Cost-of-living with epilepsy
\nEmployment
\nOnly 42% of working-age people with epilepsy are currently in employment. This is among the lowest employment rates for disabled people in the UK. Research by the Trade Union Congress (TUC) has also highlighted that people with epilepsy in work are paid on average 11.8% less than non-disabled workers. This means that not only are people with epilepsy less likely to have a paid job, but when they do, they earn less than their non-disabled peers.<\/p>\n
Welfare
\nMany people with epilepsy have struggled to successfully apply for Personal Independence Payments (PIP). The current PIP assessment process is not working for people with epilepsy. The process does not properly assess the impact epilepsy has on an individual\u2019s daily life. The assessment is not able to capture and reflect the nature of epilepsy. Too many people with epilepsy are not successful in their initial assessment for PIP and have to go through the appeals system to get the support they should be entitled to.<\/p>\n
And while people on Universal Credit received an extra \u00a320 per week during the pandemic, people on disability benefits such as PIP received no such help. This is despite research showing that extra costs faced by disabled people add up to \u00a3583 a month on average.<\/p>\n
Cost-of-living
\nThe combination of people with epilepsy struggling to find employment, and the problems they face trying to get sufficient support through the welfare system, means that they are particularly vulnerable to the impact of the cost-of-living crisis.<\/p>\n
Inflation is now at 9% and is predicted to hit 10% later in the year, as energy bills rocket and food prices shoot up. This is on top of the extra costs that many disabled people already faced. However, despite this, benefit payments have only increased by 3.1%. Many people were already struggling but these factors will make their situations much worse.<\/p>\n
What we are doing
\nIn order to ensure that people with epilepsy aren\u2019t disadvantaged by the cost-of-living crisis we are calling on the government make the following improvements:<\/p>\n
Employment
\nIntroduce mandatory disability employment and pay gap reporting for employers, including reporting on the employment gap for specific impairment groups
\nIntroduce a duty on employers to produce targeted action plans identifying the steps they will take to address any gaps identified, including ensuring disabled workers with invisible impairments feel confident in completing workplace equality monitoring
\nEnsure there is more focused employment support for people with hidden and fluctuating conditions and better support for people with epilepsy from Jobcentre Plus Disability Employment Advisers. This should include ensuring that job coaches with training and understanding of epilepsy, and the employment barriers they face, are available to people with the condition
\nReform the current Access to Work system to ensure that people with epilepsy get the support they need to find and stay in a job
\nAccess to Work support should also be made available during the job search to help people find work, and ensure that support is in place for the start of employment
\nWelfare
\nUprate disability benefits and Carer\u2019s Allowance to rise in line with inflation
\nIncrease the length of PIP awards to avoid frequent re-assessments. The DWP should also look to use information provided during previous assessments, which would allow assessors to make a paper-based decision, without the need for repeat assessments
\nPeople with epilepsy should be assessed by someone who has a proven understanding of the condition
\nReform the activities and descriptors in the PIP assessment and Universal Credit Work Capability Assessment to properly capture the impact of living with a fluctuating and invisible condition like epilepsy
\nEnd of the use of informal observations as part of the assessment process
\nCost-of-living
\nProvide targeted support to help disabled people with the rising cost of living
\nEnsure better access to the Warm Home Discount Scheme which currently excludes around 210,000 people on disability benefits from applying. Currently Disability Living Allowance, Personal Independence Payments and Attendance Allowance claimants will no longer benefit
\nIntroduce social tariffs for disabled people so they pay no more than a supplier\u2019s cheapest plan
\nGet involved
\nWe are looking for MPs to support our work to ensure that these recommendations are implemented. We would like people to raise this issue with their MP.
\nSource Epilepsy Action <\/p>\n
Download letter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cost-of-living with epilepsy Employment Only 42% of working-age people with epilepsy are currently in employment. This is among the lowest employment rates for disabled people in the UK. Research by the Trade Union Congress (TUC) has also highlighted that people with epilepsy in work are paid on average 11.8% less than non-disabled workers. This means […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipswichepilepsy.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipswichepilepsy.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipswichepilepsy.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipswichepilepsy.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipswichepilepsy.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1014"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipswichepilepsy.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1016,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipswichepilepsy.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014\/revisions\/1016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipswichepilepsy.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipswichepilepsy.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipswichepilepsy.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}