THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO

Confidential medical data from sick and disabled people claiming welfare benefits is opened and screened by Royal Mail staff on behalf of the Government without the claimant’s knowledge or consent.

Breaches of confidentiality have emerged that the Department of Work and Pensions routinely uses the Royal Mail to process thousands of benefit claims, including health information it receives daily.

The disclosures have cued bracing fears about the fact that the handling of sensitive personal data is being lawfully outsourced without the claimant’s consent.

People claiming sickness benefits such as employment and support allowance must start by completing an elaborate medical questionnaire explaining their conditions, prescribed medications and therapies, and the names and addresses of their doctors and nurses.

It asks some extremely sensitive questions about addictions and mental illness, and is then mailed in a pre-addressed envelope to the DWP or Atos health care.

Yet, it has emerged that these envelopes are routinely opened, and the contents screened by Royal Mail, unless the envelope is specifically checked off as private and confidential. In those cases, the envelopes are posted straight onto Atos unopened, according to the DWP.

It all became clear when a local post office was told not to bother posting ESA forms by special delivery as the envelopes would be opened by Royal Mail irrespectively. Nowhere in any claimants paperwork does it state that a third party is involved, and Royal Mail is posting extremely personal data, and people have a right to know this is happening simply because they’re being misled.

Claimants often have incredibly complex case histories. They may have mental health problems or be victims of sexual abuse, which they find incredibly unsettling to now know that such deeply personal information is being shared with Royal Mail.

While there are no grounds to question the sheer integrity of the Royal Mail, they simply should not have entree to this sort of information, particularly in the run up to the Christmas holidays when Royal Mail frequently takes on students that are now rummaging through our post, and that’s where the claimants information leaks out, and there is nothing stopping them from opening our post, and passing that data onto other people.

The DWP has said that security measures had been put in place to minimize the danger of any data breaches, including CCTV in sorting rooms and procedures that mean that at least two people open the post together, however, that doesn’t mean that the people working there will not pass any information by word of mouth, or to even to make fun of those claimants that have extremely sensitive issues.

The keynote here is that claimants should have their information kept private, and that staff that are dealing with such sensitive information should be made to sign a confidentiality clause because of the impact it could have on claimants if their information was to be passed on to somebody that it shouldn’t be.

And there should be fears that the government department could even contemplate allowing such sensitive and confidential medical information to be handled by a third party without the claimants agreeing to it, and there appears to be too many agencies dealing with claimants personal data which needs to be protected.

A person’s information should be safely guarded to subdue any breaches of security, and it doesn’t matter how reputable an agency is, there is still that probability that there could be breaches of security.  Although, that is not proposing that Royal Mail staff are bribable or unreliable, however, it would still be unintelligent to think that nothing or nobody is infallible.

It’s not like there haven’t been breaches in security before, and to a degree that is somewhat disturbing, although one cannot say it would materialize, however, on the other hand, we can’t go around with the pretense that it wouldn’t, and Royal Mail going through our mail can only be a hindrance where claimants are concerned.

Hallucinogenic fungi have been found springing up in no other than the Queen’s garden at Buckingham Palace, after being identified by gardening expert Alan Titchmarsh.

TV presenter excavated the fungi at Buckingham Palace for an ITV gardening show. Alan Titchmarsh recognised the red and white toadstool as he was on his tour of the secluded 40 acre plot. If consumed, it’s known for it’s extremely hallucinogenic effects, however, it also makes people who eat it extremely ill.

The old fashioned thing was to feed the mushrooms to the village idiot, and then to drink his urine because then you would get all the high without any of the sickness.

For the avoidance of uncertainty, fungi from the garden are not used in the palace kitchens, however, it would be so easy not to resist the odd poke here and there just for fun. Comics are going to whizz into this article and centre their rhetoric upon the public, and there will be no censorship of what they articulate.

Alan Titchmarsh has exhausted twelve months researching how the Palace garden alters with the seasons, and we will be experiencing the finishing calendar year with a Christmas tree mounted in the Marble Hall, adorned with holly and mistletoe from the royal garden, which will be festooned with festive golden crowns of magic mushrooms… just joking of course about the mushrooms!

More than 60% of untoward Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) sanctions decisions were made during the first three months of 2014 against people with mental health issues or behavioural problems.

There were 508 adverse sanctions against ESA claimants with diseases of the circulatory or respiratory system, 1,598 against those with diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue. There were 571 against people with diseases of the nervous system, 714 against people with injuries, poisoning and certain other issues of external causes, and there were 2,727 against those with other health conditions or disabilities.

