LETTER: Government throwing millions away

In our view, our country's disability benefits system is failing those who need it the most, as well as costing us an unnecessary amount of money.

Your readers may be shocked to hear re-assessing everyone with Parkinson’s who received Daily Living Allowance for the replacement benefit Personal Independence Payment will cost the taxpayer £3 million.

These pointless reassessments that are being rolled out across the East Midlands are happening despite the fact people with Parkinson’s won’t get better.

The Government is throwing millions of pounds away on an assessment process that is broken.  PIP is meant to help manage the extra costs of a condition, but in fact a quarter of people with Parkinson’s are losing some, or all, of their award.  Why is the Government taking away the support they were previously told they’d have for life?

This is simply devastating.

That’s why Parkinson’s UK is calling on the Government to automatically move people with Parkinson’s on the highest rate of DLA to PIP, without the need for reassessment.

A total of 1,505 people from the East Midlands have already signed the charity’s petition and I hope readers will join us by signing it at www.parkinsons.org.uk/pippetition

Together we can help bring an end to a system we feel is evidently not fit for purpose.

Georgina Sait

Parkinson’s UK