pip medical abroad ...

hi to all,newbie here,i thought i would ask this question.
living abroad in europe can anyone tell me if i will have to go through another medical or do i have to answer the questions on pip daily living activities?
i ask as i assume i am going for the questions on dla dont want to fall on the first fence...

ian wrote: hi to all,newbie here,i thought i would ask this question.
living abroad in europe can anyone tell me if i will have to go through another medical or do i have to answer the questions on pip daily living activities?
i ask as i assume i am going for the questions on dla dont want to fall on the first fence...

See HERE for a thread started by Carper who currently lives abroad, but is planning returning to the UK.

Hope this of some help.

Jim

Hi Ian, my wife was claiming DLA in an EU country and has recently moved back to the UK and is still being dealt with by the exportability team as she doesn’t tick the boxes needed for the English PIP team to be able to deal with her claim in the normal way.

I spoke to the Exportability team last week about when she could expect to be transferred to PIP from DLA and they expect it not to be before 2015.

IMO as she is now in the UK she is more likely to have to do a medical face to face whereas as most expats claiming from abroad have been taken at their word. I suspect having foreign doctors filling out forms for the DWP doesn’t work that well. I also suspect there is usually a translation/understanding problem with foreign doctors and although many speak English they cannot understand many of the technical explanations given to them. Also as many if not most expats don’t speak the language of their host country well enough to answer the questions in that language, foreign doctors would again have difficulty filling in the forms correctly. I don’t see how this will change when the new PIP forms go out.

My advice for you would be to get help from an Expat benefits advisor if you can (Plenty in Spain) as many of the questions in the PIP questionnaire are there to trip you up and some experience in filling in the forms is advisable. The biggest difference I have found between DLA and PIP form filling is the moving around/going out whereby it is a lot more difficult to get the top rate of mobility (Not that this is exportable) If you can walk more than 20m with an aid (IE: Crutch) or aided (IE: Support from someone) then you will not get the top rate of mobility and in the UK not get an automatic blue badge or vehicle.

There are ways of explaining your personal situation which can overcome the trip wires, if your bad days (When you cannot walk more than 20m) is 4 or more days a week, this counts the same as 7 as it’s the majority.

Again if you could walk more than 20m in the morning but it would cause you so much pain you couldn’t do it again in the afternoon then it counts as you not being able to walk 20m.
It is often the way you answer the question and not what you are actually capable of that matters.

You might like to read another thread I started concerning my wife’s claim abroad.

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/forum?view=topic&catid=10&id=100810

Carper wrote: Hi Ian, my wife was claiming DLA in an EU country and has recently moved back to the UK and is still being dealt with by the exportability team as she doesn’t tick the boxes needed for the English PIP team to be able to deal with her claim in the normal way.

I spoke to the Exportability team last week about when she could expect to be transferred to PIP from DLA and they expect it not to be before 2015.

IMO as she is now in the UK she is more likely to have to do a medical face to face whereas as most expats claiming from abroad have been taken at their word. I suspect having foreign doctors filling out forms for the DWP doesn’t work that well. I also suspect there is usually a translation/understanding problem with foreign doctors and although many speak English they cannot understand many of the technical explanations given to them. Also as many if not most expats don’t speak the language of their host country well enough to answer the questions in that language, foreign doctors would again have difficulty filling in the forms correctly. I don’t see how this will change when the new PIP forms go out.

My advice for you would be to get help from an Expat benefits advisor if you can (Plenty in Spain) as many of the questions in the PIP questionnaire are there to trip you up and some experience in filling in the forms is advisable. The biggest difference I have found between DLA and PIP form filling is the moving around/going out whereby it is a lot more difficult to get the top rate of mobility (Not that this is exportable) If you can walk more than 20m with an aid (IE: Crutch) or aided (IE: Support from someone) then you will not get the top rate of mobility and in the UK not get an automatic blue badge or vehicle.

There are ways of explaining your personal situation which can overcome the trip wires, if your bad days (When you cannot walk more than 20m) is 4 or more days a week, this counts the same as 7 as it’s the majority.

Again if you could walk more than 20m in the morning but it would cause you so much pain you couldn’t do it again in the afternoon then it counts as you not being able to walk 20m.
It is often the way you answer the question and not what you are actually capable of that matters.

You might like to read another thread I started concerning my wife’s claim abroad.

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/forum?view=topic&catid=10&id=100810

You may have read my post about the shortage of moderators available to answer queries in my thread www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/forum?view=topic&catid=10&id=100892

We are more than grateful for you keeping members updated on PIP abroad, so for the time being I am more than happy to keep your thread open for now as long as it does not develop into a discussion.

Good luck.

Jim

hi jim,many thanks for the replies and too everyone else .
well how doi start......today i went for my pip medical (spanish wife and hand),i took all my past esa medical papers with me last being nov 2012 filled out by a decent doctor at the avaluacions mediques(same place as today) and my local gp (british)having put my claim in away back in june 2013 am glad it is done.the shock of the moment was though the doctor had full new set of e213 forms and all my past medical history sent to him by the dwp.now i thought i was only going to be asked the pip daily living allowance questionaire,so i mentioned this to the doctor who was even more mysified as to what i was there for considering he had a copy of my past e213 medical which he looked at and i tried to explain i was here for the pip medical/questinaire (so i assumed as nobody at the dwp/pip said another e213 medical)he was non the wiser as to what pip daily living allowance was really about even though my wife explained this .i showed him a copy of the pip questionaire he wasnt oo bothered.off he went out teh room for about 10 mins .my wife and i started talking saying hope it not a mistake the dwp have done in sending the e213 medical papers.doctor came back explained he phoned head office in madrid and they will find out why the e321 forms considering i /we have a nov 2013 medical in our hands.after this he made a sort of mini medical report off the e321 form.10 mins later it was finished.now like a good old soldier i like to confirm things so i asked again if everything was ok and madrid would confirm about the medical forms ,correct came the reply!
now the big problem is this,was i really suppose to get another e321 medical which i actually thought was only for esa medicals.or yes the pip/dwp made a mistake in sending it.
i cant see what esa medical has in common with the pip daily living activity questionaire,that was what i was geared up to doing/getting done.si guess its a case of sit wait and hope ...!
blw i cant fault the past 2 medicals i have had done here in spain over the 9 years (not inc pip)both times the doctors have been very sympathetic easy going and polite!!more than what i have been reading about uk doctors on these medicals
will let everyone know when i get any replies back from the dwp/pip which i dont expect until may if am lucky and it all goes to the same timing as my esa medical return!!