The UK Benefit system

PostThe UK Benefit system by **qupe** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:17 pm

What do people think of the benefit system in this country?

How could it be improved?

When you read stories like this how does it make you feel?

Brenda Flanagan-Davies, who is nearly 40st, spends all day in a reinforced bed listening to the radio and buying groceries online.

She eats 6,000 calories a day — three times what an average woman needs.

Her only exercise is to walk 20ft to the wet-room style shower in the bathroom — a feat that leaves her exhausted.

Doctors have given Brenda, 43, a stark choice — diet or die.

She said: "It terrifies me, but I just can't stop. Doctors warned my weight will kill me because I'm putting so much stress on my organs.

"But food is an addiction that I can't fight."

Brenda, who gets about £300 a week in benefits, added: "I hate this life. I feel ashamed of myself that I'm even in this position. I want to help myself but don't know where to start."

She has been told her body is not strong enough to cope with surgery, such as fitting a stomach-shrinking gastric band.

She has already tried weight-loss drugs and spells at slimming clubs but admitted: "I can never stick to a strict diet."

Brenda — who five years ago weighed 48st — shares a bungalow with husband Ronnie Davies in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear. A care team devotes 25½ hours a week to her — costing Gateshead Council around £400. Carers help her shower, give her a "deep crease clean" to tackle the sores which develop from being in bed so much and cook and shop for her.

Brenda spends around £250 a week on food. About £100 a month goes on takeaways.

In between sensible meals prepared by her carers, she has chocolate bars and fizzy drinks from a fridge in her bedroom.

She met retired labourer Ronnie, 65, six years ago at a community centre day out. But she was effectively bed-bound when he proposed in 2010, so a registrar had to marry them in a special ceremony at her home.

Brenda's last trip out was to see her GP four years ago. She said: "I struggled to get in and out of the car."

On one outing in Ronnie's Ford Mondeo, Brenda's weight broke the front suspension.

She recalled: "Eventually he wasn't able to turn the steering wheel or change gear because my flab was in the way."

Brenda piled on weight after being sent to a children's home when her mum had depression. It got worse when she was bullied at school and began comfort eating. At 18 she was 20st and a size 18. She said: "The heavier I got, the sadder I got, so I continued to eat more."

Her condition means she has barely worked — although she once had a job in a Chinese takeaway for a few months.

Brenda inherited the uneviable title of Britain's fattest woman in 2010 when 45st Sharon Mevsimler died aged 41.

What she eats

Breakfast: Yoghurt, cheese and pickle on toast
Mid-morning: 3 choc bars, 3 bottles of coke
Lunch: Large Pizza, chips, banoffe pie
Afternoon: 3 choc bars, cheesy chips, 3 bottles of irn bru
Dinner: Sausage, egg, chips or chinese takeaway
Supper: 3 choc bars

What she costs: Around £300 a week income support, disability living allowance, incapacity benefit and housing benefit
Around £400 a week for a team of six carers from Gateshead Council.

The Sun and Britains fattest woman

My Dad has worked for over 40 years, he has had Parkinson's for over 20 years, he is blind in one eye and had a toe amputated on one foot years ago which severely affects his balance, especially combined with the Parkinson’s. The firm he worked with went bust recently leaving him strawberry floated. He now has to sell his flat he has lived at for over 40 years. He is devastated; he doesn't yet know what help he will get, but he can't get help with his mortgage. He could have been registered disabled years ago because of the Parkinson’s.

PostThe UK Benefit system by **Dblock** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:19 pm

Alvin would.

PostRe: The UK Benefit system by **Fatal Exception** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:27 pm

They could save money by employing 2 or 3 people to stand over her and slap her whenever she tries to eat something that isn't healthy. :lol:

"Oh I'm so fat"
"Here's £300 a week"
"Om nom nom nom moar food"

PostRe: The UK Benefit system by **Peter Crisp** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:27 pm

The benefit system does seem designed to be quite open to abuse and the more open and truthful you are the less they seem willing to help.
I've been made redundant a few times and because I live with my parents I got the bare bones (£60 a week) and if I went and did a part time job as soon as I earnt anything over that they they stopped all the payment so that if I'd worked 10 hours for lets say £65 I'd only actually be £5 better off. Not only that if you have savings they stop all benefits after 6 months and you are just left to run out those savings so being careful and having savings doesn't make sense if you are in any way fearful of being made redundant as if you piss all your money away before being made redundant you can claim for as long as you like.

