having psychosis and being cripled by it well before iam fully ill with early warning signs i get at the slightest indication i am about to do anything new. including job. the drugs i take are very very powerfull. one mention i have this to employer no way i will get a job. simple stigma and i cant.

Matthew, worcester, UK

Im frightened that someone might throw the caustic paint stripper at me as Im forced to clean the graffitti off.

Louise, Salisbury,

It's also worth adding that some disabled people can't clean graffiti or but are capable of doing other sorts of work. But the job and voluntary markets are heavily orientated towards manual labour of that kind.

There need to be 1.5 million more jobs and they need to be jobs the unemployed can do.

TrillianZeta, Derbyshire, UK

I'm disabled & work full time +.My employers have to give me some things others dont get. Statistics show that people like me have a stronger work ethic, are more reliable. I've an MSc if Im too unwell to work as a professional, why should I have to scrub graffitti and trade my dignity for benefits?

Beth, Black Country,

As somebody with a disability who found Jobseeker's requirements about ten times more stressful than my current job, I'd think it would take a strange person to cheat with benefits. Logically, they'd be better off being "the living dead" - being one of the 14% who surfs the net constantly at work.

TrillianZeta, Derbyshire, UK

I suffer from a relapsing and remitting severe mental illness. Some days, I can have several hours when it's almost as if there's nothing wrong with me, and other days I can barely function at all. It would be easy to look at me in a good hour or two and think that I am a malingerer.

Sue, Birmingham, UK

I wouldn't have thought that there is much of a problem in this Computer-Internet age for the disabled to be gainfully employed.

ian cheese, london, uk

I'd love to go back to work, but due to our not so wonderful NHS leaving me severely disabled for life, it's impossible.

Lucky, then, that I paid into out National INSURANCE for over 25 years, set up to cater for those who just cannot work.

Mrs L Riches, East Sussex,

Any thinking person understands the plight of genuinely disabled people but I for one have lost sight of the number of times I've seen the stick/ crutch wielding 'long-term sick' carrying their sticks, running or shifting heavy (usually drug related) loads . Not everyone on IB deserves it.

Colin, Glasgow, UK

When I wasn't old enough to work my brother teased me about how much he recieved for incapacity benefit. He's been on it for 8 years now with anxiety. He sits at home all day never getting any better because he doesn't go out. It's people like this that are the biggest problem, not jobseekers.

Tom Hardy, London, Wales

There isn't any 'proper' work for anyone else let alone the feckless.

judy, Liverpool, England

"i have this huge queue of employers wanting to employ a one-handed epileptic who cannot walk, right outside my door, even now"

Well if someone if that bad, they're nothing but a drain on our resources, so why keep them alive?

Jamie, Maidstone, England

You need excellent customer care skills for most jobs nowadays: you need to be able to do your job for a customer who has broken a nail even thought you've lost a hand. I'm not sure the Ouch blogger quoted above could do that even if all her conditions were miraculuously cured.

Diane, Sutton,

Fine article.
Many people have illness which makes full-time work impossible (eg. M.E.); but if they earn more than £20 per week part-time they lose ALL their benefit (£84.50 pw). It has been £20 for many years, despite the minimum wage & inflation. Why not give up £1 for £1 if working more hours?

Michael Morris, Wendover, England

The challenge is sifting the disabled and unfit for work from the disabled and fit for work.

Who does the sifting and signing?

Will he be able to check a back properly? NO so they will need a back specialist or people will be signed off who are fine and sent to work who are not able.

Trish Niblock, Edinburgh, Midlothian

I suffer bipolar so a lot of the time I am well, but acute episodes, sometimes with years between them , are devastating for myself and all around me. I have worked but only through not revealing my disability - I soon learnt that if I 'fessed up I would not even get an interview.

Sue, London, UK

Didn't the National Socialists stigmatise the disabled as layabouts? I guess 'schizophrenia' is a easy disease to make up? ever known a real schizophrenic in their florid state? placing these vulnerable directionless & erratic folks in the jobs market is going to ramp up the stigma towards them.

kevin, Lincoln, UK

There is a UK wide organisation which has been providing good, worthwhile jobs for disabled people, set up in 1944 by our government, now called Remploy. At the end of March this year, despite being asked, our government did nothing to help & 30 of 84 factories were closed! So, where should we work?

David, Leicester, England

I would much rather work full-time than be on IB - you get more money working. I was able to work fulltime until my Crohn's disease flared up and I had 3 ops in 7 years. I do not have the strength or stamina to work more than maybe 8 hours a week, and I am frequently ill for 5 months at a time.

