Given the rising volume of these diagnoses, it could prove quite costly to the railway.

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/people-with-adhd-can-get-third-off-train-tickets-with-disabled-persons-discount-5HjdkdX_2/

 
Well, it's the Government that has extended qualifying....

 
AIUI this would require a professional to provide confirmation that the potential traveller's condition affects their ability to use trains. I forget exactly how that works, and have no idea how readily doctors/psychologists would deem a diagnosed person to be in this category.

I suspect the industry has calculated that this would increase ridership in a way that offsets the losses effected by the discount.

 
Hmm.  I have no intention of detracting in any way from the point of this particular topic.

My own entitlement to a railcard, giving me a 'one third off' discount, was simply due to my getting old.

However, in my retirement, using my Senior Railcard discount, has perhaps made me rather more inclined to resume using the railways. So, even with the discounted ticket price, that's just one more fare the rail company will have, for a train that was running anyway?

CfN. 

 
The Railcard site says this in its list of condition qualifying:

 
Hmm.    It's not just a 'tick one box and you're in', then.

Returning to the original post, it seems that this particular 'facility' is not actually going to cost the railways (Great British Railways) much at all.  It may, however, provide significant income for medical practitioners in conducting such tests.

The Law of Unintended Consequences, possibly? 

 
A somewhat misleading thread title. Although understandable given the way some sections of the media, and media commentators, have framed this addition to the qualifying criteria for a Disabled Person's Railcard.

The Sun went with, "Fury as prople with ADHD entitled to third off train tickets."

Piers Moron went with, "History will look back on this period in society and conclude we all lost our f***ing minds."

The Telegraph's angle was to suggest claimants were exploiting the system and to pitch taxpayers against claimants. Newsflash, Disabled Person's Railcard claimants pay taxes too.

The Tories' shadow transport minister's angle was, "... taxpayers should not be expected to fork out for people with low-level mental health conditions, some of whom already receive taxpayer-funded Pip [personal independence payment]." Failing to understand that if you get PIP you are already allowed to obtain a Disabled Person's Railcard regardless of the underlying physical or mental health condition(s) you have. And again, pitching taxpayers against (tax paying) claimants.

The LBC article is better than most on this news story but it's still using the words 'can get' rather than 'may get'.

Your diagnosis alone gets you nothing other than a diagnosis.

Here's the Department of Transport's statement on this change to eligibity. Used as the last paragraph in several news items AFTER they'e made their agenda and anti-disabled positions clear.


As for the perceived "rising volume of diagnoses" mentioned by the OP. Ain't medical science brilliant?! Diagnoses of a whole raft of mental and physical conditions have risen, and will continue to rise, with better understanding, research and education about said conditions. Diagnoses rise with population growth too.

The way this welcome addition to the Disabled Persons Railcard eligibilty criteria has been framed by a large proprtion of the media really pisses me off. Can you tell? 

Jaymac

Recently diagnosed with ASD. Scrounging PIP and DSB Railcard claimant for many years.

 
Funny that these newspapers rags don't holler about taxpayers money being used to support millionaires' train journeys just because they were born 1966 or before.

 
Erm ... Excuse me. 

I was born in 1959 and I am certainly not a millionaire.  I reached the necessary age to qualify for a Senior Railcard - which I have to pay for - and I'm still a taxpayer in my retirement.

CfN. 

 
I feel an apology is owed from me to TaplowGreen. Sorry.

You're post was just a hook to hang my anger on. My anger at how the issue has been framed by a large section of the media both traditional and social. I'm a DSB Railcard holder and some of the stuff I've read on Twitter and Facebook from right wing commentators is even more disturbing than the traditional media coverage. Piers Morgan, Julia Hartley-Brewer and their ilk have large audiences and their 'othering' and 'us and them' invective is lapped up by many. It's deeply disturbing.

Once again, TG. Sorry.

 
I woke early this morning, in the dis-quieting belief I might need to pour oil on troubled waters on this thread.  But it looks to me as I wake, before first light and at first glance, that our membership has done us proud in having hindsight and putting us back on a more even keel - thank you.

We have - and we do rightly - stray into some very difficult topics in the Coffee Shop and railcards and "qualification" for them ares such a topic.  I qualify for some journeys for 3 or 4 (age, disability, 2 together, and Network South East if I split an Didcot or Salisbury). And I suppose I could use friends and family if someone would hire me a child.   Extra expenses and restrictions that come with age or disability (and I hate that word) can be significant and hidden.   A topic worthy of dispassionate and much more general coverage - probably in a more general thread that this one.

 

No apology needed, no offence taken, but thanks anyway.

 

 

Thank you for "biting", Chris.     My point was that it is easy to select a sub-group of beneficiaries that might be considered unworthy of the "benefit" of a railcard, and in doing so bring down opprobrium upon the whole group (see also various other types of benefit).