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GPs warn: welfare test is driving our patients towards suicide

Ministers accused of using work assessments to ‘hound’ disabled people on benefits

By Richard Wachman | 4 October 2012

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Pic: DWP

Work stress: Iain Duncan-Smith

Ministers need to reform the test urgently so that those… not healthy enough to work are helped, not hounded

Tom Greatrex, Labour MP

Vulnerable people are being driven to suicide by a government welfare test, according to a poll of UK doctors carried out for a mental-health charity.

The survey found that one GP in five has at least one disabled patient who had thought about suicide because of the test, which is aimed at assessing whether people claiming incapacity benefit are fit to work.

More than one in 17 GPs polled had at least one disabled patient who had attempted – or committed – suicide because of the test.

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