Claire, Scotland,

John of Cheshire, - what can they do?..........well, they can supervise those who supervise the supervisors of the various governments departments, silly billy !

Shirley Bowen, Blackpool, UK

Disabled Vs MP's living the life of Reilly on expenses?

I KNOW which one I would choose!

When will the public wake up to the Fat Cats trying to shift focus ?

James, Poole, UK

So far it is unclear what will happen with people with mental problems,( not depression ). A relapse can easily be brought on by any stress or worry and it will cost the state a fortune in treatment and severely damage the person involved, plus legal action against the state for assault will follow

J Nowland, Leeds, United Kingdom

Some of you people should be ashamed of yourselves and stop believing tabloid headlines.

The problem is that the current system is not enforced and therefore exploited. The only people on benefits who can afford to live like kings are those working as well and whose fault is that?

J.Wilkes, Gloucester,

Almost 30 years ago we in BMW (Cowley Oxford) employed
many disabled people for years! So what happening now?

No one want's to be on welfare, only if they were so lucky as
you, the media writers? How arrogant can some people get?

Cllr Ken Tiwari (Independent), Oxford , united kingdom

This is the Govt's way of doing away with taking care of the sick .An epileptic I know,ever willing to work,is made redundant because other employees "object "to her falling to the ground foaming at the mouth,eyes rolling. How will she eat when unemployed?Are all disabled to be street beggars again?

Richard Roe, London,

I think this writer's lack of experience of disabled people in the workplace reflects little more than a lack of diversity in journalism. I have worked at a few big law firms with many disabled people, partners included...

Willingness to work has nothing to do with ability.

James, London,

If this gvmt is serious about getting people off IB they need to do 1: Make it illegal to discriminate against someone because they have been off sick (error in article: disabled people are LESS likely to be off ill!) 2:Ban "employee medicals", as my job offers are withdrawn when they see these

Clara, Edinburgh,

Re. Asperger's and HFA. Employers need to stop asking for "team players" and "bubbly" personalities on their job descriptions. It can be very off putting for intelligent people who do have social and communication difficulties. Being "sociable" does not necessarily make you effective at work.

M, Beds,

If I had been asked to write this article, I would have headed straight for Remploy. They've been doing this for years and know more about it than anyone. Maybe even ask them to write the while thing.

What's the point of just regurgutating "Have Your Say" posts in a supposedly serious article?

Ian Kemmish, Biggleswade, UK

Mike Hart: Success lies with finding an employer willing to look beyond the constricted fingers, the wheelchair, the ugly limp, and hire the person for what he/she can do. When interviewers are incapable of looking beyond the disability there is NOTHIING a disabled person can do to 'sell himself'.

JSV, Quimper, France

I am a regular Ouch user - and we tell it like it is there, not how non-disabled people think we should be. If we take offence, it's for a valid reason - especially when ill-informed non-disabled journalists seek to stereotype us because we're possibly the last minority it's "OK" to stigmatise.

Chris Page, Letchworth Garden City, UK

My diabetic blind uncle works.
My wheelchair bound friend works.
My artheritic 78 year old nan works.
I suffer from severe depression (self harm, suicide etc) and work. Why? Sense of purpose, satisfaction of job well done, money at end of month.
Why else?
Sick leave is depressing!

AK, Pig Hill,

The enormous increase in the number of people on Incapacity Benefit in the last years strongly suggests that many claimants aren't really disabled. No scheme will work unless we have a method of distinguishing the genuinely disabled from the merely unhealthy. How are we going to do this?

Frank Upton, Solihull,

This is not about making disabled people take a job but debarring those who are fit from fraudulently claiming disability benefits .

philip wilkinson, enford, wiltshire

i have this huge queue of employers wanting to employ a one-handed epileptic who cannot walk, right outside my door, even now

peter c, devizes, wessex

when I was diagnosed terminally ill with motor neurone disease l qualified for disability living allowance and when I stopped work I started receiving incapcity benefit. All I can say is thank god for a compassionate society. I have slowly become more disabled and more aware of my ignorance

neil pennington , wigan , uk

Oh dear. The goverment thinks that having 6.9% of working-age people on IB sounds fishy. Of course it is, disability doesn't affect 6.9% of the population. The government is finally trying to hit back at the scrounging fakers but you seem to think they're aiming for the genuinely disabled instead.

