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  3. The man who has the job of assessing claims for the controversial new disability benefits believes that more than lm of Britain’

The man who has the job of assessing claims for the controversial new disability benefits believes that more than lm of Britain’

admin2015-01-10  89
问题     The man who has the job of assessing claims for the controversial new disability benefits believes that more than lm of Britain’s 5m long-term disabled people of working age have wrongly been allowed to become dependent on "multiple benefits". Dr Stephen Duckworth has had to deal with the daily effects of a student rugby accident 33 years ago that left him paralyzed from the neck down and drove him to devise a way to commit suicide. Duckworth, who now heads a team that will carry out appraisals on disabled people who apply for the personal independence payments(PIP), said: "We need to move to a culture where employers recognize employment is therapeutic as opposed to illness-creating. It is far better to go back to work to get better than to wait to get better to get back to work. Use work as a therapeutic intervention. "
    In an interview with The Sunday Times, the 53-year-old, who had to train himself to breathe using his diaphragm rather than his chest muscles, said society was unintentionally letting disabled people down by failing to demand a big enough contribution from them. He argued that "at least a million, probably north of a million" of the total number of people "deemed to be disabled. .. have got there through system failure and the way society is organized". While Duckworth insists his comments do not relate to those who will be assessed by his team at Capita, the public outsourcing company, they are contentious.
    In order to qualify for PIP—which will replace the disability living allowance(DLA)—claimants will be assessed for their ability to perform a range of everyday tasks, including repeatedly walking 20, 50 or 200 meters, peeling and chopping food, using a microwave or a cooker and washing their hair. The benefit is worth up to ￡79. 15 a week, with a further ￡55. 25 a week for a mobility allowance. Those granted it are entitled to a range of other benefits. Charities and pressure groups are preparing for a battle next month when the current claimants of DLA begin to be assessed for the new benefit by Capita and Atos, another contractor. Richard Hawkes, chief executive of Scope, the disability charity, said: "The DLA needed reforming and could be better targeted but disabled people believe this reform is just an excuse to save money. "
    Duckworth, who receives DLA and who will also be assessed by Atos for the new payment, said that among the people officially assessed as disabled, relatively trivial injuries had become "a very common avenue towards multiple benefit receipt". Outlining a possible scenario he added: "The proplem could have happened at work as a result of lifting a box of photocopy paper ... it gave you a bit of a limp and you’re shopping and you get a no-win, no-fee solicitor, a claims farmer, coming up to you. You get, say, ￡6,000 in damages from your employers, that builds your impairment, then you are off work for six months, then you drop from full pay to half pay, then statutory sick pay. " Then you’ re feeling the financial pinch so. . . I find I can get an enhanced income from employment support allowance.. . and I go and claim it. I do my work capability assessment, so I get signed off on to the employment and support allowance at ￡106.. . so I have got a bit to pay the loan sharks back [but] I am depressed and my life is falling apart. "
    Duckworth insisted he would never "judge" such a person who, he argued, could in some ways be suffering more than him. "Social policy can drive people towards benefit or away from benefit," he said. His life was transformed when he broke his neck during a training session. Despite being in hospital he took his pathology finals, but a bone infection left him suicidal. "I asked a fellow medical student to bring me some drugs to kill me," he said. "She refused. The last operation I was told was 50:50 and the doctors said, ’If you don’t make it, at least you’ll be asleep when you die. ’ I got through that, woke up and had some tomato soup and have loved tomato soup ever since. I was 28. "
    While he has now forged a high-powered career, he said he could have slumped into dependency if he had accepted his parents’ offer to care for him. "When I broke my neck, my mum and dad said, ’Don’t worry, Stephen, we will build you a granny annexe’, and I screamed until I was blue in the face," he said. "If they had built me one I would still be living there, they’d have wrapped me in cotton wool and I’d never have got back to London. "
    In an effort to spare his then girlfriend from a lifetime of caring for him, he lied that he didn’t love her any more. She ignored him and they are now married with four children. Duckworth did not receive compensation but sees that as a positive experience. "Rugby clubs were not required to carry insurance in those days," he said, contrasting his experience with the recent case of a student who received about ￡7m after suffering similar injuries in a road accident. He added: "If I had got that—would I have worked again? Of course not. "
Why does Duckworth say that "employment is therapeutic as opposed to illness-creating"(para 1)?
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答案to some of the disabled people/employment of a certain kind would be helpful both physically and spiritually("far better to go back to work to get better than to wait to get better to get back to work")/to recover physical health and gain financial independence/social policy towards the disabled can be either positive or negative("letting disabled people down", "drive people towards benefit or away from benefit")under the old policy, people with "trivial injuries" often seek "multiple benefit receipt", which will probably lead to "illness-creating"/one-fifth of long-term disabled people of working age can become more independent through employment/make contribution to the society
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