‘I’ve had brain injury for 7 years – but DWP still wants me to keep proving I can’t work’
Steve Mikellides, 46, was “very upset, very anxious, very scared and depressed” when he learned there would be a £120-a-month deduction from his Personal Independence Payment (Pip).
“I just wanted the floor to open up,” he said.
Mr Mikellides, formerly an NHS technician, was forced to leave the job after suffering brain damage in a car crash in 2019.
He started receiving Pip in 2021 but just two years later his award was reassessed and reduced, even though his condition is lifelong. As well as brain damage, Mr Mikellides also has a degenerative spine condition and serious digestive problems that prevent him from working.
he said Independent: “These things certainly don’t, don’t, and can’t be fixed, instead of some kind of God-sent miracle. So when the reevaluation came, it was an immediate disappointment for me.”
Mr Mikellides took his case to court after failing to appeal the decision to the DWP. The decision was eventually overturned in January this year and her payments were increased retroactively with a two-and-a-half-year waiting period.
But he said victory looked “hollow” due to a re-evaluation of his situation in 18 to 20 months, adding: “Okay, I may have won this round. But it’s just one battle in a long, ongoing war.”
New research has shown that he is just one of thousands of Pip claimants who are routinely subjected to these “unnecessary” benefit assessments despite having conditions that are unlikely to improve.
Regular reassessment of the Pip for these claimants is against the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) own guidance, according to a new report from anti-poverty charity Z2K.
It also costs the department potentially millions in avoidable costs, researchers said, noting that the government is paying private companies more than £350 million a year to carry out these assessments at a time when welfare spending is under intense scrutiny.
The charity’s figures show that 74 per cent of people with learning disabilities, 86 per cent of those with limb amputations and 62 per cent of people with cerebral palsy are given fixed-term awards, meaning they must undergo re-assessment at least every three years. Although this is considered a life-long condition.
Samuel Thomas, senior policy advisor at Z2K, said: “Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) guidance says disabled people with lifelong and progressive health problems should not be re-assessed more than once every ten years – but the data shows these rules are clearly not being followed.
“Shockingly high rates of people with disabilities who qualify based on lifetime disability, such as cerebral palsy, permanent hearing loss, and amputated limbs, are forced to undergo meaningless reevaluations even if their disabilities remain unchanged.”
The findings come after a coalition of leading charities warned in May that people with terminal or life-limiting illnesses regularly face “distressing” benefit assessments. The group, convened by end-of-life charity Marie Curie and including Amnesty International and Trussell, said: Independent, Those with terminal illnesses should stop being “forced to prove how sick they are”.
The Z2K report found that nearly 74 percent of last year’s award reviews (equivalent to more than 500,000 reassessments) resulted in no change to claimant payments. Each assessment costs the DWP an estimated £282.
Of the reviews that led to changes in the reward, 10 percent were increased, while 16 percent were reduced or stopped.
The research comes as disability minister Sir Stephen Timms continues his review of PIP, the most sought-after health and disability benefit in the UK with four million claimants. Z2K called on the veteran Labor MP to use his findings to inform his own conclusions.
A DWP spokesman said: “We are taking action to fix the broken benefits system we inherited, including extending award review periods which will remove unnecessary pressure on disabled people and help save around £2bn.
“The assessment assesses how well a person can manage PIP activities rather than making a diagnosis per se, so results depend on individual circumstances.
“As part of our work to reform the system, we have also launched the Timms Review, which has been produced in partnership with disabled people and their representative organisations, to ensure PIP is fit and fair for the future, including reassessments.”
In April the DWP confirmed that: Independent It said it was moving to set all Pip award reviews at a minimum of three years for new claims, which would increase to five years at the next review if the claimant remained eligible.
