Broken Promises: What the UK’s Treatment of Disabled People Says About the State of Our Nation

This is not just about policy. It’s about principle.

I served this country. I came home injured. But this isn’t a story about a failed veteran. It’s a story about a system that’s failing all of us.

Across the UK, over 14.6 million disabled people are living in a state of manufactured scarcity — not because their needs are unclear, but because the systems around them are deliberately designed to delay, deny, and degrade. I know this because I live it.

I live with complex, overlapping conditions: combat-related PTSD, a brain injury following a subarachnoid haemorrhage, Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), severe fibromyalgia, partial blindness, significant hearing loss, and neurological seizures and tremors. These aren’t static labels. They interact, compound, and affect every part of my life. Yet, the people assessing me often have no experience of any of them.

The Flawed Assessment System

Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessments are outsourced to private contractors paid billions in public funds. Yet these assessments are often carried out by non-specialists — nurses, physiotherapists, or civilians with no background in trauma, neurology, or systemic disability. The system gets it wrong so often that over 70% of rejected PIP claims are overturned on appeal.

This isn’t just inadequate. It’s dangerous. When assessments fail to reflect the complexity of real-life conditions, it can mean the difference between receiving essential support and being left to deteriorate — physically, mentally, and financially.

The Reality of Navigating Disability Support

Accessing support isn’t simply a matter of medical need. It’s about navigating a labyrinthine system designed more to contain costs than to provide care. I’ve spent months trying to notify the DWP of major changes to my condition. I’ve called their lines twice a week without success. My review is frozen, and my future hangs in the balance.

The Struggle for Mobility

Mobility is not a luxury. It’s the foundation of independence. I was assessed and confirmed to require a specialist wheelchair. But NHS wheelchair services told me they couldn’t provide it. Not because I didn’t need it — but because the chair exceeded their cost cap. I was offered a partial voucher and told to find the remaining £4,500 myself.

Across the country, powered wheelchair wait times exceed six months in some areas. Many are denied altogether due to postcode-based rationing or lack of funding. These delays aren’t just inconvenient. They are isolating, dangerous, and life-altering.

A Broken System, a Broken Society

This is the true face of disability in Britain today. Support systems are failing — not because of lack of knowledge, but because of political choices. Services have been underfunded, outsourced, and reduced to tick-box assessments carried out by people with no expertise in the very conditions they’re evaluating.

That failure was laid bare with the recent passing of the Assisted Dying Bill. The NHS has been ordered to create an entirely new national infrastructure to deliver this policy — estimated to cost £5 billion — but with no additional funding provided. Instead, the NHS will be forced to cut existing services to pay for it. Meanwhile, £5 billion was sent overseas in military aid to Ukraine and another £8.3 billion allocated in foreign development funding.

I don’t oppose helping people abroad. But how can we justify these priorities when our own citizens can’t get a wheelchair, a care package, or a functioning mental health service?

We can’t afford to help you live — but we can afford to help you die. What does that say about who we’ve become?

Call to Action

We must demand better. Disability rights are human rights. A just, compassionate society provides care, not excuses. It doesn’t ignore or sideline the most vulnerable. It lifts them up.

The fight for dignity, respect, and justice for disabled people in Britain is ongoing. It’s not just my fight — it’s everyone’s. Because a system that fails the most vulnerable fails us all.

- Dusty Wentworth