ESA is not fit for purpose

ESA or Employment Support Allowance is the benefit which has replaced the old incapacity benefit.

Thousands of disabled people are being transferred from incapacity to ESA. The problem is the tests are not fit for purpose, and the support disabled people are meant to get to help find work is not there. Many genuinely sick and disabled people are failing the ESA tests, those people are being abandoned by all the political parties. The tests are carried out by ATOS a private healthcare firm who are paid on results, the more people fail the test, the more ATOS gets paid.

Disabled people feel scared, many are not in a position to appeal after they lose benefit, they don't have the confidence or the strength. Its not that disabled people don't want to work. Many do but we need more support, more help, we need workplaces that are accessible and have proper facilities. This isn't the case just now so throwing disabled people into the jobs market is impracticable at best and cruel at worst.

ESA doesn't even take into account the way health conditions affect people. So there are people who are too ill to hold down work, too ill to work more than a couple of hours, even terminally ill people losing benefits and being told to find work, some have died before they could appeal.

At the moment all the political parties are supporting ESA. Douglas Alexander has just announced that Labour will be supporting the government in its roll out of ESA, they paln to move every disabled person in the country from incapacity to ESA. The disabled community are appealing for your help. We want the political parties to listen to us and stiop the roll out untill such time as there have been a complete averhaul of the system. All we ask for is justice and fairness.