Dusty Wentworth

The New Year is quietly under way. It is Saturday 3 January 2026, and as I write this, snow is falling steadily outside my window. It is one of those calm, unmistakably beautiful moments that winter sometimes offers. I am thankful that I have nowhere I need to be today. Snow and wheelchairs do not mix well, and what appears peaceful from indoors can very quickly become dangerous outside. This stillness feels symbolic. With the turning of the year has come a change in how I view my life. This is not because circumstances have suddenly become easy, but because something fundamental has shifted. For the first time in a long while, I am not simply surviving. I am beginning to look forward. That shift has been slow, hard-won, and costly. From collapse to survival My journey over the past few years began in October 2023 when I collapsed at home. What followed was not a single event but an extended fight to stay alive. I spent eleven months moving between hospital wards and a spec...

One year ago, as Christmas lights flickered across Norfolk, I sat in my wheelchair staring at a stack of unanswered job adverts. The season felt distant, muffled by exhaustion and uncertainty. I was no longer thinking about celebration. I was thinking about survival. In October 2023, I collapsed and was taken to hospital. I was diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder. Scans also revealed a brain aneurysm. I was told it was stable. At the time, the focus was on managing the FND symptoms that had abruptly dismantled my independence. I was transferred to a neurological rehabilitation centre as part of my treatment. In April 2024, while still there, the aneurysm ruptured. What followed was a subarachnoid haemorrhage, a four-week coma, and a life that did not resume where it left off. Independence evaporated. Simple tasks became logistical exercises. I was left living with the consequences of brain injury, severe PTSD from military service, fibromyalgia, Functional Neuro...

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 contracto...