DWP to increase support for vulnerable claimants after series of suicides This article is more than 6 years old Frontline staff will be required to liaise with NHS and police rather than cutting off people’s benefits Patrick Butler Social policy editor Wed 22 Jul 2020 17.05 BSTLast modified on Thu 23 Jul 2020 20.15 BST The Department for Work and Pensions is to overhaul its safeguarding systems following a series of high-profile failures in which mentally ill claimants took their own lives after having their benefits cut off by welfare officials. The department’s permanent secretary, Peter Schofield, told MPs on the work and pensions select committee that vulnerable people had sometimes “fallen through the cracks” in the social security system and been left without support. Recent cases include Errol Graham , 57, who was found starved to death in 2018 after his benefits were withdrawn when he failed to attend a jobcentre meeting, and Jodey Whiting , 42, who took her own l...
The death of Errol Graham: Man starved to death after DWP wrongly stopped his benefits By John Pring on 23rd January 2020 Category: Benefits and Poverty Listen A disabled man starved to death after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) wrongly stopped his out-of-work benefits, leaving him without any income. Errol Graham weighed just four-and-a-half stone when his body was found by bailiffs who had knocked down his front door to evict him. He had just a couple of out-of-date tins of fish left in his flat. DWP civil servants had failed to seek further medical evidence from his GP, just as in many other tragic cases that have sparked repeated calls for an independent inquiry into links between the deaths of claimants and the actions and failings of DWP. Assistant coroner Dr Elizabeth Didcock, who heard the inquest, was told that DWP stopped Graham’s employment and support allowance (ESA) entitlement – and backdated that decision to the previous month – after making two unsucc...