Written evidence from Name Withheld (DEG0054)
I am responding to your call for evidence through Scope, the disability equality charity. I want to share my experiences of the barriers I've faced getting into work and what can be improved to help disabled people in the future.
I've answered two questions below as part of your call for evidence.
What extra support would you benefit from to get into work?
A person who is disabled by complex health means when we are unable to work, it’s so stressful getting ESA that it’s almost a trap in that if your health fluctuates you become stuck as you may be desperate to work but terrified to initiate any kind of contact with DWP incase you aren’t able to increase or sustain your ability to get back into work.
It’s impossible to know how it (health) will go and as desperate as many of us are to work again, we are equally desperate not to chew our own hands off by instigating some chain reaction that we can’t stop when the DWP get to know you don’t want to write yourself off for life. Those forms and the tone and approach of the current system literally destroys your confidence, physical and mental health. When you complete them, you have to face the reality of your disability (when many of us only manage to cope with extreme poor quality of life by not focusing on it too much) and we just don’t want to put ourselves back there.
Hope this makes sense. It’s like a game of ‘snakes and ladders’ and when your life savings have run out, due to the ‘stop/start’ career and the knock on for those who have to take career breaks to care for us, who wants to risk it???
Kind letters of support to those on long term sickness with offers of strategies to build confidence and ability without fear of intrusion and pressure should be offered, especially to those in the support group. I can’t stress enough how difficult it is to manage complex health but that doesn’t mean we aren’t able to be of benefit to society or that we are unemployable, it’s about thinking outside the box.
Fear stops us moving forward. We are petrified of failure and starting back at the starting line, back down the ladder and having to prove we can’t work again. Often, there’s enough historical medical data on us to firmly support our stories, agencies need to work together to establish this and not keep demanding more evidence, it’s not only destroying our health further, it is costly and a burden on health professionals to provide us with evidence.
It’s such a trap and some of us may be able to VERY slowly progress back into a ‘working from home’ situation, the pandemic has at least given the knowledge to employers that this is possible, but also Some of us might be able to start a small business from home if we were given the right type of support. Our health does not negate our ability WITH THE RIGHT SUPPORT and safety net mechanisms.
Third sector deployment of these issues would provide disabled people with the confidence and remove some fear from the process this could be addressed outside statutory bodies. I’m afraid trust is a big thing and the statutory processes aren’t enabling in their current form.
Looking to the future, what does the Government need to improve on to help disabled people get into, stay and progress in work?
More money into third sector support systems which should be managed by people like me who have lived disability and worked hard all my life at staying or returning to employment after fierce episodes of poor health. It’s involved volunteering and retraining. It involves a safe transition and ability to slide back easily into the benefit system should your health dramatically decline or you can not sustain the employment or ability to subsidise your own income.
It’s time for a revolution for disabled people who could be served better by doing SOME of their work from home to make their lives easier but also real support from third (trusted) sector workers to ensure a timely and smooth transition back into work is possible and non threatening to the detriment of the health of those of us who battle to live.
The disability employment gap has been stuck close to 30 percent for over a decade, and the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic has seen disabled people falling out of work faster than non-disabled people.
Scope wants the Government to deliver on its pledge to tackle the disability employment gap. The Government must use the opportunity of the forthcoming National Strategy for Disabled People to set out plans to close the gap.
I hope that the evidence I have provided, alongside research from Scope will prove useful to the committee.