Martin Bonner
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argentas.bsky.social
Martin Bonner
@argentas.bsky.social
540 followers 1.8K following 52 posts
Exeter, UK. Interests include Science, Technology, Medicine, Healthcare, and Disability Rights. Partner of Heart/Lung transplant recipient.
Here to escape the toxicity of X, but you can find me there too as @MartinJBonner
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argentas.bsky.social
Martin Bonner @argentas.bsky.social · Apr 16
I was hoping this was a mistake, but someone else has submitted a similar FOI, and the figures tally

13% of 1608000 = 209040
87% of 1283000 = 1116210
(209040+1116210) / (1608000+1283000) = 46% of total recipients do not meet the 4 pts requirement.

(The other FOI response says 54% do score 4 pts)
www.whatdotheyknow.com
Reposted by Martin Bonner
shrinkatlarge.bsky.social
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
A digital flyer with a bold orange and cream colour scheme titled “SIGN THE LETTER: STOP DISABILITY BENEFITS CUTS.” It highlights that the letter is led by healthcare professionals and backed by over 1,250 signatories. The flyer explains that government proposals could remove Personal Independence Payment (PIP) from 1.3 million people—nearly 40% of current claimants. Freedom of Information (FOI) data shows that 1,283,000 standard-rate and 209,000 enhanced-rate claimants could lose support under a new 4-point rule. It warns that this puts 1.49 million people at risk of losing £4,500 a year. It names those most affected: people with mental distress, neurodivergence, chronic illness, pain, and fatigue conditions. The flyer urges action with the phrase “Our formula for real impact: Personal testimony × Facts × Clinical backing = Change.” At the bottom, it includes the sign-up link (tinyurl.com/2tvfvzft) and a QR code for signing.
April 24, 2025 at 9:33 AM
argentas.bsky.social
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."
April 18, 2025 at 1:05 PM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
louisemurphy.bsky.social
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.)
argentas.bsky.social Martin Bonner @argentas.bsky.social · Apr 16
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.
April 17, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
tomroyston.bsky.social
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.
April 16, 2025 at 3:56 PM
argentas.bsky.social
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.
April 16, 2025 at 5:03 PM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
kidneycareuk.bsky.social
📣 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...
March 19, 2025 at 1:50 PM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
stefbenstead.bsky.social
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...
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...
www.benefitsandwork.co.uk
March 18, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
flaneurben.bsky.social
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,
March 18, 2025 at 10:41 PM
argentas.bsky.social
I have submitted an FOI request to try and find out how many of those currently receiving PIP (personal independence payment) may lose their entitlement under the new rules:

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/pers...
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) - a Freedom of Information request to Department for Work and Pensions
Please could you provide the following information: The number of claimants currently in receipt of PIP daily living component at: a) The standard rate b) The enhanced rate For each of the above, pl...
www.whatdotheyknow.com
March 18, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
annalandre.com
"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
March 18, 2025 at 11:45 AM
argentas.bsky.social
jpit.uk/repeatedly-t...
Repeatedly taking the easy choice on welfare – Joint Public Issues Team
JPIT’s Paul Morrison responds to potential disability benefit cuts. In the November 2024 budget the Chancellor decided to keep the last government’s £3bn of disability benefit cuts which were pencille...
jpit.uk
March 18, 2025 at 3:26 AM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
kidneycareuk.bsky.social
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...
March 17, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
atlantarey.bsky.social
Abled people who moan about disabled people getting PIP do so from a position of privilege. Structural barriers in society mean that disabled people need help to level the playing field between abled & disabled people. Disabled people deserve the same rights as abled people.
March 17, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
snathe.bsky.social
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.
March 17, 2025 at 11:41 AM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
samwebster.bsky.social
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.
March 17, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
dooft.bsky.social
“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.”
March 17, 2025 at 11:57 AM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
mcdowall.me
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.
March 17, 2025 at 11:59 AM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
rodfaestet.bsky.social
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
March 17, 2025 at 10:51 AM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
danielsohege.bsky.social
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...
‘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
www.theguardian.com
March 15, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
stephenking.bsky.social
It's official: The lunatics are now running the asylum.
March 10, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
scifri.bsky.social
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.
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.
www.sciencefriday.com
March 16, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
iandunt.bsky.social
You don't want to read this. And I don't want to write it.

iandunt.substack.com/p/you-dont-w...
You don't want to read this
And I don't want to write it.
iandunt.substack.com
March 14, 2025 at 11:03 AM
argentas.bsky.social
Thank goodness it's Friday 🤣
March 14, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
kidneycareuk.bsky.social
❗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...
March 13, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Reposted by Martin Bonner
rbreich.bsky.social
March 11, 2025 at 10:30 PM