‘long delays risk leaving terminally ill people destitute in the last months of their life’ – Mark Lazarowicz MP
Mark Lazarowicz MP is backing Gordon Aikman’s MND campaign and has called on the Government to fast track benefits for people like Gordon with terminal conditions.
Speaking in a debate in Parliament yesterday, the Labour MP for Edinburgh North and Leith called on the Government to fast track benefit claims from people with terminal conditions like Motor Neurone Disease and intervened to tell the Minister that the prolonged delays, in some cases of up to 18 months, could mean the outcome comes too late for some people with limited life expectancy.
He said later: “I strongly support Gordon Aikman’s campaign to fast track benefit claims from people with terminal conditions like MND: people are waiting 6 months and in some cases 3 times that just to have an assessment.
“Claims can be fast tracked where someone is not expected to live longer than 6 months but where does that leave someone with MND where the average life expectancy after diagnosis is 14 months?
“The Government should offer financial support to people suffering as a result of the delays caused by its own incompetence but first and foremost it should make sure that their claims are fast tracked.
“The Minister’s response in the debate was not acceptable: it’s shameful that people who are so ill should spend the last months or year of their life in financial hardship having to fight so hard for the benefits they are entitled to.”
He was speaking in a debate on the introduction of the new Personal Independence Payment (PIP), the disability benefit that is replacing Disability Living Allowance (DLA) which is designed to help seriously ill or disabled people with the extra costs their condition entails.
It was announced on Thursday that responsibility for PIP is to be devolved in future and Mark has called for the roll-out of the new benefit to existing DLA claimants to be stopped until it is because of the huge backlog of assessments.
That was also the conclusion of the House of Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee: it reported last March that even where someone did have their claim fast tracked because they were not expected to live more than 6 months, the time taken to process their claim had increased from typically 8 days with DLA to 8 weeks with PIP.
Mark Lazarowicz says the Government has moved the goalposts: its original target was for the whole process from claim to decision to be completed within 16 weeks, now it is that all assessments should be completed within that time and it is even failing that target.
Gordon Aikman’s story
I’m dying. And fast.
That – in short – was what my doctor told me just a few weeks ago when I was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease.
It’s not the news you expect when you are 29 years old.
MND is a rare, progressive and debilitating disease that attacks the brain and spinal cord. It leads to weakness and muscle wasting and will affect how I walk, talk, eat, drink and breathe.
There is no cure.
That’s why I am doing all I can to raise money for MND Scotland – a great charity that funds and promotes research into the disease and provides support to people affected by Motor Neurone Disease.
It’ll be too late for me, but we must find a cure for the next generation.
With your help I can turn a negative into a positive. Please dig deep and donate what you can today.
100% of the money you donate will be spent on trying to find a cure.
Thank you
Gordon
P.S. Please visit www.gordonsfightback.com to tell your your MP and MSPs to back my campaign to double MND research funding.
To date Gordon has raised £216,683.88 of his £250,000.00 target. 3,690 individual donations have been made.
https://www.justgiving.com/gordonaikman/