Denied

Had a letter through the post on Saturday saying that our application for income support had been rejected due to not meeting the conditions for entitlement. However, being a Saturday they weren't open so I had to wait until this morning to find out what the problem was. We suspected it would be due to there being no decision on Disability Living Allowance yet.

We were right. Phoned them up and they told me that there was no DLA or Carers Allowance in place so they could not award income support for me as a carer. Makes sense I guess but the person I spoke to at the Jobcentre just said I needed to have evidence of the claim being in progress for it to go through.

Phoned the Carers Allowance helpline and they told me that they had decided on the 14th that my claim would be cancelled due to no DLA. Again, different to what the Jobcentre told me but it would still have been nice if they told me.

Finally, phoned the department of work and pensions to see if anything was going on with the DLA. I expected the answer to be 'no decision has been made' and I wasn't disappointed. I got told again that their advised timescale is 11 weeks for an appeal on a decision and that the appeal was lodged on the 14th of August so we were only 5 weeks into the appeal and that we would be notified as soon as a decision had been made. I pointed out that until the decision was made I couldn't claim carers allowance and couldn't claim income support as a carer until I had carers allowance. Their response was simply unless Emma was awarded either the middle or higher level of support I couldn't claim carers allowance. Didn't seem bothered that we had no money until this was sorted out. Fingers are tightly crossed now that our housing benefit claim goes through ok.

Contact with our local MP

Seems like ages ago now when we emailed our MP about our plight. They did reply to our email and I finally managed to speak to them (well, their assistant) today. I gave them a few details, particularly Emma's national insurance number and they are going to get to work on it immediately. A light at the end of the tunnel at last. I'm eagerly anticipating hearing back from them.

Need some advice

needs advice on how to get a support group going, found a venue but not sure what to do now...any ideas? Also does anyone know of a trained councillor who would either be willing to help or give me some advice on the best way to lead a group. I have all the passion just need some guidance. I think its very sad how little support there really is out there for people with mental health issues, to join a support group I have to wait 3 months minimum and to get psychological help i have to wait over 3 weeks. I want to start working on this so that others do not have to suffer the way am and have, thinks in a country like England should be better.

 

Local paper refuses to get involved

So i sent a letter to the local paper as well as the local mp. This was a week ago now i havent heard anything from my local mp but recieved this email from my local paper


"Thanks for your email. It seems to be a very difficult situation which I sympathise with.

I have read your email through and it sounds absolutely terrible the situation you’re going through.

However, I am reluctant to get the paper involved to be honest.

This decision is in no way reflective of your problems.

Sorry we cannot help - I hope that it works out for you all."

i have posted the letter in full taking out the name of the sender alone. let me know your thoughts

Latest DWP

Phoned the DWP to see what is going on with the claim. On the 10th they made their decision as unsuccessful and posted it out a few days later with all the reasons for it being unsuccessful. On the 13th we made our appeal and requested a copy of the letter from the gp they based their decision on.

Today they tell me that they requested the copy and on the 18th the file store got the request and should be sending out a copy to us which we should get sometime this week. We got three letters through the post today, one telling me that I had made an appeal on Emma's behalf and that they had written to Emma telling her I had made the appeal for her and that she needed to fill out a form to 'approve' the appeal. The next letter was to Emma telling her that I had appealed on her behalf and she would soon be getting a letter allowing her to either appeal herself, authorise me to appeal on her behalf or state that she did not wish to appeal. The third letter was her form to fill out.

As far as I can tell the appeal won't even start until they have this bit of paper saying Emma wants to appeal despite us telling them over the phone we wanted to appeal and the reasons for it. The friendliness of the DWP becomes apparent at the bottom of the letter "to help us meet this target we need you to complete and return any documents we have sent you and only contact us if you have not got a decision after 11 weeks". So they want us to leave them alone for 3 months and hope we forget about the appeal?

300 Million on external advisor's but only enough money to fund mental health mon-fri 9-5

It was released today that the NHS spent 300 Million pounds on external advisor's. This is a shocking number when you bear in mind that mental health services (beyond crisis services) screech to a halt at 5pm on a Friday. Meaning that unless you are a imminent threat to either yourself or others you have to wait for services to restart on Monday morning. There are no other areas where there is no doctor covering. Can you imagine the outcry if for example a maternity ward announced that they could not accept any mothers out of the hours of 9-5 or if surgeons refused to operate on a patient because it was the weekend. What if a nurse refused to stitch a cut because it was only bleeding a little rather then gushing? Why is that when we can not physically see the wound a person is suffering with we accept a second rate service?

So called urgency

On Monday Emma saw her gp and they were concerned enough to phone mental Heath services and request an urgent appointment. Half an hour later we got a call from them wanting to know why the doctor had asked them to call.

Eventually got through to them why one was needed and they said they would try and arrange something but it wouldn't be today and might not be this week. Funny idea of urgent. This was in the morning and they said they would call me back shortly. I phone back at ten to five asking what happened to my call back and get told that they have been very busy today with two urgent cases and to be patient. I pointed out that I was one of those cases. Realisation struck and I got told I would definitely get a call back even if it was after working hours.

An hour later I get the call only to be told that they couldn't make an appointment as the relevant person had gone home and they couldn't access their diary. They made a big thing of how they were calling me in their own time and that they would call me first thing in the morning. I bit back saying that mental health isn't just nine to five.

Following day I call them at three to see where my call is. They tell me they've been trying to call me all day to tell me they've made one for Friday at noon. Funny how I have no missed calls and have been at home all day. Fair enough though, they made the appointment.

