Hansard

I acknowledge the commitment to the issue of both Dorothy-Grace Elder and my colleague Mary Scanlon. As a pre-emptive strike, I beg a little flexibility from the Presiding Officer, because I may digress a little. He is indicating to me no, but I shall try.

My speech concerns a 53-year-old constituent of mine who has recently been in touch with me and who has been a bricklayer most of his life. He was hospitalised for abdominal pain about 18 months ago and has recently been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, for which he has at least four injections a day. His abdominal pain has increased and is now chronic. His medication comprises Pregabalin, Merbentyl, Tramadol, paracetamol and Omeprazole, which are to deal with nausea and constant pain. At least the medication will be free from 1 April.

My constituent has been unable to work since the first week in December and his doctor has signed him off from 3 March to 3 April, deeming him unfit for work. His consultant has said that he is unfit for work. However, the Department for Work and Pensions claims that he is fit for work. He completed the employment and support allowance questionnaire and then was sent, as people are, for an assessment with a private company called Atos Healthcare.

The test that is given is not only for people with chronic pain but for everybody. The information about it states:

“The assessment is likely to be different from what you would expect from your own doctor. The approved healthcare professional’s assessment is not to diagnose or discuss treatment of your illness or disability; it is to assess how it affects you and your ability to work. To find this out, the approved healthcare professional may not need to carry out a physical examination.”

In the case of my constituent, there was no physical examination. The problem for people with chronic pain and, indeed, other illnesses is that how they feel can vary from day to day. However, the questionnaire asks:

“Can you go up or down two steps without help from another person, if there is a rail to hold on to? ... Can you move from one seat to another right next to it without help from someone else? ... Can you stay in one place, either standing or sitting, for at least an hour without help from another person?”

My constituent tells me that, on a good day, the pain is similar to a bad stitch in his side but that, on a bad day, he simply does not get out of bed. He states that there are more bad days than good and that they occur randomly, and that he sleeps only a little through the night. None of that kind of information is exposed in the test for the DWP. To compound the problem, even the assessor told my constituent that the system is unfair. He also said that his claim would be rejected—it was and he was awarded no points—but that his appeal would be successful. I wait to see whether it will be.

In the meantime, my constituent is worn out and disgusted and upset that, after all his years of working and now having pain that gives him little respite, he is being rubber-stamped as—I think that the term is apposite today—a benefit scrounger, when he is anything but.

I thought that it was important to bring that issue to the chamber because, although it is adjacent to the issue of the treatment of chronic pain, it is another unfairness for people who have chronic pain.

12:44