I am not surprised to find out that the DWP call centres are this bad.
I have several chronic illnesses and I’ve been dealing with the DWP for months now, with a re-application for ESA (combined unemployment and sickness welfare) immediately followed by PIP (disability welfare). I have lost half a year to increased stress. I have been getting help from a friend, but she’s disabled too and also having to deal with the increased stress.
I’ve never heard Iain Duncan Smith being called a socialist before. It’s even better that Tory Blair being called one 
. IDS should have known that he and the DWP are doing a bad job when people are remembering New Labour as being better than you (not good, just better). Besides, without socialism you would be worrying how you will look after your parents from just your wages (Winston Churchill only introduced welfare because of his fear of a Communist revolution).
Excessive bureaucracy is a sign of authoritarianism rather than just socialism.
You didn’t read the article, did you? Especially the part where the call handler gets multiple calls in one day from people who have just got bad news and thinks they are there to help them. It was the first paragraph.
This morning I spoke to a cancer patient, a woman with kidney failure, and a young man who had just lost the mother of his children. Each of them thought I was trying to help them. I wasn’t really though, because helping them would take longer than 23 minutes.
Text relay service or sign language video phone. If you really want to, you can get someone else to talk on your behalf, but that needs a signed letter giving permission (that seems to go missing every six months, requiring a new one) or your representative having power of attorney.
