Rise of 'sickfluencers': How they tell out-of-work followers exactly what to say to maximise benefits in a broken system trapping those it's meant to help: FRASER NELSON

When Sarah started her stint as a Department of Work and Pensions sickness benefit assessor, she arrived with a wealth of medical experience. To be fair to them, many people do need help negotiating the official world of benefits – a maze addled with acronyms that many genuinely vulnerable people are plunged into every day. Some time ago, a government minister told me exactly the same thing: that if you say you're suicidal, you get a straight award of full sickness benefits. What I found was horrifying: a sickness benefit assessment process that is, in effect, a down-the-line telephone questionnaire – with pitifully little required in the way of medical evidence – that ultimately traps people in a web of benefits they find hard to escape. With more than 15,000 people a week approved for long-term sickness and disability payments, Fraser Nelson says it is clear something is out of control 'We sign them off – we have to under the guidelines – but you have to wonder what we're doing to them,' she told me.