Rich, London, UK

It is a common error that claimants of IB are disabled, this is not the case in the most part. Many suffer social problems, family problems, intermittent back pain, fatigue, low morale etc. Many of these problems are helped by the sense of acievement that training for work brings

Michael, Market Rasen, UK

peter nyc,

as an american I couldn't agree with you more. the work ethic in the UK is a JOKE and everyone is quick to blame others for their problems. then the brits get angry when employers and universities take foreigners over them, well, there is a reason for that!

Alex, london, england

Purnell's Green Paper uses David Freud's research. This says that the barriers to the employment of disabled people have been removed by the Disability Discrimination Acts. He provides no evidence for this assertion. Only 5% of Employment Tribunal cases on Disability go to the claimant.

James, Corwen, UK

Disabled people are negative? Are Jews mean? Do blacks have an attitude problem. Are the Irish stupid?

I became disbled at 50 after 36 years of paying PAYE and NI.
Society isn't giving me anything, I'm claiming my insurance. I've been uncomplaininly paying the premiums for a third of a century,

gaZ, london,

What is needed is for doctors to stop giving people sick notes to get them out of the surgery. Like most people I have sympathy for the genuinely clinically depressed, but in all probability, many others just need to be told "pull yourself together". How has depression multiplied in a few decades?

Bob Finbow, Haverhill, England

Something not mentioned so far are the amount of people using IB as a stepping stone to setting up self employment ventures - particularly in the arts and music industries. Not everyone can work for other people. Perhaps increased Enterprise Allowance would be provide further options?

Isabel, London,

There are several supermarkets in The Netherlands that employ people with quite severe learning difficulties and down syndrome. They get grants from the local government and it has stopped several small supermarkets in small towns from closing down. These people do an excellent job .

Adrian, London, UK

Alice Miles makes one enormous, classic, mistake in assuming that there are two classes of workers - able-bodied and disabled. She ignores that fact that many people in work BECOME disabled and then know that the prospect of being 'managed out', demoted or made redundant is all too likely.

Mark, Reading, UK

It is not employers who are the issue it is people. The simple but harsh answer is to give them no choice, people are lazy and take the path of least resistance, if you let them stew on benefits they will, force them to work and they'll work.

Doug Bates, St. Albans,

Surely it must be possible to find cushy jobs for these people?

The Labour Cabinet has been filled with deaf & stupid people for over ten years now if the way they've run the country is any measurement.

The point made in the article is so obvious that only MP's wouldn't have thought of it.

John, Bournemouth,

Can you please read Ouch again Alice?

I have provided an open letter to Mr Purnell's boss Gordon Brown you can happily quote from which can be found in the thread "Can journalists just quote from the boards?"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbouch/F2322273?thread=5692383&skip=0&show=20#p66397857

Peter Farrington aka "Sociable", Knebworth, United Kingdom

Old and/or disabled people are not a homogeneous group. Employers should assess job applicants as individuals, for what they CAN do, and be required to reply to all applications giving an honest reason for rejection. Then give them an incentive for taking on and retaining a benefit claimant.

Julia C. Evans, Lyonshall, England

My disabled son would like a job. He is 24, caught MRSA in hospital 5 years ago and can sometimes manage some physical activity before fatigue sets in. He undergoes frequent surgery, has severe mobility and stability problems, and no GCSEs.

Any employer altruistic enough to give him a go?

Ruth Wollacott, Hornchurch, UK

I was a press photographer during the 80's despite being profoundly deaf. I had someone else doing my phone calls and I was working for many leading publications.
Most of them didn't know they were working for a deaf person, they were only interested in the quality of the work they got from me.

Andy, Cornwall,

I keep on about this, but anyone who thinks incapacity benefit is the life of Riley really should try it! Go from a salary to IB, with the same bills that you had before, and see how much you've got left for food. Cigarettes and holidays? I had to give up much more than them to even exist!
BG

Bill Glanvill, Horsham, Sussex

Typical Labour, get the disabled into jobs just as the job market collapses! If there was a medal for doing the wrong thing at the wrong time Gordon Brown would win it every time. So in a contracting jobs market what will these people do?

John, cheshire,

Just after the war,a lot of men came home mentaly damaged.There were also a lot of workshy men.Answer send them to the local council and give them low pay,if they wanted to sit about all day,fine if after time they wanted promotion and better pay great.This ment everyone went to work .

paul goulder, norwich, norfolk

Three examples of people on full disability living like O'Reily. 1. "Bad back" age 34, divemaster in Asia, moving heavy equipment everyday, 2. "Concentration Problem",42, playing golf every day to a handicap of 2. 3. "mental health", 44, cons quack by no sleep, washing or shaving for 3 days.

