Politics
Sewage scandal drama Dirty Business shows how horrific DWP PIP assessments are
A Channel 4 docudrama about the sewage scandal has unexpectedly shown how horrific Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessments are.
Dirty business exposes heartache water companies caused
The three-part series Dirty Business lays bare how the water industry pumped raw sewage into Britain’s rivers and coastline. It’s an unflinching, stark look at how corporate greed led to the destruction of our ecosystem. Moreover, it led to avoidable deaths and life-changing disabilities.
There were many, many moments showing just how much these decisions by the rich destroyed the lives of those who were already struggling to survive under austerity. The scenes of a young girl who swam in infested water, becoming sicker and sicker until she dies of E. coli are heartbreaking.
Dirty Business also showed how much it made people sick. People who’d swum in polluted waters reported problems with their lungs and long-term illnesses. Furthermore, it even led to chronic and neurological conditions. In some cases, it can lead to illnesses which cause attacks of paralysis.
DWP PIP, of course, had a part to play
One scene in particular shows not just how debilitating the sewage crisis has been, but how uncaring and vile DWP assessments are for anyone with a chronic condition.
Episode three opens with a man, Reuben Santer, surfing in the sea off the coast of Devon in 2022. As he surfs, his partner looks at a graphic on her phone about sewage levels in that area.
Later in the show, we see Santer having a PIP assessment in 2023. Santer explains that he regularly has “attacks” leaving him unable to move. Despite this, he is asked the standard questions from the PIP playbook. These include whether he can prepare a meal for himself or get dressed
Santer replies:
Yeah but again, not when I’m having an attack. Then I can’t move. I’ve been getting the attacks every few days for the past six months
Reuben has Meniere’s, a chronic condition which causes debilitating vertigo and can result in sudden loss of consciousness. Instead of having any understanding of fluctuating conditions and the impact these have on someone’s life, the assessor instead pushes him by saying:
But if you’re not having one of your attacks
When he tries to argue his case, she dismissively says:
Yes or no is fine.
This erases his experience of disability and asks him to only answer the assessment for days when his disabilities aren’t affecting him. He tries to reiterate throughout that he can do everything asked, unless he is having an attack. But this isn’t listened to.
Erasure of disabled people’s lived experience
There’s a tiny moment where Santer realises that his disability is being completely ignored and he’s being set up to fail. That no matter what he says or does now, he will not be listened to. So he gives up. It’s a feeling disabled people know very well. That when they are seeking support for their disability, those in power will do anything they can to minimise the issue.
He keeps repeating throughout the assessment, “not when I’m having an attack”. He clearly became increasingly distressed by someone ignoring him and engaging in a tick-box exercise address the screen for than Santer. This, of course, means that the assessor scores him zero.
The assessor is seen rattling through his results and dismissing it because he can do all of the activities when he’s not having an attack
He attempts to stop her, upset with:
No, no, no that’s the thing with my condition that sometimes I can do these things and other times I can’t and when I can’t, I can’t do anything.
The assessor talks over him throughout. When she says that she can’t award him the benefit, he finally breaks down:
I don’t know what to do.
As the assessor tells him that if he needs guidance on how to appeal, he can do so online, we see him later in his house. The man is clearly very unwell and collapses on the floor, having a seizure.
We later see Santer struggling to hold down a job and fighting to stop himself from having attacks, but collapsing anyway. Later in 2025, we see his partner walking in on him recovering from an attack with his baby daughter lying on the floor. He heartbreakingly admits:
I know I can’t be left alone with her.
DWP PIP assessments aren’t fit for purpose
This is the reality for so many disabled people who live with fluctuating conditions. When the DWP refuses to support us, we have no choice but to get on with our lives. No matter how detrimental to our health.
The PIP assessment scene in Dirt Business shows what disabled people have known for a long time. PIP assessments are too rigid to actually take someone’s daily life into account. If you’re chronically ill or have a fluctuating condition, the questions don’t have room for “well, sometimes”.
They only work in absolutes. And the absolutes are never in our favour.
If someone told you, “some days I can carry on as usual, but others I have to spend hours on the floor,” the part you remembered wouldn’t be the days where they DON’T have debilitating attacks. And this is where the DWP is purposefully failing disabled people.
This isn’t something the DWP are doing by accident, they surely know by now that if they made the criteria more flexible, more people would apply. And that’s the opposite of what they want.
Thankfully, Reuben appealed his PIP assessment decision and won. But so many others won’t even get to that stage. If the DWP actually cared about reforming PIP, they would make it more compassionate, not harder to get.
Featured image via the Canary