‘Sickfluencers’: How are they impacting the Department for Work and Pensions?

National World - LocalTV

It’s been reported that so called ADHD ‘sickfluencers’ or rather, ‘sick influencers’ has supposedly driven a surge in the number of people with self-diagnosed mental health conditions, who are using a £69,000-a year disability benefits scheme. It’s also been reported that the Department of Work and Pensions is increasingly concerned at the rising costs, as around a third of all demand is now led by people claiming financial support for mental health conditions. The rise in people using the Access to Work scheme, comes following an increase in advice from influencers discussing the scheme online. Since, dozens of users online have posted videos showcasing the benefits of the Access to Work scheme. Though, The Telegraph has reported that no individual with a mental health or behavioural condition is so far known to have claimed £69,000 in one year. A DWP spokesperson said: 'Access to Work is aimed at helping disabled people overcome barriers within the workplace, and while we cannot comment on specific cases, any support provided is vetted by trained staff to ensure it is appropriate and proportionate.”

Transcript

00:00There is no doubt that COVID has had a major impact upon people's mental health. It was

00:09certainly unprecedented. It's historical. We've never done this before. We've closed

00:14down a major economy. Indeed, most of the world closed down, and people have been shut

00:19up. I can think of personal instances of younger people who have been really adversely affected.

00:25I suspect that we're probably only going to see the beginnings of this, insofar as

00:30many younger people have gone to school who perhaps have not been socialised in the way

00:35that they would have been done in previous generations. That's one impact, but of course

00:40I think we live in a world of social media and lots of pressures and expectations. The

00:46fact that people feel that if they don't perform or they don't perform to expectations, then

00:52the stakes go up, and the sense of failure, and all sorts of other things that swirl about.

00:58The days when we just got on with it, the so-called stiff upper lip, and we just ignored

01:03these things, people don't do, which is a good thing. Of course, I fully understand

01:09the organisations that they want people to just come in and get on with the job and leave

01:14their emotions at home, or leave your brains in the locker room, as the expression used

01:18to go. People don't do that, so perhaps we're becoming much more willing to say the sort

01:23of things, or how we feel. But hey, it creates a certain sort of dynamic in society, which

01:29we're still trying to work through. Maybe in a generation or so, we will have done so.

01:33But we're in that difficult period at the moment, and it's awful for people going through this.

01:38It's been reported that disability benefit claims have risen dramatically, up by around

01:42one million since 2019. Critics argue that influencers advising on these matters online

01:48are enabling people to game the system. The scale of benefit approvals has also recently

01:54seen a dramatic surge.

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