According to the DWP, benefit sanctions are used to boost people to engage with the support being provided by Jobcentre’s, by making it clearer to claimants what they are required to do in return for their benefits. Nevertheless, charities and medical experts state that people with mental health issues, learning problems and behavioral problems frequently fight to see what is demanded of them in return for their benefits because they cannot conform to the rigorous demands because they can prove to be more difficult for these groups of people, who are not given any extra support and direction.

It’s very worrying that an increasing amount of people on ESA are having their benefits terminated, despite the fact that there are fewer people on WRAG (Work Related Activity Group). About half the people in the WRAG require support because they have mental health problems, however, over 60 percent of sanctions are placed on this group.

It’s unwarranted that people with mental health problems are being disproportionately affected by the progressively punitory system, and people are manipulated and forced to undertake activities that are inappropriate for them, particularly when they’re not having their mental health taken into account.

As a result of this, people become panicky and sickly, and this makes a reappearance to work exceedingly improbable. We actually need to see people with mental health problems placed in a scheme that recognizes and helps them overpower the challenges that they are fronting everyday.

Not every person who is mentally challenged can manage to get back into work, however, for those that can, they should be assisted at whatever the cost, and those that can’t work any longer should also be helped. This is why our country is called the United Kingdom, a nation that is linked together politically, for the common purpose, or by common beliefs, like a team that is formed by amalgamation.

When David Cameron said that we were all in this together, was he implying the same thing, and did he want a team that was formed by amalgamation. If so, then why is he not putting his money into the welfares financial kitty?  What he was really suggesting when he stated we were all in this together, so long as it’s taxpayers money, and they are putting it into the government’s honey tree…

There’s a semi derelict bus depot in Blackburn town center that could be brought back to life as a charity and recycling center. Up to 10 homeless people would live there under supervision.

The garage was closed in 2011. It was then bought by Blackburn and Darwen Council and now the borough is set on selling it to a Lancashire based charity, which aids to marginalize people back into the stable, and independent living. The charity’s associated social enterprise will run the site as a recycling center for scrap metal items.

Not far from where David Cameron went to school at Eton, there used to stand a workhouse for the misfortunate poor in Victorian England. Husbands and wives were separated from one another, as well as mothers from their children.

When Elizabeth Wyse tried to spend the night with her daughter on Christmas Day 1840, the workhouse director hauled her from the room, and shut her away in the workhouse cage, and left her in solitary confinement with no coat, no bedding, straw, and no chamber pot for 24 hours.

The following morning, she was dished up her fellow inmates stale gruel before being sent back to her unclean cage to clean it, with her hands.

The Victorians disliked the poor, and at the Andover workhouse in Hampshire, a single adult female with illegitimate children was driven to wear a yellow stripe across their robes if they wanted to eat. Adolescent boys were sent out to work in the tanneries, and were so famished, they had to eat on decaying bones, and putrid horse flesh to exist.

The cuts that we see in today’s Britain, and on our public services might not send us back to the toughest days of the 19th century, however, David Cameron and George Osborne’s newfangled welfare state stinks of the 1800’s. To the Victorians, the poor deserved to be assisted, however, almost were doomed to the workhouse. These were the rules behind the workhouse because the conditions had to be so appalling that the needy would put themselves through any indignity, sooner than search help from the state.

It genuinely wasn’t much fun for Oliver Twist, because the workhouse wasn’t the only misery. The refusal to determine the free market meant that housing conditions were unhealthy, education was hopeless, air pollution was pernicious, and safety in the workplace a laugh.

Accidents happened to operatives who worked in rooms jammed full of machinery. The most usual trauma was the loss of a joint of the finger, and some would not only see numerous cripples, but also a great deal of workers who had lost the whole appendage.

It was thought back then that the poor were unemployed because they were just merely work-shy, and that children were born out of marriage because their parents were sinful. That drinking and depression were lifestyle options, and that uncleanliness was the wares of immorality and not poorness.

It seems that much has altered then…

The only divergence is that then the Victorians really thought it all to be true, now our government knows it’s not true, however, they allegedly entertain themselves with this sport inside their fraternity, whilst they make the poor fair game. Their power gives them that air of self-assurance, and they appear to be adept at whatever they do, but as they blunder about, fumbling from one victim to another, they play a game that is archaic and hostile.

All their statistics are contradictory, and it’s in utter disarray, however, that seems to be fine inside our government, but it’s not, it’s unacceptable, particularly when it involves poverty-stricken human lives. The state of this nation is shameful, and people of this country are now being considered as second-class citizens.

