The Work and Pensions Committee have released their Safeguarding Vulnerable Claimants report.
Responding to the report, Alexa Knight, Director at the Mental Health Foundation, said:
“This report lays out in a striking fashion what many disabled and vulnerable people, and the organisations that support them, have been calling out for many years: the DWP routinely mistreats vulnerable benefit claimants, their system of sanctions and deductions worsens claimants’ mental health, and little is done to help people’s recovery. Ultimately, this has led to the deaths of individuals like Errol Graham and Phillipa Day.
“In recent months the government has announced that there is an intention to move the department towards taking a ‘trauma informed’ approach, which aims to understand the challenges that so many users of the welfare systems have faced in their lives. This, along with the other recommendations made by the Committee in their report, should be implemented as soon as possible.”