PEOPLE with multiple sclerosis who claim disability benefits say that assessments are causing their health to deteriorate, a charity warned yesterday.

Nearly half (48 per cent) of survey respondents who had undertaken an assessment for Employment Support Allowance (ESA) felt that it had harmed their wellbeing, the MS Society said.

This is because stressful assessments carried out by privateer Maximus for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) ignore hidden and fluctuating symptoms of MS and their effects on sufferers.

MS Society chief executive Michelle Mitchell, said: “Having MS is enough. It shouldn’t be made harder by a welfare system that doesn’t make sense for people living with the condition.

“This is counter-intuitive to a system designed to support people with disabilities,” she added.

Out of 1,800 people, more than a third (36 per cent) also felt that their conditions worsened after face-to-face assessments for Personal Independence Payment.

Evidence provided by the claimants’ GP or healthcare worker should also be accounted for by the DWP, states the MS Society’s new campaign “MS: Enough: Make Welfare Make Sense.”

And nearly a third of disabled and long-term ill respondents (32 per cent) said they were left so impoverished by benefit changes that they had to cut down how much they ate.

More than a quarter (28 per cent) have reduced transport use. Two out of five (41 per cent) have become isolated after being forced to limit money spent socialising with family and friends.

The MS Society also wants the Tory government to undertake a full impact assessment of knock-on effects on other areas of public spending such as health and social care.

Assessors are “registered and experienced health professionals” that are trained to spot fluctuating symptoms, a DWP spokesman insisted.

lamiatsabin@peoples-press.com