There are no indulgences any longer, and the human race has become a motive for a much larger design. We can’t see it yet, however, it’s been in front of our very eyes for many years, as the government maneuvers us, so that they can pull the wool over our very eyes. We are simply sheep herders that are being chaperoned along like fools by the so called brilliance of our government.

We are not fools, and some of us are not unfamiliar with what is really going on in our country, the same as it’s not inconceivable to stop what is going on, even though at the moment things appear intolerable, however, we are not inferior human beings, and as a community we can make this a better place, so long as we don’t carry on being sheep.

For access to unemployment benefit, to utilize the NHS, and claim Child Benefit, does not mean to say that you are monkeying around with the system. It signifies that the country can help out when times get hard, because it’s a worthwhile investment in our health care, education, and care for the future of this nation.

Now, that visual sense of community and citizenship is being sabotaged because no one is in favor of benefit cheats or incapacity loafers, however, cutting Child Benefit, cutting down social housing, and undermining the NHS is favorable, and could in fact take us back to the Victorian values.

We have civilized ourselves since the 19th century, and there is no call for David Cameron to take us back to the ethos of the Eton workhouse.

Russell Brand clashed with a news interviewer from Channel 4 News when the journalist demanded to know about the cost of his personal property. Earlier Russell had united with hundreds of residents of an East London estate so that they could march and demonstrate on Downing Street to protest against the threat of eviction.

Residents of the New Era estate in Hoxton, which was primitively constructed as low-cost housing for workers, state that they could face homelessness after US investment firm Westbrook Partners bought it out.

There have been 93 families that have been accounted for to face the legal ouster before Christmas. It’s social cleansing, which is pressuring the average working class people out of London.

The newsperson that was talking to Russell Brand outside Downing Street hinted that part of the housing trouble was that the super rich were purchasing property in London, and then the reporter asked Russell how much did he pay for his place.

Of course, Russell’s domicile is rented. However, Russell wasn’t there to speak about his home, he was there to protest against those that are about to lose theirs. Russell and the reporter then sparred for about 30 seconds before Garrett leaped in, angrily telling the broadcaster that at least Russell is standing up, irrespective of how large his house is, but the bigger picture really was when Garrett stated that David Cameron wasn’t even geared up to come out of his big house and help, but that at least Russell does.

Russell concluded the interview by telling the reporter that: “Snide’s like you undermine it… You’re a snide. ”

Even though Russell can be very disparaging at times, he is driven to get out there within the public.  He’s not just funny man, and he’s no fool, but he’s a human being with character, a soul, and most of all he worries what happens to the people of this country.

Russell might be one of the more affluent, but he is also a leader of the extreme, he knows what he wants, and he sets out to get it. It’s not about ambition, but it’s about the drive that pushes us along, and at least he has a vision. He has a connection to the human race!

When David Cameron’s son Ivan passed away at the age of six in 2009, after suffering from cerebral palsy and epilepsy, David Cameron announced his appreciation for the way the NHS staff cared for his son.

Nevertheless, he is then to be caught attempting to sell off the NHS to private sectors, and he is taking necessitated food from poor families by cutting their money, or sanctioning them so that they have to go to food banks.

Not only that, but he is also cutting emergency services, whilst MPs get a 10k pay rise, and David Cameron uses narratives about his deceased son to legitimatize selling off our NHS to his acquaintances.

However, for all those other people adjudicated fit to work by ATOS, well, they later died.

Many have said that these tweets that are going on Twitter are gruesome, but they are merely grim because they are allegedly truthful, and people are about as shocked by Jack Monroe’s remarks as they are about anything else.

Almost all people do work hard, however, that can fall apart in the blink of an eye, and can end up groping around in a festering pit of economic crisis, joblessness, benefit holdups, suspensions, and hunger.

His desire to make us suffer is what he hankers for because he demands that we are all in this together. We are not all in this together because we did not induce the deficit, the government did, while they sit having their lush dinners, and second houses, and nannies. I can’t see any of them suffering.

They’re not proposing going without so that they can serve to diminish the deficit, but their undertaking is to make others outside of their circle suffer. It’s all about fastening our belts to fund those in government. Whilst they gorge their faces with caviar and champagne, and their stomachs become more fertile.

They must genuinely believe that we are very unintelligent, and we’re expected to have confidence in these reprobates while they bring us into impoverishment. They can hold us accountable as much as they like, but at the end of the day the liability is with our government, and not the general public.

