Foreword
When you become unwell, the last thing you need is the fear of being left without enough money to live on or a roof over your head.
Over the years, Mind has heard from too many people who have faced homelessness, destitution and mental health crisis because of problems with their benefits. People who spent months of their lives challenging assessment decisions which were made on the basis that they could make eye contact with their assessor, or that they weren’t taking the right kind of medication. People who were repeatedly forced to recount experiences of self-harm, trauma and suicide attempts in each new encounter with the benefits system.
Unfortunately, they are not the exceptions or rare cases. This is the new norm. It’s wrong and it needs to be put right.
Each year there are hundreds of thousands of claims for disability benefits like personal independence payment, with mental health being the single most common reason for claiming.1DWP, Personal Independence Payment Statistics, October 2022 and April 2022 editions, available at GOV.UK Those benefits mean that people who are unwell can get the security they need to focus on moving forward with their lives, to build connections with other people and to live more independently.
But too often the process of trying to get that help is making people more unwell. In 2015, Mind worked with YouGov to survey more than a thousand people with mental health problems about the things that made a difference to their health. Of those who had considered or attempted suicide, nearly a third said that the fear of losing benefits was a factor. Unfortunately, we have seen no evidence to indicate that things have got any better since.
People with mental health problems are not alone in struggling to navigate a benefits system that’s not set up to meet their needs. Many of the people we hear from need support from the benefits system have physical disabilities.
We are delighted to have been able to work with CPAG on this Handbook, and hope that it will help you give the best advice on benefits possible to your clients.
Stephen Buckley
Head of Information, Mind