Bob Travels, Stevenage,

I thought these new rules were aimed at the malingerers, not the genuinely disabled. Ironically, the kind of person who is prepared to lie to a doctor about depression or a bad back is going to be a far worse employee than a motivated person with a disability.

Dave, London,

There is confusion being stirred over changes to benefits. The documents are available www.dwp.gov.uk/welfarereform. The criteria for gaining benefit has changed so claimants now on Incapacity will be retested to see if they have recovered, this will take 5 years. Scroungers will be weeded out.

James, Chelmsford, UK

Des in Edinburgh, hope you don't suffer from arthriris, hardening of the arteries, emphysema etc etc as you get older. You might not think these reforms are such a good idea after all.

Adrian Lewis, Benfleet, UK

if you can get out of bed,dress yourself, wash your own butt ,shop and cook for yourself you are not disabled

peter, new york city,

This Government NEEDS a group to pass the blame onto, and take the spotlight off themselves.

But Why decide to pick on the weak, elderly & infirm?

Isn't that exactly what Hitler did in WW2?

Kevin, North East, UK

Benefits should be replaced by vouchers for esentials only, such as food, gas, electric, etc. Benefits are paid in cash which are often used for things such as cigarettes, alchohol, cars, televisions, holidays and such like. These are not essentials and should be earned, not handed out willy nilly.

Terry, Burnley, Lancashire,

Disabled with v. rare complex autoimmune disease since 1998.

Remained working in a demanding self employment between serious illness attacks. Massive deterioration, attacks on vital organs = medical advice = cease working.

Ageism + disability discrimination rife in UK, seeking a role in life

Geoff, Peterborough, England

When employees suffer with work related stress - the employer should be made to pay any longterm incapacity benefit and that would be an incentive to employers and managers not to use techniques such bullying someone out of their job or refusing to make proper adjustments to retain employees.

M Hammond, Cardiff, Wales

As a qualified IT Professional, I discovered the difference between being a highly valued employee and a valueless drone is two Heart Attacks and a damaged leg. My brain is in no way impaired, and I am still more than capable of performing my old job function. Maybe I should go on food stamps!

Michael Lunt, Wigan, U K

Alice Miles: as someone who received an A in media studies, and is currently looking for opportunities to break out of incapacity benefit, I am extremely impressed at your well thought out article. The media has a powerful influence on this issue. Let's see more like this.

William, London,

Mind what employers pay these people. In the US it is depressingly common for corporate vultures to hire a skilled/educated experienced disabled worker and pay that person minimum wage or just above rather than standard pay. The disability puts the worker in a bind and the employers know that. Nasty

JSV, Quimper, France

There is plenty of work available for those who want it. Someone with a bad back could perhaps do something a person with bad legs couldn't, and vice versa.

The replacement of generous benefits with food vouchers for the work-shy should do the trick. Perhaps hostel-like accommodation too.

Des, Edinburgh,

It strikes me that people who are so disabled, could not come straight on here to make their case! I can see many flaws in any kind of legislation to get disabled people back to work. Most of whom will have the support of their GP and most will have the support of several hospital Consultants too!

RayB , Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Let's first of all have a full, independant audit of MP's spending, office expenses, second home claims, across all parties! Criminal charges against those caught cheating the taxpayer! Unions, benifit claimants, the sick and disabled and and of course every working person has the right to demand it

RayB , Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Not all disabled people are negative about working. As a wheelchair user living with a non-disabled person who works full time (who'd have thought that possible from the tone of your piece?), I am entitled to nothing in terms of incapacity or income support. I need to work.

Stephen Orford, St Helens, England

My daughter has good A levels, a good degree from a good university, is hardworking, highly numerate and literate, and has decent IT skills. But she also has mild Asperger's syndrome, and epilepsy. Declare these: no interview. Keep quiet about them: interview but no job. It's a total nightmare!

Gill, Southampton, UK

I'm a doctor working in Incapacity Benefit. I can tell you that it is one of the greatest scandals in British history. The overwhelming majority of the 2.7 million benefits recipients are perfectly fit for work, and are often actually working. We have developed a deeply ingrained 'sickness' culture.

Julian Caithness, Enniskillen,

Disabled individuals should 'get their act together 'and sell themselves at interview.

Harsh? It's exacly what one might say to an able-bodied person who had been unemployed for a while.

Nice, thought-provoking and ENCOURAGING article, and clearly illustrates that success does lie within!!

Mike Hart, London, England