Posted on 31 October 2025

Standfirst: A military veteran with complex, fluctuating conditions exposes how the Labour Government’s Universal Credit cuts, PIP changes, and failing NHS services are dismantling the financial and physical independence of even the most severely disabled citizens.

My Fight for Care: A Veteran’s Battle with a Broken NHS

I served my country — now I’m fighting for basic care.

Getting a GP appointment shouldn’t require an MP, a charity, and months of chasing. But for me, a veteran living with combat-related PTSD, fibromyalgia, functional neurological disorder (FND) and a brain injury from a subarachnoid haemorrhage, it did.

These conditions cause tremors, muscle spasms, seizures and cognitive impairment — and that’s just some of my symptoms. Across my diagnoses there are many more. Worse, they interact: when one flares, it can trigger or worsen the others. That cross-play creates an incredibly complex, unpredictable condition that the current benefits and healthcare systems simply don’t understand.

I can’t cook safely. I rely on carers every day to help me wash, dress and manage daily living. I use a wheelchair — but not one provided by the NHS.

The Royal British Legion funded my wheelchair after the NHS Wheelchair Service offered only a basic model that actually worsened my condition and caused injuries I needed treatment for. The specialist chair I now use cost £7,500 — a medical necessity, not a luxury.

Many NHS wheelchair services have now been outsourced to private mobility companies, focused on cost limits rather than patient needs. Without the Royal British Legion’s support, I would have been trapped — literally — in pain and isolation.

“Try Work” Is a Cruel Joke When the NHS Can’t Cope

Referrals vanish. Calls go unanswered. Even with my MP’s intervention, the earliest GP appointment I could get was four weeks away.

Yet the Labour Government is expanding WorkWell and Connect to Work, embedding “employment support” into GP surgeries and hospitals. Doctors are being told to help patients “try work” as part of treatment.

It sounds compassionate on paper. In reality, when the NHS is broken, when it can’t even provide basic medical continuity or functional equipment, it’s a cruel joke.

You can’t “treat unemployment” when you can’t treat pain, trauma or disability.

Universal Credit: Cuts Dressed Up as “Reform”

From April 2026, the government will cut the Universal Credit Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity (LCWRA) element. For new claimants, the payment — currently £423.27 a month (around £97 a week) — will be almost halved to £217.26 a month. For existing claimants like me, the rate will be frozen until 2029.

That means no rise for four years while the cost of living climbs — a significant real-terms cut for people already struggling with higher bills, transport costs and essential care expenses.

Disabled people aren’t asking for luxury — we’re asking for survival with dignity.

If you’re already on the highest level of PIP, these UC changes might not remove your payments immediately, but they set a dangerous precedent: that disability support is negotiable and can be unilaterally reduced.

The WCA Abolition: Double Jeopardy for the Severely Disabled

By 2028/29, the government plans to scrap the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) and tie UC’s health support directly to PIP daily-living eligibility.

On paper, that shouldn’t affect me — I receive the highest rate of PIP. But here’s the problem: it redefines disability support around one test, not medical complexity or employability.

If the rules for PIP tighten — and they are tightening — then even people with severe, lifelong disabilities could lose not just PIP but their linked UC support too.

That’s not simplification. That’s double jeopardy.

High-Rate Claimants Aren’t Safe: The Narrowing of PIP

The Pathways to Work Green Paper proposes that to qualify for the PIP Daily Living component, you must score at least four points on a single activity, instead of smaller cumulative scores across several.

That may sound like administrative tidying — but it will exclude thousands of people whose difficulties are cumulative and interlinked.

For someone like me, whose symptoms overlap and fluctuate across physical, neurological and mental-health conditions, this narrow tick-box approach ignores the true complexity of disability. It punishes the reality of living with multiple conditions that amplify each other.

Bureaucracy Pretending to Be Medicine: Flawed PIP Assessments

The government claims linking UC health support to PIP will make things “simpler.” But how can a system be fair when it’s built on assessments by people who aren’t experts in our conditions?

Under PIP, you’re not examined by a consultant, neurologist or mental-health specialist who understands your illness. You can be assessed by a physiotherapist, nurse or paramedic — none of whom are qualified to diagnose, treat or fully grasp complex neurological or mental-health disorders like mine.

How can a physiotherapist accurately judge the daily impact of FND, fibromyalgia or combat-related PTSD? How can a paramedic assess the cognitive consequences of a brain injury, or the way exhaustion and tremors interact with trauma?

