Peter Shawglen of Disabled People Against Cuts is campaigning to end hated DWP medical assessments of disabled people

For the last three years I’ve often gone without food, heating, clothes and haven’t had a social life. And every time I get a letter through the door I fear I’m going to have my Personal Independent Payments (PIP) claim re-assessed and possibly stopped.

I’ve been diagnosed as borderline schizophrenic. I have a personality disorder, I am bipolar and I suffer from both anxiety and depression. While I want to work I know I can’t sustain employment. I need support to get back into a job. But that support isn’t out there and instead I just feel castigated because I can’t work and have to claim benefits.

My benefits have gone from £90 a week to £70 under the new regime so I’m finding it harder than ever to get by.

Under PIP you are re-assessed in stages, meaning you have to turn up to an assessment centre whenever they decide and go through the humiliation of being medically tested by a stranger who is not your doctor.

The old system signed you off for up to five years at a time; the new system has an onus on catching you out – to see if your claim is authentic, or whether or not you are lying about your illness. So they keep you re-applying.

I was previously in the work related assessment group of Employment Support Allowance after being told I could work. They took me off PIP for a year before I appealed and won my case. It meant the Jobcentre saw me as fit for work. It was a huge pressure; I hated it. I hated thinking I have to take a job that will in all likelihood make me more ill.

There is not much money to be made claiming PIP as opposed to jobseekers allowance - around £10 a week which hardly makes it worth it. I know a number of people who won’t claim disability benefits even though they are entitled. They can’t deal with the stress of the tests. And then there is the ongoing stress wondering whether in a year’s time a future assessment will downgrade you. It’s a stress we could all do without.

I last worked in 2010. I paid my taxes and National Insurance so I feel I’m at least eligible to claim against the welfare state when hard times befall me. I didn’t want these problems to occur. I want to be healthy and to work. But I can’t and when I go to claim what I’m entitled to I face mistrust and the suspicion I’m fake.

There is not much money to be made claiming PIP as opposed to jobseekers allowance

Now the floodgates have opened with the UK government saying it is to review all claimants on PIP - the only reason is because legal challenges have become unsustainable. The system they pretended was saving money has cost billions in failed effort.

What it has been successful in achieving is the stigmatisation of the poor and the ill. In that respect PIP has been a huge success. Now more people than ever before have a hatred against the disabled for being benefits scroungers.