It is frankly detrimental, and the idea that human beings such as the government could actually amuse themselves as they parade innocent people about like cattle, just shows how equipped they are at doing it, whilst people are reduced to poverty. They discredit people, and humiliate them, and think that’s okay to do so. But it’s not.

When David Cameron’s son Ivan passed away, I am certain it was a huge loss to their family unit, and I’m sure that whatever was in his head at the time regarding disability benefits was of extreme importance to him, but in some way, his visions have become obscured.

His comprehensibility of being disabled are not the same as they once were, and we can so well blank out how it affects people that are disabled, plus people who are disabled should not be categorized, they are all distinguishable human beings just trying to get on with their lives, and David Cameron should remember this…

Regrettably, disabled people don’t live a charmed life like David Cameron, and even though I sympathize that David Cameron’s son’s death was ill-timed, and it must have been an immense strain and heartache to his family, he also shouldn’t forget that the same applies to others who are disabled, and their families, however, he has no intention of giving those families a charmed life.

The mother of a seriously disabled adolescent with a mental age of five is looking at the chance of a year’s delay in receiving her benefits whilst an assessment is carried out to see if her daughter is actually fit for work.

Ellie McDonald, 19, of Eccleshill, is one of only 13 people in the world known to have this rare genetic disorder Chromosome 7 deletion.

Ellie was born with part of a chromosome missing, and is living with only one kidney, 70 percent curvature of the spine, and other conditions, including a tethered spinal cord, that has left her with bowel and bladder paralysis.

Her brain injury means that she has to be tranquilized to sleep each night, she also can’t read or write.

Nevertheless, she has to undergo medical assessments at home to establish that she has a rare genetic disorder, it’s not good enough for the DWP that she only has one kidney, a curvature of the spine, and that she has no control over her bowels and bladder.

After Ellie left school in July of this year. Ellie’s mother, Louise applied for employment support allowance for her daughter.

Ellie’s mother, Louise filled out the relevant forms to say that her daughter was unfit to work, and her GP even sent in a sick note outlining the severity of her disability, but that was not good enough.

It seems that GP’s are not adequate enough to give over information about their patients. What, do the DWP believe that GP’s are lying to their patients, or that the hospital that diagnosed Ellie got it all wrong, and that they are more proficient at diagnosing a disability than the consultant is?

When a consultant or GP has given over information such as this about such a severely disabled child or adult, then that should in fact be good enough, and not questionable. This should be the responsibility of the hospital or GP to supply this information about that person, and it should not be questioned, because it then puts doubt on consultants and GP’s as to whether they are qualified enough, and clearly the DWP believe that they can do a better job than a qualified consultant or GP.

While Ellie has to wait for an assessment to be carried out, it means that her parents are missing out on £200 a month in the employment payment, which means that Ellie is missing out as well.

Apparently there is a six to 12 month backlog to wait for this assessment to be conducted.  Hopefully all the money will be backdated, however, that is beside the point, in the interim Ellie has to go without that money, which could be making her quality of life much better.

Ellie will have to undergo a another medical assessment by the DWP despite undergoing a similar medical check for her when she obtained unconditional disability allowance, which is farcical because clearly if nothing has changed on her disability living allowance, then nothing has changed at all.

It’s very frustrating, because you have to prove everything to the DWP, even if you are in receipt of a benefit that clearly tells them that they are already on a benefit because they are severely disabled, however, they find it so easy to make us prove that disability over and over again, just for sport, and it causes people a huge amount of anxiety.

Ellie can’t do any kind of work, not with all her disabilities and medical conditions, and it’s a disgrace that we have to fight for what we are entitled to. This isn’t somewhat unjust, it’s greatly unjust, and it makes me want to scream because these comedians, we call our government are the spokespeople, and they induce our deprivation.

Ellie relies on everyone for her care, including the government, however, this family has to wait. There is no support for them, and they are now incarcerated in a system that is not fair to anyone.

It’s a bureaucracy that’s gone insane, and it’s a ludicrous state of affairs. The caring part appears to be lacking, particularly when people are losing money that they’re entitled to. Now that’s not only despicable, it’s life-threatening.

A judge stated she was horrified at the number of unrepresented cases and warned that the holdups would cause a clog up in the justice system.

Remarks were presented at the launch of a report that exposed low morale in the legal profession and found that 83% of lawyers thought justice is no longer accessible to anybody.

In an attempt to slash the £2 billion aid bill in England and Wales by £350 million a year, there are now fewer types of civil proceedings for which people can get support, so the possibilities for civil lawsuits are extremely far and few between.

