We’ve heard it from people across the North East for years: PIP isn’t working. This week, the government’s own review agreed.
The interim findings from the Timms Review, the first full examination of PIP since it was introduced over a decade ago, describe a system that “fails to reflect real-life impacts,” particularly for people with multiple or fluctuating conditions. Over 38,000 people responded to the Call for Evidence, including disabled people, carers, and organisations like ours.
We submitted evidence in May, after talking to disabled people across the region. Our policy manager, Charlotte Hall, told local outlet The Teesside Lead what came back: words like “humiliated,” “stressed,” “disbelieved,” and “treated like a fraud,” showing up again and again.
Almost 70,000 people in the Tees Valley claim PIP, one of the highest concentrations of any area in the country. Stockton-on-Tees alone has 17,500 claimants.
Charlotte told the paper what she thinks needs to happen next, and what she’s watched change, or not change, over the past decade of working in the North East.
Read the full article at The Teesside Lead
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