UK Petition to publish death stats after benefits stopped

[worldbackwards]

And the numbers are in:

Showing the horrific impact of early ESA. The last couple of years are bad enough.

And now we're heading back to that. Astonishing and appalling.

 

[SilverbladeTE]

And folk wonder why I think those responsible should be jailed for life, or worse?
Time for Nuremberg Trial #2, ideally for all the UK and US government/elite as this issue is just one part of a system to destroy social democracy completely, fat chance though.

 

[worldbackwards]

Full story up now. They're rolling back on the 80,000 figure, which seems to be a mix up with something else. 4,000 odd perfectly valid. Over a third had appealed and been rejected.

http://linkis.com/huffingtonpost.co.uk/z1PVg

 

[alex3619]

We need data broken down and displayed as a time graph. Its fair enough to compare deaths prior to interventions versus post intervention though. Its the difference between the two that needs explaining. We need to see the data broken down, not displayed in aggregate for a long time frame.

 

[Simon]

Thousands have died after being found fit for work, DWP figures show | Society | The Guardian

The data, compiled in response to freedom of information requests, also revealed that between December 2011 and February 2014, 50,580 recipients of employment and support allowance benefit (ESA) had died within 14 days of their claim ending.

Of this number, 2,380 – or 4% – had received a decision that they were fit for work, meaning that they were at risk of losing their ESA benefit.

Of the 50,580, 7,200 claimants had died after being awarded ESA and being placed in the work-related activity group – a category which aims to identify claimants who are unfit to work but may be able to return to work in the future.

So 9,580 of these deaths were from people who the ESA said were either able to work or would be able to work in future with the right support...

Now ,the cause of death is unknown and probably includes some people who fell under a bus or had similar unfortunate deaths unrelated to their main illness. But seems highly unlikely that accounts for most deaths.

edit: nb data for 27 months in total, a little over 2 years. 354 a month, by my calculations.

added:

The DWP defended the accuracy of the WCA. It said: “Any causal effect between benefits and mortality cannot be assumed from these statistics. Additionally, these isolated figures provide limited scope for analysis and nothing can be gained from this publication that would allow the reader to form any judgment as to the effects or impacts of the work capability assessment.”

That's not the point (that ESA problems caused the deaths) - classic politician's trick of responding to a different question. The point is that people who applied for benefit because they were ill were passed fit for work (or would be able to work in future) yet were dead within 14 days of benefit ending. So perhaps the WCA assessment was not marginally wrong, but wildly wrong.

 

[Wildcat]

http://dpac.uk.net/2015/08/dpac-comment-dwp-statistics-on-claimant-deaths/
.
DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts) Comment on death figures released.

 

[worldbackwards]

We need data broken down and displayed as a time graph. Its fair enough to compare deaths prior to interventions versus post intervention though. Its the difference between the two that needs explaining. We need to see the data broken down, not displayed in aggregate for a long time frame.

Right, this is the link to the stats.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/mortality-statistics-esa-ib-and-sda-claimants

The historical data isn't there, so it's hard to know whether there's an increase or not. I suspect a breakdown for 2010/2011 would be far more revealing and damaging, as that was the years when ESA was very difficult to get, before the reassessment process began to break down altogether.

I don't know if further stats are available. I suspect they are, as all this was done as a reaction to the DWP suddenly claiming that it was "too expensive" to collect and publish such information once they started to look dodgy.

The DWP is a national disgrace and it doesn't seem to matter who's in charge of it.

 

[worldbackwards]

Ben Goldacre says that the DWP have muddied the waters whilst not really giving us the information that we need to understand the stats:
https://twitter.com/bengoldacre/status/636892086105702400

 

[alex3619]

They complied with the requests but did not supply aggregate death statistics year by year. There was a doubling of the death rate that was previously established. Did that continue? We don't know, but there are grounds to be suspicious. If they wanted to remove doubts, and everything was above board, they could simply publish the data. Not publishing it means we don't know for sure. So either they have something to cover up, or they are happy for people to doubt their integrity and fitness for government - or both of course.

 

[alex3619]

http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/...le-claiming-incapacity-benefits-nears-100000/

This article indicates the death rate may not be double, but triple what it used to be.

 

[worldbackwards]

http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/...le-claiming-incapacity-benefits-nears-100000/

This article indicates the death rate may not be double, but triple what it used to be.

That doesn't surprise me - benefit sanctions tripled since the Tories came to power.

I think the point here is that the DWP have stonewalled once again, as they have throughout this process. Their integrity isn't in doubt because they never had any, haven't for over a decade. They have consistently refused to front up for their actions, insinuated against claimants who were, and are, extremely vulnerable and frequently outright lied. They haven't told the whole story; did anyone seriously think that they would?

