Coroners' understandings of the devastating impacts of DWP failures on people with vulnerabilities must improve. This is why we need your help to send copies of John Pring’s book 'The Department' to every coroner’s office in England and Wales, starting with Greater Manchester.
On 26th November 2023, Kristie Hunt, 31, died by suicide. She was known to family and friends as Krissi. She was a bright, vivacious young woman who cared deeply about other people and aspired to be a nurse. The desperately sad deterioration in Krissi’s mental health was contributed to by failings at the Department of Work and Pensions. This is clear from the coroner’s findings at the inquest into Krissi’s death.
Krissi was wrongly accused of fraud by the DWP, and continually told that she needed to repay an ESA overpayment and Civil Penalty charge. Krissi’s family also strongly feel that the pressure of the PIP review process in November 2023 is likely to have negatively impacted her mental state.
The coroner found that DWP failings contributed to the decline in Krissie's mental health. However, the coroner did not issue a prevention of future deaths report. This type of report is directed towards people and organisations where issues of concern are uncovered during an inquest that could cause death, to prevent people from dying as result of the same issue in the future.
To read Krissi’s story in full, please follow this link.
No family should have to hear that DWP failings contributed to a spiral in their loved one’s mental health, but we see this happening again and again. A prevention of future deaths report could have helped to stop this happening to another person.
Krissi's stepmum, Jenny, states that she is shocked with the absence of any related prevention of future deaths reports by the coroner.
“With regards to the safeguarding failings of the DWP, we believe a prevention of future deaths report was paramount because it is of serious concern that Dr Gail Allsopp, (the DWP’s Chief Medical Officer) has stated it is important for the DWP to make changes. Therefore I have significant concerns regarding the safeguarding of people in receipt of DWP benefits, especially those with poor mental ill health."
We want to send a copy of John Pring's book, "The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence" to all 77 coroner's offices, to help improve understanding of the impact of DWP decision-making and conduct and the need for urgent change.
Krissi's is not an isolated case. John Pring has meticulously pieced together how the DWP ignored pleas to correct fatal flaws in the social security system and covered up its role in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of disabled people. Having spent years researching the heartbreaking stories of twelve individuals who died, he describes how their bereaved families have fought for justice and accountability.
We believe that this should be essential reading for anyone making decisions related to how the DWP may have contributed to a person’s death.