Legal aid helps with the costs of legal advice for people who can’t afford it. It funds solicitors and agencies to advise people about their legal problems, such as an eviction, debt and family breakdown, and even divorce, and if necessary, to represent people in court.

There are worries that these modifications will deny justice to the poorest in society. The justice system had to be based on equality of law, and these newfangled restrictions are utterly disgraceful, and aggress the very poorest, and the most deprived.

People who sense they are denied access to justice could end up taking the law into their own hands. These changes could also end up costing the government more, as increasing amounts of people representing themselves might mean that court hearings will last longer, and will consequently be a burden on court staff and judges will increase.

Legal aid was an indispensable part of our justice system, and something that almost all people relied upon, and ensured that if we were in times of difficulty, with very little money, that we could rely on the justice system to help us.

Cold-hearted and heartless, there is nothing compassionate about Westminster City Council who is going to banish people who are sleeping rough in London’s capital.

They are trying to pass a bylaw to forbid homeless people from congregating in the regions round Westminster Cathedral, however, the homeless has been doing this for years, and nothing was said about it before.

Evidently soup runs have no place in the 21st century, and it’s wrong and undignified that people are being fed on the streets.

People of no fixed address, are not enthusiasts of sleeping rough, however, they have no option, and they will take any little assistance that they can get, or that is placed on them.

This is not a pastime for these people, however, it appears to be entertainment for the government when they are serving up this sort of crap, like it’s some kind of competitive game.

These people are victims, and the government appears to relish in destroying them, and we demand that they put an end to this, because human beings can’t be classified, they can’t be labelled.

Society is thought to be about generous-hearted people giving their time to the less fortunate. At no cost to the public purse, and this is a filthy and Bastardly move from a nasty and mean spirited conservative party.

As individuals that are close to their family and friends, they are probably very decent people, however, when it comes to ordinary people there is nothing exceptional about them. They then become uncaring parasites that target the weak, feigning to be saints.

There is nothing angelic about the Conservatives, and they use their place of authority to break people at their most vulnerable. Additionally, they will use this to raise awareness to an assembly of people that will really consider that what they say is true.

There are more and more people who are now homeless through no fault of their own, and it is the building block of the government that has made it this way, and to open fire on the people of this country, and take deprived people, and make them more disadvantaged than they already were.

It’s not a government, it’s a commercial enterprise, and in business it doesn’t matter who is in the firing line, so long as they make a net income from it, and they clearly believe that they are comedians when they do it, and at the moment they are having the last laugh.

David Cameron has stated that the red lights were flashing on the dashboard of the global economy, however, George Osborne and David Cameron are biting their own nails as the global economy once again begins to waver, and also the irony of it all.

David Cameron warned that we’re going to front hard times because the Eurozone and Japan are facing a recurrence of the recession, and with the inevitable aftermath to our own economic system.

That’s true, just as it was true when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister, and the banking crisis broke out, and economy after economy endured the consequences in 2008 and 2009.

Back then David Cameron and George Osborne would tell you that this global cataclysm had been induced by additional wards in British hospitals and new school buildings being constructed for British kids, and to them it was all about the deficit, as it is now, all about the deficit.

Nevertheless, the deficit continues to be an emotional loadstone for the Tories, of amalgamating vanity. Because the one thing that David Cameron can invariably be counted on to debate, is that the deficit is an existential threat to our economic system.

The only way to stop the deficit is to drastically cut spending, and they don’t care how they do it, or who they destroy along the way. The manner in how they do that is of no importance to them, and it’s improbable they will ever become free from the deficit at all, the only way they would ever get rid of the deficit is if all the people they owed money to determine that they would waiver what they owed, and give our government a clear slate.

Still, it wouldn’t matter how much of a clean slate our government was given. They would still end up with a shortfall because they are greedy by nature, and have no thought on how to handle our economic system.

George Osborne has not accomplished anywhere near the reductions in the deficit that he claimed were so important, nevertheless, this nation has not fallen into despair, which signifies that the deficit was neither the reason of a global collapse or the answer to our economy’s woes.

Nevertheless, George Osborne has been unable to confess his wrongdoing, however, he still behaves like a  hard man with the bedroom tax, abolishing new school building programs, lashing out on the poor and unemployed, only these measure are political, and not economic, and they don’t make a difference to the deficit, but the cruelness of it does when it comes to taking it out on poor people that now can’t survive, and have to go to food banks to provide for themselves or their families.

Mr Osborne has played a large part in this unmerciful and non effective abolition, scrapping everything he possibly can from people, and he bowls out smart arse comments that definitely the public don’t agree with.