some of the most vulnerable people in our society, many of whom have had to wait more than 6 months for their claims to be decided.”
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