PostRe: The UK Benefit system by **Fatal Exception** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:28 pm

Diet coke. :lol:

NickSCFC · PostRe: The UK Benefit system by **NickSCFC** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:28 pm

She doesn't eat much more than me and I'm 11 1/2 stone

PostRe: The UK Benefit system by **Dual** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:29 pm

Rather her than me.

PostRe: The UK Benefit system by **Fatal Exception** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:30 pm

Peter Crisp wrote:The benefit system does seem designed to be quite open to abuse and the more open and truthful you are the less they seem willing to help.
I've been made redundant a few times and because I live with my parents I got the bare bones (£60 a week) and if I went and did a part time job as soon as I earnt anything over that they they stopped all the payment so that if I'd worked 10 hours for lets say £65 I'd only actually be £5 better off. Not only that if you have savings they stop all benefits after 6 months and you are just left to run out those savings so being careful and having savings doesn't make sense if you are in any way fearful of being made redundant as if you piss all your money away before being made redundant you can claim for as long as you like.

It's a worry for me because I have more than 15K in savings I wouldn't get JSA or other benefits. I've saved that strawberry floating money so I might be able to one day own my own house

PostRe: The UK Benefit system by **Moggy** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:31 pm

We all hear stories of lazy families “earning” £40k plus from the state and never having to work. We also hear stories about families that are desperately trying to survive on a pittance and are unable to find work “in the current climate”.

I would imagine the truth is somewhere in-between. Extreme cases on either side are always going to be highlighted by the media, depending on the agenda of the media in question (The Sun love to show up lazy families for instance).

I am glad that we have a benefits system though. I have never been out of work and have always paid my taxes. Hopefully that will continue to be the case until I retire or win the lottery. But I am glad that there is a safety net there in case my health fails or I am made redundant.

PostRe: The UK Benefit system by **Fatal Exception** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:31 pm

Also:

What she costs: Around £300 a week income support, disability living allowance, incapacity benefit and housing benefit
Around £400 a week for a team of six careers frin Gateshead Council.

PostRe: The UK Benefit system by **Lagamorph** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:33 pm

"Food is an addiction I can't fight"

Bullshit. It's not like tobacco where there's a chemical addiction. She just needs to strawberry floating EAT LESS.
Instead of money given to her, it would be cheaper for the council to provide her with three healthy meals a day and that's it. No snacks, no takeaways. If she wants extra cash she should be made to exercise for it.

PostRe: The UK Benefit system by **satriales** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:35 pm

They should wait until she sleeps and then replace everything in the fridge with lettuce and celery.

PostRe: The UK Benefit system by **qupe** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:37 pm

Fatal Exception wrote:Also:

What she costs: Around £300 a week income support, disability living allowance, incapacity benefit and housing benefit
Around £400 a week for a team of six careers frin Gateshead Council.

oops (edited now)

If you are registered disabled I believe your entitlement to disability allowance isn't means tested. As mentioned in this article.

10 mill winners claim 6k a year in benefits

PostRe: The UK Benefit system by **Ironhide** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:40 pm

While it is all mostly self inflicted, morbidly obese people are actually disabled and should get help like anyone else with a disability should.

Having said that, obese people should only get help if they agree to try to lose weight.

Benefits were started to look after people who couldn't look after themselves due to circumstances beyond their control (no jobs around, sickness, lack of housing etc) and incase of emergencies. Anybody that denies the merit of benefits to those that need them deserves a hard, stinging slap.

As for benefit frauds, there are much, much greater injustices in this country for me to get particularly annoyed. Yeah, its wrong, and they shouldn't do it. People lie and steal, they always have, its nothing new. People tend to complain about benefits an awful lot, I've never really understood why. People are there to stop benefit fraud, so let them get on with their job. I don't know what else we can do to be honest? We're usually unable to stop it from happening, so why constantly complain about it? It isn't worth getting annoyed about. Gotta' let it slide.

