Request Reminder

Good morning! It’s Cass again.

Just dropping a quick reminder to you all to please write to your MP and/or other elected representatives to ask them the questions from the previous update and to please let us know the response when you get it (by email or DM on our Twitter feed).

We are still looking for people who have had Ill Health Retirement (IHR) pension applications turned down and we do need to see the letter relating to this. Any of these case studies will be strictly anonymous within any report we are releasing to the public.

We are also extending this request to include those who have been told not to apply for IHR if you have written evidence of this, for example in a letter from occupational health, GP or union.

We are working on the survey. It’s currently in a rough draft form and needs some work, streamlining and slimming down. This will enable those who don’t have written evidence to take part and be included. We will probably use Google Forms, mainly as this allows anyone with a google account to save their progress for 30 days without losing previous form completion, which means people with energy limiting issues don’t have to worry about completing it in one go. It’s the best we can really do, given we don’t have any income.

I’ve written to my MP and MSP about whether or not we can set up meetings with the relevant pensions ministers around this issue once the survey closes and the report is drafted, but that’s probably not going to be until the start of next year.

Thank you to all of you who have reached out on social media or via email - it’s really appreciated. We are doing our best, but we have to pick battles where we can, due to the size of the team, our health and other commitments. We do need some help in the meantime with some research for evidence or deciding what’s best to include in our report, so if you feel you can help with that, please get in touch.

Please thing about writing to your MP or other elected representative, either to tell your story or in support of our community. Keyworkers are being left in the lurch without adequate or, in some cases, any financial support when all they did was keep the country going during the worst disabling event during World War 1 (source: TUC). We are the continuing victims of the pandemic, whatever phase it is in and we continue to be ignored.

We look forwards to hearing what elected representative, ministers and agencies say about this, as well as the evidence they provide and their reasons, so don’t forget to forward us any and all responses when you get them. You never know, just by lots of people asking difficult questions, we might get them to start thinking again.

By writing to these individuals and agencies, you’re helping with this part of our campaign. So thank you. It’s a massive help.