#ESAendgame: Update on Day One

Title says it all - and what reaction! Here's Sue Marsh's follow-on blog. Remember: please leave your comments on Sue's site at -

http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/esa-sos-starting-gun.html

#ESAendgame Beyond Day 1

The launch of #ESAendgame yesterday was simply remarkable.

Nearly 9,000 people have read about #ESAendgame in under 24 hours. 

It was the most shared and read article online in the UK yesterday. (Ebuzzing News)

318 people have taken part in our consultation "What Most Needs to Change about Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and Why" In DWP terms, 318 responses is very large. But I want 1,000 - 2,000 We MUST show that we truly represent the experiences and opinions of sick and disabled people and their carers. A consultation here with thousands of comments is a VERY powerful tool in anything we compile.

PLEASE keep sharing any of the consultation posts like yesterday http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/esa-sos-starting-gun.html

whenever you can and encourage people to comment - you don't have to be sick or disabled or a carer to understand that ESA is inhumane and want to stand up for justice. I can't stress enough that #ESAendgame is open to EVERYONE. In fact, the more non-disabled people, DPOs, charities, MPs and "influential politicoes" that contribute and who join with us, the more credible our response and more frightening for Government. 

It is ONLY unity that will convince the government to think again, but with unions, the TUC, disability groups, political sites, everyday blogs on shopping and cooking and fishing, charities and politicians ALL talking about why ESA must be changed NOW we CAN win. But every last one of us has to join. Please, cross-post everything - you don't have to ask, just link back so we can estimate our reach.

So far, the issues people believe to change about the WCA and ESA RIGHT NOW (In order of most mentions) are :

Fear and Dread caused by the process

Constant Reassessment

The One Year Time Limit

Worsens Mental Health conditions

Continuing scrounger Rhetoric and made to feel dishonest and worthless

The Error rate and inaccuracies on forms and in decisions

Continuing inability to deal with Mental Health conditions

Makes symptoms/illnesses worse. 

Assessments are inhumane

The assessment ignores own Drs/medical evidence

Removing ESA indefinitely for reconsiderations before appeal - fear of no income

Fear of the Brown Envelope

WCA is designed to make you fail

The Assessors are not appropriate to the condition

Only 30 days to return the ESA50 application form

The form is to hard to fill in and takes enormous emotional toll

It's just a tick box system that gets 1 in 6 decisions wrong. LIMA must go

The Work Capability Assessment (WCA) is not a "real life test", not about what you can do in a real job

Poverty casued by out of control process

People dying days after being found "Fit For Work" - in ever increasing numbers

**TRIGGER** ESA process making some suicidal

A growing number of people are "Fit to Work" according top Atos, unfit according to JCP and stuck in limbo

Changes are purely ideological and not based on evidence

The process is clogged up and taking far far too long

Many Disability Testing Centres are still inaccessible

Lies on forms

Fear for the future of dependants without carers

The descriptors do not apply to many conditions

Money taxpayer is paying for this failure

Forcing abuse victims to discuss abuse with stranger

I think that's a pretty good start as mini-sections of a report to present to the public eh? Your quotes explaining each one and adding human warmth? 

PLEASE we need new people to join every day and leave comments. 

Name (or twitter/Facebook/pseudonym)

Constituency

1 line on what needs to change NOW about ESA

And please keep sharing every day and using #ESAendgame on twitter when discussing ESA. Let's keep building momentum

**PLEASE do remember to leave your constituency. It's not an address, but will be SO helpful later when we want to contact every MP and peer in the country to already have people who can send a quick email or two in every constituency. 

Ekklesia wrote this wonderful article with a selection if #ESAendgame tweets, it's very powerful and another GREAT article to share. http://t.co/5yRsJCUpSd

As always, if you care about this, please sign WOW petition 

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/43154