This morning (day of appointment) I get a call saying the consultant has phoned in sick. Fair enough, I ask if there's another consultant who is covering for them. They tell me they only have one consultant and that there is a doctor covering their emergency appointments but they're on call in Sheppy and covering there too. The earliest appointment they can do is Tuesday afternoon, assuming the consultant is back from being off sick by then. I point out this was supposed to be an urgent appointment and we have already waited for it for five days (I should add that Emma's gp assumed she would be seen same day). I got told that while it was an urgent appointment it wasn't an emergency appointment and it wouldn't be worth seeing the doctor about it and that if there were any emergencies or urgent problems I should contact the relevant people for help. Resigned, I accepted the Tuesday appointment (2pm in case I forget) and hung up.

Although thinking on it further the 'relevant people' I'm supposed to call for help are the ones that just called me telling me they can't help until Tuesday, the doctor who will refer me back to them and the crisis team who Emma hasn't been assigned to so won't do anything other than refer back to the mental health team.

Some History

I am writing to you as I wish to draw your attention to how my wife is being thoroughly let down by the very services who are supposed to be helping and supporting her most.

She suffers from post natal issues and severe depression. The NHS quickly tried to pigeon hole her by trying to make the facts and symptoms twist to fit a diagnosis and once they gave that diagnosis there was no getting away from it and she was from then on treated as a statistic rather than a human being.

On the 5th of May of this year, a few days after her release from her 1^st hospital stay, I applied to the Department of Work and Pensions on her behalf to put in a claim for disability living allowance based on her known medical condition. This condition should in theory entitle her to some mobility allowance and most probably the higher rate of disability living allowance as she is incapable of going anywhere alone and on bad days needs 24 hour supervision to keep her safe from herself.  I have been signed off work for the best part of the past four months caring for her and I have now had to give up my job in order to care for her and our son who is now nearly 11 months old.

My wife has been under numerous consultants, doctors, crisis teams and mental health teams but has been discharged from them all now because, through sheer determination on her part and a massive amount of medication, she has together with the supervision and support that I give her, in the past two months, managed not to self harm any more, nor to hear voices or have suicidal attempts. These are achievements which should be celebrated as everyday is hard work for her. However in recognition of her achievement the DWP has seen fit to finally write back on the 10th of August after delays and prevarication and report that her claim was unsuccessful and that she does not need help with her daily living.

It has always been difficult to make my wife take her medication as it makes her feel like a zombie and she describes it as watching the world happen all around her whilst feeling like she is thinking through treacle. As a result of the DWP decision she is now refusing to take her medication because she has taken the view that because she is not, according to the NHS, visibly suffering, the DWP will not recognise her as having mental health problems. She has to ask why should she try so hard if all it means is that her family is going to be worse off because in spite of whatever it is they believe I can honestly say she cannot cope on her own especially not when being alone also involves looking after her son of 11 months who although lovely can, like all 11 month olds, be very demanding.

According to the letter we received from the DWP we are entitled to appeal the DWP's decision but when we called in order to do so we were met with open hostility, implying that we were making it all up, that we were making a fraudulent claim and to simply go away. However I persisted with the request to appeal and read the list of mistakes from their report. There was not a single thing correct in their assessment. We were then informed that it would take a minimum of 11 weeks for them to consider the appeal and that if this was then still unsuccessful it would be a another 12 weeks till we could go to a tribunals board. When asked was there no way to speed things up we were told that this was standard procedure as although it is an appeal it is treated as a new claim and therefore has to go back into the queue for yet another assessor.

Quite how the assessor can believe that we could make a story up about two weeks in one NHS mental health ward, another week in another NHS mental health ward and two weeks in a private mental health hospital, with myself being signed off work for almost four months to care for her is beyond me. This is especially the case as if they bothered to contact any of these institutions and requested information from them they would obtain appropriate information. They did not, as far as I am aware, contact any of them.

The NHS labelled my wife with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder soon after first seeing her and stuck with it, seemingly unwilling to change their mind on it and basing their treatment upon it.  Phrases such as 'this treatment works well for people with borderline personality disorder' and 'hospitalisation is not appropriate for borderline personality disorder ‘were constantly bandied about. We wanted, indeed needed, to get a second opinion, as my wife’s self harming and suicide attempts were getting more and more serious and we knew that her next suicide attempt would probably be successful. The NHS, because of the label they had given her, refused to help her. When we asked for a second opinion we were informed this was not available on the NHS and that they were convinced their diagnosis was accurate so they would not refer her for a second opinion anyway. So we borrowed some money which we could not afford and went to see a private consultant at a private hospital.

After a meeting the consultant was convinced my wife did not show any signs of borderline personality disorder but suffered from serious depression with pseudo auditory hallucinations. The consultant/specialist felt it would be essential to take her into the hospital's care immediately. Thanks to funding from her father of in excess of £10000, she went in for just over two weeks to the hospital where she responded very well to the therapies and treatments but had to be discharged back to NHS care due to being unable to fund any longer there. The NHS recited their previous belief that people with borderline personalities do not react well to hospitalisation and therefore they refused to fund any further treatment.

Despite the consultant’s report from the private hospital stating that my wife does not have a borderline personality, the NHS were still convinced borderline  personality disorder was the correct diagnosis. Their comment upon reading the consultant’s report was ‘that’s nice, but we think she has something else’! What, I have to ask, has happened to the NHS treating each patient as an individual and caring for them on a case by case basis rather than treating people as a statistic?

If it is the case that my wife does have a borderline personality then surely even that is further proof that I need to be home all the time caring for her and therefore she should be entitled to the disability living allowance. It seems to us that the system wants it both ways; they want to give her a life restricting diagnosis while at the same time denying anything is wrong with her.

As you can imagine the situation is causing substantial strain on the family; the inflexibility of the DWP and the off-handedness’ of the NHS are almost beyond belief in this present day and age. What happened to the "Caring Society"?