Saturday 19 November 2011

Radio 5 Live Tonight

Just to let you all know, I will be on Radio 5 Live tonight at 10pm, discussing the government leaks on a new "sicknote" report that aims to keep people in work. The report is due to be published on Monday.

I hope this link will take you to the show http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017gwq5

You can read more about the plans here http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/workers-on-longterm-sick-leave-face-tougher-assessment-tests-6264610.html   and here http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/workers-on-longterm-sick-leave-face-tougher-assessment-tests-6264610.html

Do think about calling in to give me some moral support ;)

4 comments:

  1. I do immoral support. Any lip from Mail readers and I'll be issuing the Autistic equivalent of fatwas.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I missed it when it was first on, but just listening to the iPlayer recording. Whilst the report hasn't been released yet, another thing occurred to me that the conditions for Statutory Sick Pay requires that an employer sees evidence of illness from any doctor not just a GP. So it isn't just about GPs; it's evidence from ANY doctor including specialists that will no longer be a factor if this suggestion becomes policy.

    It seems there is a lot of focus on the myth that GPs write sick-notes and people then spend years on unspecific 'sickness benefit' and this is what is being used to advance it. I think we need to stop them confusing Incapacity Benefit/ESA with Statutory Sick Pay and 'medical evidence' with GP sick-note when it can be specialist doctors too.

    The dude from the think-tank is annoying and fell back on the old canard about the IB numbers being 'implausibly high'. Incapacity Benefit peaked and started dropping in 2005. When new claims stopped, it fell dramatically simply from there being no new claimants, meaning more than a million of them were actually short-term.

    Also, the benefits system used to recognise the different between disability/lifelong conditions and sickness which was merely long-term rather than permanent. It doesn't any more, so these have been combined. If the numbers are high it's because cost-saving policies made them so.

    I don't understand why these people from think-tanks have so much unchallenged publicity and platforms for their tabloid ignorance.

    ReplyDelete