iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Martin Bonner

Dr Jay Watts @shrinkatlarge.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Please give this flyer to any healthcare provider you come across as the more signatures we get the better. Thanks to the fab @argentas.bsky.social for the flyer idea, the qr code and being a FOi genius! #WelfareNotWarfare

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Martin Bonner @argentas.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

The more I read the disability reforms green paper, the more it feels akin to: "We've decided to drive a truck into a huge crowd of people. We're not consulting on that decision, but we invite responses on what mitigations we should put in place for those affected."

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Louise Murphy @louisemurphy.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

As an aside - it's frustrating that this data was only released via the FOI process and wasn't included in the Green Paper evidence pack. (Despite the Green Paper being released a month ago now, we still only have an "interim evidence pack", which just includes 6 charts rehearsing old material.)

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Tom Royston @tomroyston.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

DWP's wording is unhelpful, but I think actually the stats being provided re the 'all' and the 'any' FOIs are the same: if you sum 13% of 1.6m (standard DL) and 87% of 1.3m (enhanced DL) you get an overall 46% of the 2.9m total DL awards excluded.

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Martin Bonner @argentas.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

The DWP have responded to my FOI request. Their figures indicate that 87% of clamants currently receiving PIP daily living at the standard rate, and 13% of claimants receiving enhanced rate, are likely to lose their entitlement if the score 4 changes go ahead. www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/pers...

Text and table screenshot from the DWP response to my Freedom of Information request. The original document is linked in the post.

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Kidney Care UK @kidneycareuk.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

📣 Read our response to the new #WelfareGreenPaper released by govt yesterday that discusses changes to benefits in the UK. We want to see a system that respects, understands & listens to all, especially when it comes to people with #CKD More info: kidneycareuk.org/news-from-ki...

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Stef Benstead @stefbenstead.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

Benefits and Work have done a really good piece here, looking at what the DWP is and isn't consulting on. It isn't consulting on the major issues: scrapping WCA; PIP Daily Living & UC Health Element; freezing UC HE until 2029/30; 4-point criterion for PIP www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/dwp-lau...

benefitsandwork.co.uk

DWP launches entirely bogus Green Paper consultation

Get the benefits you're entitled to: help with personal independence payment (PIP), universal credit (UC), employment and support allowance (ESA),disability living allowance (DLA). Claims, assessments...

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flâneurben @flaneurben.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

Wrote to my MP (Joe Powell, Lab, Kensington & Bayswater) fwiw #UKpol #benefits

Letter to Jow Powell MP for Kensington & Bayswater
Dear Mr Powell,
Disability benefits
I was fortunate to be represented by your predecessors Karen Buck and Emma Dent Coad, whose personal commitments to social justice were sustaining through the dark days of the Tory governments from 2010. I was initially optimistic when Labour secured a majority last summer that the UK would be able to move away from an irrational commitment to the neoliberal economic dogma which has done so much to immiserate all but the very wealthiest people in this country.
I'm afraid that any remaining optimism has been pretty much extinguished by today's statement by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
As a practising GP who has worked in the NHS since I qualified more than 20 years ago, I understand well the relationship between ill-health, disability and poverty, and I have witnessed at first hand the inevitable and deliberately cruel effects of previous governments' cuts to the support available to people who are not able to work: for any reason, but particularly because of illness and disability.
I frequently provide reports for patients of mine who are claiming Personal Independence Payment for the first time, or who are undergoing reassessment, and so I am well aware of the already-stringent criteria that have to be met before PIP is awarded. In my professional opinion, there is no-one who would meet the current PIP criteria who could not be said to be significantly disabled.

In order to achieve a nugatory reduction in benefits spending, to help the Chancellor meet her self-imposed and self-defeating fiscal rules, Ms Kendall proposes to further tighten the eligibility criteria for PIP and other illness-related support, and to freeze, cut or abolish the incapacity components of Universal Credit. These changes are estimated to reduce claimants' incomes by several thousand pounds a year.
We know from long experience that making people poorer doesn't make them any healthier, nor any more likely to find suitable and dignified work. Everyone, regardless of employment, pays taxes and stimulates the economy through their consumer choices. These kneejerk changes, chasing short-term gains, will have profoundly harmful long-term effects on individuals and on the economy as a whole.

Respected charities including Scope, Mind and the Child Poverty Action Group have already identified the harm these cuts will do to millions of people and their families who are already among the poorest in Britain. Your colleague Debbie Abrahams bravely warned the Government against “balancing the books on the backs of sick and disabled people.”
The cynical media management on this issue that has been on display in the past few days has also been appalling. For the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to imply that disability benefits are given based on over-diagnosis of mental health problems, or to deliberately conflate PIP with being unemployed, is shameful. Baroness Grey-Thompson has rightly warned of the increase in discrimination, abuse and violence that disabled people will experience as a direct result of the Government's pandering to the worst instincts of the right-wing.
What do you plan to do to limit the impoverishment, distress and further ill-health that will inevitably flow from these reckless proposals?
Yours sincerely,

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Anna Landre @annalandre.com · 18/03/2025

"We need to ask government what they think they're doing when they say disabled people ought to work, but they're making it damn near impossible for us to do so." - Me for Novara Media live last night on Labour's cuts to PIP and other disability benefits

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Kidney Care UK @kidneycareuk.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

We're concerned to hear about potential cuts to the disability benefits which provide a lifeline to many people with #KidneyDisease who face additional costs of disability. We want a welfare system that treats people with dignity. More info: kidneycareuk.org/news-from-ki...

