Benefits for the Sick and Disabled

Abstract

There are a large number of benefits available within the British social security system in respect of claimants who are disabled or sick. They produce a patchwork of benefit entitlement that has led Ogus, Barendt and Wikeley to comment that:

‘The system of benefits for sick and disabled people was described in 1978 as ‘a ragbag of provisions based on differing, sometimes conflicting and anachronistic principles’….[T]his description remains valid today, despite (or, more accurately, owing to) the changes to disability benefits since then.’ (Ogus, Barendt, Wikeley, 1995, quoting Simkins and Tickner, 1978, p. 17)