worsleyweb said:
Damocles said:
DLA is being phased out to be replaced with PIP now. The care component is about £81 a week where mobility is £56 a week but goes straight to Motability.
What you're talking about in terms of the carer is true. The disabled person is entitled to the car and if unable to drive themselves, can nominate up to two people in a specific radius from their house who can drive it and be covered by their insurance. Usually its their carers.
My point though is that the person is able to drive it because they are nominated by the disabled person who pays for it. The point is so that the disabled person can still have the ability to live their lives out as they normally would without having to suffer through a not fit-for-purpose system of public transport.
Makes a big difference really. Taxi from Mum's house to the local infirmary is about £8 one way and to the main hospital with most of the equipment is about £30 one way. Added in Church which is £4 either way and the town centre which is £5 either way and it adds up a lot. The car is a bit of a Godsend to be honest as she can visit her sisters in Warrington or enjoy a day in the Sun whenever she feels like it. The big thing that these cars do if driven by the full time carer is give her the ability to do things without planning them out days in advance with me or my sister. In turn, we get to work more too and know that she's still living a full life rather than sat cooped up in a terraced house unable to see or go out anywhere.
Great news for your mum. Do you accept that the system may have been abused somewhat?
Yes, as I said in my original post I was correcting facts and didn't post any opinion on how the system is often exploited if at all. I think the system is very much open to exploitation if people are willing to lie their way through. Though my problem with this is that I don't know exactly what we can do about it.
I'm reminded of an episode of House, funnily enough, where he's talking to student Doctors about the idea of identifying the difference between drug seeking behaviours and legitimate patients. In it he basically said that drug seeking behaviour works because they mimic what legitimate pain patients go through and would people rather risk giving druggies a fix then risk not giving a patient in legitimate pain an injection.
In cases of things like suspected child abuse, there's definitely an edge of wanting to remove first, ask questions later too as they essentially make a gambit.
I have no doubt that social workers assessing patients have similar issues though they are very good at checking everything with GPs. So it's a system of passing the buck; the Doctor doesn't want to call someone a liar so says their walking ability is what they say it is, the social worker sees the notes from the Doctor confirming somebody can't walk correctly and all of a sudden they have DLA Mobility. Not quite as easy as that and some bits left out but you get the gist of it.
People who really, really don't want to work with always find someway to exploit those of us who do and we should be working together to track them down. If I was you, I'd definitely report anybody who was gaming the system. My Mum is disabled and needs the car, 100 visits from a social worker and surveillance isn't going to change that and she has nothing to hide. They tend to be nice people as well and she'd probably enjoy the opportunity for a chinwag with somebody new to be honest.