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Him Over There, and now available for work @snathe.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

If it wasn't for the absolutely magnificent work of the CAB whose help in completing my wife's PIP claims and with the appeals processes was so, so welcome, I think we would have given up long ago. I'm fairly good with form filling but it's a system seemingly designed to sap your energy.

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Webster Likes Games @samwebster.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Allow me a short vent: PIP is already torturously hard to get. I applied nearly a year ago and we're currently awaiting a tribunal date. But sure, keep villainising and coming after those with formally diagnosed lifelong conditions that already make life harder. Absolute pricks.

What is PIP? As we've been reporting, ministers are looking at tightening criteria to qualify for Personal Independence Payments (PIP), one of the key disability benefits.

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Debra @dooft.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

“The government is reportedly focusing on cutting incapacity and disability benefits to stem rising spending and support more people into work. But while the system needs reform, Ministers appear to be focused on cutting personal independence payments (Pip) – a benefit that isn’t related to work.”

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Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA @mcdowall.me · 17/03/2025

If you think it is easy to get PIP then you’ve never applied for it or tried to apply for it or assist those who have. It is a, if not THE most soul destroying and humiliating of experiences.

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SH @rodfaestet.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

PIP is a brutal brutal process. among many reasons i didn't renew mine given that process requires so much for one to just evidence it. i had assessors come to my house to quiz me, i had paperwork to fill, it saved my life and i fear for those who won't be entitled to it

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Dan Sohege @danielsohege.bsky.social · 15/03/2025

We've already seen how hard PIP is to get for many people. We have already seen people dying because they were unjustly denied it, or because it has been delayed. PIP is an essential lifeline for many. Proposing to cut it is a gross mistake, which needs scrapping. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

theguardian.com

‘How can I not charge my wheelchair?’ The real effects of benefit cuts for millions of disabled people

One of those waiting for Labour’s announcement explains why he depends on personal independence payments

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Stephen King @stephenking.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

It's official: The lunatics are now running the asylum.

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Science Friday @scifri.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

90% of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer die from the disease. That's why the medical community is excited about the results of a small trial in which nearly half of the pancreatic cancer patients who received an mRNA vaccine for the disease remained relapse-free three years later.

sciencefriday.com

A Vaccine For Pancreatic Cancer Continues To Show Promise

In a small trial, nearly half of pancreatic cancer patients who received an mRNA vaccine for the disease had no relapse three years later.

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Reposted by Martin Bonner

Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

You don't want to read this. And I don't want to write it. iandunt.substack.com/p/you-dont-w...

iandunt.substack.com

You don't want to read this

And I don't want to write it.

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Martin Bonner @argentas.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Thank goodness it's Friday 🤣

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Kidney Care UK @kidneycareuk.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

❗For #WorldKidneyDay, we want more people to know just how #BloodyAmazing their kidneys are! They do an amazing job filtering blood & keeping our organs working. However, many don't realise their importance or the risks until it's too late. More info: kidneycareuk.org/news-from-ki...

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Martin Bonner @argentas.bsky.social · 21/09/2024

@MarstonsPLC Visited the White Hart in Exeter yesterday. All the carpark signs say the parking fee will be deducted from the cost of your order, but when I did this I was told they only refund the first £4. A clear breach of contract. How do I get the rest of my parking refunded?

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Martin Bonner @argentas.bsky.social · 24/06/2022

Worst wheelchair shopping experience so far @tesco Eastbourne today. Security hold keys to mobility scooters but weren't around. Customer service staff very huffy but did fetch the key to one of them. It wasnt charged but they'd gone by then. We gave up and balanced items on lap.

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Martin Bonner @argentas.bsky.social · 23/06/2022

Many #immunocompromised are still shielding as they do not produce antibodies in response to the vaccines so are unprotected #Evusheld would allow them to start 'living with covid' too. It has been approved for use in the UK, but UK Gov have not ordered any doses. #evusheld4theuk

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Martin Bonner @argentas.bsky.social · 05/02/2022

Nadine Dorries announces cost saving reforms to the Fire Service

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Martin Bonner @argentas.bsky.social · 30/06/2020

Finally some good news! My gf has been shielding alone, will need to do so into next year, and to make matters worse, last month on her birthday, she had to have her cat PTS. Today she learnt she has been chosen from a large No. of applicants, to adopt this beautiful Tonk rescue:

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Martin Bonner @argentas.bsky.social · 24/06/2020

Breaking news: The new contact tracing app will also allow you to order a meal and a pint...

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Martin Bonner @argentas.bsky.social · 16/06/2020

@UtilitaEnergy Notified u of bereavement in Feb, told ac would be put on hold until house sold. Visited yesterday 1st time since lockdown. No supply & putrefied chicken oozing from freezer. House stinks, flies everywhere, still no supply & cant get thru to anyone who gives a #@!'

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Martin Bonner @argentas.bsky.social · 06/06/2020

32 yrs ago tonight, my gf received a Heart&Lung transplant. Today our thoughts are with the family of the donor whose courage after losing a child saved the life of a stranger. Words can never adequately express our gratitude. Thx also to Harefield Hosp & NHS @NHSMillion @RBandH

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Martin Bonner @argentas.bsky.social · 25/05/2020

"My Wife had felt on the edge of not being able to look after him safely a few hrs earlier" "I thought that if I did not develop symptoms, I might be able to return to work..." So his instinct as a father was to drive his sick wife & son 260 miles away and then return to work?!

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Martin Bonner @argentas.bsky.social · 27/11/2016

@tweethue what's the difference between the v2.0 bridge and those marked 2.1 which seem to be included in all of the new starter kits?

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Martin Bonner @argentas.bsky.social · 06/05/2016

@NatWest_Help What's up with the cards online login these days? it seems to be down more often than it's up.

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