They can’t — yet their report can decide whether you can afford heating, food or carer support.

When this flawed process becomes the single gateway for both PIP and UC health support, the injustice doubles.

Bank Monitoring: Punishing Those Who Save Responsibly

The Public Authorities (Fraud, Error & Recovery) Bill gives the DWP new powers to compel banks to share account data at scale.

It’s presented as an anti-fraud measure, but in practice it risks punishing those who save responsibly.

I’m currently saving for:

A new wheelchair — about £7,500, because it’s specialist medical equipment the NHS won’t fund.

A larger Motability vehicle, needing a £3,000+ advance payment to accommodate my equipment.

Those aren’t luxuries; they’re lifelines.

Under these rules, legitimate savings for essential medical needs could trigger red flags and investigations. Disabled people shouldn’t have to fear losing benefits simply for planning ahead.

Motability Changes Threaten Freedom

Reports ahead of the November 2025 Budget suggest the Treasury may remove VAT and Insurance Premium Tax relief from the Motability Scheme, and restrict certain vehicle types.

Even standard adapted cars could become £3,000 more expensive every three years.

For those of us who rely on larger vehicles for wheelchairs and medical equipment, that’s not about “premium” choices — it’s about mobility and independence.

Cutting that support doesn’t drive inclusion; it drives isolation.

The Structural Barriers: Why Disabled People Can’t Work

Many disabled people want to work. I do too.

My dream is to make writing my full-time job — to build something meaningful for myself, to use my experience to educate and advocate, and to find independence through my own work.

But the biggest barriers aren’t motivation or ability — they’re structural.

Without proper, joined-up medical care, managing my health becomes a full-time job in itself — one that keeps me from building the career I’m trying so hard to create. This is compounded by an underfunded social-care system and a benefits process that treats complex disability like a tick-box exercise.

The statistics speak for themselves: in 2023/24, only 53% of working-age disabled people in the UK were employed, compared with 82% of non-disabled people — an employment gap of 28 percentage points (ONS / TUC).

And even when we are employed, we’re often paid less. Disabled employees earn around 12–17% less per hour than non-disabled colleagues — roughly £2–£3 less for the same work.

We don’t need lectures about work ethic; we need systems that work.

The Pattern of Policy: Cuts First, Care Later

Across every policy area, a clear pattern emerges:

NHS care is overstretched, underfunded and increasingly privatised.

Universal Credit health support is being cut and frozen.

PIP eligibility is being narrowed.

Bank surveillance is expanding.

Motability costs are set to rise.

And the employment and pay gap remains vast.

Together, these form a system designed not to empower disabled people, but to contain costs — regardless of the human price.

Real Reform: Dignity, Fairness and Listening to Disabled People

I’m not a statistic — I’m a person.

I live with complex, interacting conditions that affect my mind, body and independence every single day. I rely on systems that are supposed to help — but increasingly, I’m forced to rely on charities and my own determination instead.

These reforms aren’t about helping people like me; they’re about balancing spreadsheets.

Real reform means:

Funding a functioning, joined-up NHS that can actually treat people.

Guaranteeing secure, inflation-proof benefits for lifelong disabilities.

Protecting the right to save for essential medical equipment.

Closing the disability pay gap and ending employer discrimination.

Listening to disabled people, not political strategists.

I served my country. I don’t expect rewards — but I do expect fairness, dignity and the right to live safely and independently. Right now, this government is offering none of that.

Action: Refusing to Stay Silent

If you’ve read this far, don’t just scroll away.

Share this. Talk about it. Challenge the myths about disability and “benefit culture.” Support the organisations that fight for fairness — the ones filling the gaps left by government failure.

Every conversation matters. Every voice matters.

Change doesn’t start in Westminster — it starts with us refusing to stay silent.

→ If this resonated, share this post with the hashtag #DisabilityReformFailure and tell one person what you learned today. Then email your MP asking them to oppose any further cuts to disability support.

Sources

DWP Pathways to Work Green Paper (March 2025)

House of Commons Library: Universal Credit Health Element Changes (2025)

Resolution Foundation: Impact of Disability Benefit Reforms (July 2025)

DWP Public Authorities (Fraud, Error & Recovery) Bill (2025)

Motability Operations statement to Treasury Committee (Oct 2025)

ONS: Disability Pay Gaps in the UK, 2014–2023

TUC: Disability Pay and Employment Gaps 2023/24