Not everyone on incapacity benefit is a shirker

I FOUND the article “Sickness benefits claimants found fit” (Yorkshire Post, April 29) quite misleading.

The information quoted may well be factually correct but doesn’t tell the whole story. To give a true picture of this Government’s success in attacking the most vulnerable people in our society, you need to publish the results of appeals against the Department of Work and Pensions decisions not to award the Employment Support Allowance.

I think you’ll find that there is a fairly high percentage of those initially disallowed benefit becoming entitled to them after an appeal.

I also believe that some people who drop their claims do so because they find the whole process so stressful, particularly those people with neurological conditions like MS, which is usually exacerbated by stress. The saddest thing is that if people could continue through with the claim most would likely succeed.

From my own experience of looking after my husband who has MS, I can tell you that he would have dearly loved to be able to continue working, and playing football and cricket at the weekends.

Unfortunately, due to a debilitating, progressive and utterly unpredictable condition, he was stopped from doing all those things in 1992.

Perhaps Iain Duncan Smith or Chris Grayling, the Ministers concerned, would like to spend a few days in my husband’s boots before making changes to future disability benefits, such as the proposed changes to Disability Living Allowance in 2013-2014.

Not everyone receiving incapacity benefit is a shirker.