I’m still feeling quite tired and drained but I have managed to do the dishes, next the ironing. There has also been some contact from outer Nuneaton, my CPN is alive and well and he’s now found my number and we had a chat about the tiredness and stuff in general, you know the sort of stuff you’d talk to a CPN about. (For those not in the know a CPN is a community psychiatric nurse). Also, something that I’m quite excited about…..the arrival of a new cat! Yippee, Pete has finally found what he was after; despite me trying to persuade him that any moggie with the right personality would be more than welcome to live with me he was adamant that he wanted another Russian Blue. So we’re off to pick up “Blue Satin” (we'll have to find a better name for him) tomorrow, an 18 month old male, who so far has sired two litters of kittens. But he’s not going to live in some feline bachelor pad down the end of the garden like he currently inhabits, like all the cats I’ve had the pleasure of living with he’s having full reign of the house, garden and street. After all cats should be allowed outside to do normal cat stuff.
Now back to the letter from Chris Grayling, the second page reads rather like something from DWP White Paper on Welfare reform from a couple of years ago, I haven’t compared it but I have my suspicions that quite a bit of it has been lifted from a previous document by one of his minions, do you really think Grayling would take time out from his hectic schedule to write to some uppity woman with Tourette’s? He tells me in the letter that the Work Capability Assessment was “developed in consultation with medical experts and representative groups to ensure that they are appropriate for all conditions”. I don’t remember commenting on any such consultation. I have a picture in my head at the moment of a dark, dingy dungeon with a group of doctors tied up being “consulted” with threats of torture. I’m not saying that is how they consulted the healthcare professionals whoever they may be, but seriously some of Atos’s questions, “Do you have any pets?”, “Do watch TV much?” the trick questions, are outrageous. I know several fellow ticcers who love to have animals around them, the idea behind such questions is that if you are well enough to care for your pets, which as everybody knows are beneficial to your health, physical if you’re out dog walking and your mental health to have a furry, scaly or like one ticcer friend likes eight-legged and scary. That’s one of Blue Satin’s jobs as soon as he settles in, to go find the cobweb creating creeps and dispose of. Seriously, could you imagine the size of a tarantula’s cobwebs, not the pet (???!!!) for me. Yep, so they think that if you’re well enough to crawl out of bed, after being jumped on you’re well enough to look after yourself, therefore fit to work, ditto with the TV watching, if you can sit through “Britain’s Got Talent”, you can sit at a desk and do some data entry.
Grayling also mentions the Harrington review, I know for a fact that Professor Harrington had made a LOT of recommendations, yet only a couple have been taken onboard. A lot more work needs to be done, Infact GPs at a BMA conference earlier this year voted in favour for a motion to abolish the WCA! web2.bma.org.uk/pressrel.ns...
Well, it’s ok for him and his cronies (that’s Grayling et al) because unlike me they’re not short of a bob or two.