 

[alex3619]

Based on information in the Vox Political comments, I am guestimating the number who died from DWP policy changes is on the order of 100,000 so far. That could be a colossal mistake. Covering it up and not acting immediately this was shown ... dare we use the G word? Fill in the blanks - G_ _ _ _ _ _ _.

 

[worldbackwards]

Based on information in the Vox Political comments, I am guestimating the number who died from DWP policy changes is on the order of 100,000 so far. That could be a colossal mistake. Covering it up and not acting immediately this was shown ... dare we use the G word? Fill in the blanks - G_ _ _ _ _ _ _.

It's hard to know what the figures mean. The fact that they've risen over this period is surprising, given that acceptance rates have gone up sharply since early 2011, from where they were at an alarming (and deliberate) low, 2/3 of the usual rate.

But in terms of covering this up (which they surely are), you'd have to understand the political situation around benefits claimants in Britain. There isn't a day goes by where a tabloid newspaper isn't hunting down disability benefit fraudsters and parading them as if they are representative of the sick and disabled as a whole. Channel 5 has over the last year or two taking an obsessive interest in the behaviour of those claiming various benefit payments. This picture of its schedule from the other night is, I think, illustrative:

As such, we're not only expendable, we're fair game. One or two go missing, a couple of thousand maybe, well, It was worth the sacrifice to get the real scroungers. Get into the habit of thinking about people as scum and you'd be surprised what you're prepared to sanction (no pun intended). Some of the recent comments on the Calais migrant crisis bear this out, where dying children are dismissed with "good riddance" and the like in online comments sections.

The DWP know exactly what they're doing. Never apologise, never explain and never, ever get into a position where you have to justify your actions to someone asking tough questions.

 

[Esther12]

That's not the point (that ESA problems caused the deaths) - classic politician's trick of responding to a different question. The point is that people who applied for benefit because they were ill were passed fit for work (or would be able to work in future) yet were dead within 14 days of benefit ending. So perhaps the WCA assessment was not marginally wrong, but wildly wrong.

Yeah - and a lot of the media seem to have gone with this spin. I saw a couple of charities commenting on them which seemed to do the same.

 

[shahida]

this is only going to get worse as IDS has recently spoken of getting those in wrag group back to work. And most people couldn't care less.

 

[Simon]

Bit confused, the DWP data seems to be for deaths up to 365 days following WCA, not 14 days (ah 14 days is within 14 days of the claim ending, not relative to date of WCA decision). Which would make the figures less dramatic:

Total number of individuals with a WCA decision between 1 May 2010 and 28 February 2013
2,017,070, of which:

Number who died within a year of that decision. 40,680

Year: a year is measured as 365 days after the WCA decision was made.

Mortality statistics: ESA, IB and SDA claimants - Publications - GOV.UK

Ben Goldacre seems to think the figures are uninterpretable. I'm still confused.

But the point remains, comparing with average death rates for those on benefits isn't the right comparison (though it's the one the DWP wants to make): these claimants have just been assessed by a health professional as fit for work (or likely to be fit in the forseeable future), so you would expect them to be healthier than most on benefits - or at least less likely to die within a year

 

[worldbackwards]

This seems to be a good (if limited) stab at an interpretation. Comes up with the conclusion we'd likely expect:
http://lartsocial.org/FFW

 

[alex3619]

The Vox analysis is based on deaths per day. They tripled. That cannot be accounted for.

PS I think it was Goldacre who quite rightly pointed it out that the death numbers need to be in proportion to total numbers, and we do not know what those numbers are. Which still leaves the numbers not accounted for.

 

[natasa778]

Bit confused, the DWP data seems to be for deaths up to 365 days following WCA

... these claimants have just been assessed by a health professional as fit for work (or likely to be fit in the forseeable future), so you would expect them to be healthier than most on benefits - or at least less likely to die within a year

That is the crucial thing here - because these people are assessed as fit and healthy now, their death rates should be exactly the same as death rates in the general healthy population (matched for age and gender etc). Or does DWP think that those who are a little bit more unhealthy - enough to go and die within a year - should still go out and work?

(coming to this thread late so apologies if this point has already been raised or discussed)

 

[Countrygirl]

http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/...housands-died-after-fit-for-work-assessments/

Iain Duncan Smith’s top special adviser has been awarded a peerage — on the same day that the DWP finally admitted that thousands of people have died shortly after being declared ‘fit for work’.

Philippa Stroud has been at IDS’ side for years and shares the blame for many of the Tories’ social policies. The department had fought for months to prevent release of the damning stats — at one point telling parliament that they didn’t exist.