{"id":13866,"date":"2017-11-06T14:56:13","date_gmt":"2017-11-06T14:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=13866"},"modified":"2017-11-06T16:19:54","modified_gmt":"2017-11-06T16:19:54","slug":"pip-verdict-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=13866","title":{"rendered":"PIP verdict victory"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A man with a severe mental illness who was refused proper disability benefits has had the decision overturned at a tribunal thanks to the help of Unite Community<\/a> volunteers.<\/p>\n

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The vulnerable man, in his late thirties, was told last year he was not entitled to a full personal independent payment<\/a> (PIP) after attending an assessment in Newcastle \u00e2\u20ac\u201c despite his medical records showing he was clearly at risk.<\/p>\n

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For more than 12 months the man, who UNITElive is referring to as PTR, was wrongly denied financial support and left struggling to pay for his living expenses and food.<\/p>\n

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At one point PTR resorted to sleeping on a landing, as his issues became increasingly compounded because of the decision.<\/p>\n

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This week, after members from Unite Community\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Newcastle branch heard about PTR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plight and launched an appeal against the decision, a tribunal ruled he should receive an enhanced PIP daily living allowance.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u0098Absolutely shocking\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Unite Community Durham branch secretary Trevor Bark represented PTR at the tribunal and described the case as \u00e2\u20ac\u015babsolutely shocking\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe initial assessment disregarded the medical evidence and PTR is completely incapable of defending himself. The companies that carry out these assessments are paid to create a narrative that says there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no need to provide support and they trip people up and downplay issues in their attempts to do that,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Bark explained.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhen the tribunal ruled in his favour, PTR didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand and we had to explain to him outside. When the decision came through it was a euphoric moment. But it was tempered with thoughts of \u00e2\u20ac\u0098does it really have to come to this?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 I was cut up about it.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Unite Community regional coordinator John Coan praised the efforts of the Newcastle and Durham branch members<\/a> who fought to see justice for PTR done.<\/p>\n

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He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhat happened to PTR is obscene. Unfortunately we see vulnerable people in similar situations regularly. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trying to scare people off getting the vital support they need by putting up more and more hurdles.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bQuite often people give up because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a very very stressful process that they put people through. When you see it first-hand it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s heart breaking \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it really is.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Coan added, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe wholesale wrongful sanctioning of people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s benefits<\/a> is an entirely immoral policy and if the government had an ounce of compassion the entire policy would be withdrawn.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A man with a severe mental illness who was refused proper disability benefits has had the decision overturned at a tribunal thanks to the help of Unite Community volunteers.   The vulnerable man, in his late thirties, was told last year he was not entitled to a full personal independent payment (PIP) after attending an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2922,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[831,232,462],"wps_subtitle":"Unite helps end one man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0098obscene policy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 hell","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13866"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13867,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13866\/revisions\/13867"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}