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Update on our proposed petition

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Category: General Information

Published on Monday, 23 March 2020 10:23

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Following the disturbing documentary which aired recently, FMA UK released a statement on the toxic culture which exists within the DWP towards people with fibromyalgia and presumably other life-changing conditions. From what we hear almost daily, this isn’t a one-off issue and a vast number of people with chronic illnesses have suffered from discrimination and a lack of empathy from staff within the organisation.

We are now in the position where we have the proposed wording for a petition to submit to the DWP on the issue of appropriate internal training to improve how claimants are treated by assessors.

We were originally planning to launch it around about now, but due to the current Coronavirus situation in the UK, we don’t believe now is the time to do so for 2 reasons:

-  We don’t believe the petition would gain as much attention and signatures as it would if there wasn’t a pandemic virus situation going on.

-  We don’t believe that the appropriate government response or time would be provided given the ongoing situation in the country.

To gain maximum effect and reach more people, we would prefer to launch it when people have less things on their mind at the moment, as they so understandably do with COVID-19. So with this in mind, we will delay the launch of the petition, but people should be aware that it is something we intend to do, as to speak up and advocate change for those who feel voiceless.