A guy I used to work with claimed JSA, jobseekers and some sort of rare and obscure disability allowance for a condition that isn't monitored properly by the fraud squad. So, a few of us got together and decided to inform the authorities. One of our group did, on all our behalf and he was found guilty. I'm unsure how they punished him, but you can imagine it would be pretty severe. We did something about it then because we knew we could stop it. Other than that, the topic is very boring and usually very negative.

PostRe: The UK Benefit system by **Peter Crisp** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:43 pm

satriales wrote:They should wait until she sleeps and then replace everything in the fridge with lettuce and celery.

That would be awesome. The council should hire Ninja's who can make it so that when she wakes up she has a fruit smoothie set up next to her bed and a new motivational poster on her wall and the biggest loser is on a constant loop on the TV.

PostRe: The UK Benefit system by **qupe** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:47 pm

Ironhide wrote:While it is all mostly self inflicted, morbidly obese people are actually disabled and should get help like anyone else with a disability should.

Having said that, obese people should only get help if they agree to try to lose weight.

Surely though in this instance they should be controlling her diet to some degree. 9 chocolate bars a day, could be cut down/removed and replaced with fruit. It would make more sense to emply a dietician to create her a plan that she sticks to. I can not see how letting people have a fridge next to their bed is going to encourage anything but making you want to eat more and move less.

I have no problem with her getting help, it's the type of help and the amount of money they are throwing at her. Otherwise they are just piling money into someone they are basically trying to inflate til her body can take no more.

PostRe: The UK Benefit system by **Peter Crisp** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:50 pm

Fatal Exception wrote:It's a worry for me because I have more than 15K in savings I wouldn't get JSA or other benefits. I've saved that strawberry floating money so I might be able to one day own my own house

The people at the job centre turn your prudence and savings into a negative and it's really quite soul destroying.

PostRe: The UK Benefit system by **Bunni** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:52 pm

Had some bint at work yesterday moaning about her council house not being good enough, with a junkie downstairs and a prostitute upstairs. Granted, they needed the council house when she and her husband were on minimum wage jobs with children to raise, but now the kids are older, gone and having their own kids, surely she could be responsible for her own housing? Like benefits, council houses are issues to those who need it. A 50 year old woman and her husband, both in work, with enough money to take the whole family on holiday to Spain in the summer, in my mind does not really qualify as someone desperately needing a council house.

They should review the system, and review the tennants. If after 5 years or so, your circumstances change then you should move out and give the house to someone who needs it more, or pay a higher rate in line with private renting agreements to increase council funds, and promote some independence. Council houses aren't a given right to anyone who wants one, and if you're going to moan about the state of it, you should take the initiative to find somewhere better. Taking on Anungs student loan and wages from my job, we earn less than this couple, but we'd never be accepted for (nor want) a council house.

PostRe: The UK Benefit system by **qupe** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:52 pm

Scotticus Erroticus wrote:Benefits were started to look after people who couldn't look after themselves due to circumstances beyond their control (no jobs around, sickness, lack of housing etc) and incase of emergencies. Anybody that denies the merit of benefits to those that need them deserves a hard, stinging slap.

As for benefit frauds, there are much, much greater injustices in this country for me to get particularly annoyed. Yeah, its wrong, and they shouldn't do it. People lie and steal, they always have, its nothing new. People tend to complain about benefits an awful lot, I've never really understood why. People are there to stop benefit fraud, so let them get on with their job. I don't know what else we can do to be honest? We're usually unable to stop it from happening, so why constantly complain about it? It isn't worth getting annoyed about. Gotta' let it slide.

A guy I used to work with claimed JSA, jobseekers and some sort of rare and obscure disability allowance for a condition that isn't monitored properly by the fraud squad. So, a few of us got together and decided to inform the authorities. One of our group did, on all our behalf and he was found guilty. I'm unsure how they punished him, but you can imagine it would be pretty severe. We did something about it then because we knew we could stop it. Other than that, the topic is very boring and usually very negative.

I am not just talking about this woman, what could be done to make it work better as a whole? Christ I know/have heard about girls that have got pregnant so they can get a property. I have a friend I went to school with as a friend on facebook who I don't think has worked for years because of disability. He needs a wheelchair etc. The other day he updates his status to say..."strawberry floating knackered just chased some banana split from or back garden down the road in my strawberry floating slippers and dressing gown they were strawberry floating lucky I was in my slippers".....

The UK Benefit system

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