DLA to pip help after award letter

Fluffy

Welcome to the forum, you might want to have a look at the following FAQ which explain where everything is

Welcome to Benefits and Work

Unfortunately the change in Daily Living (Care) award is not unusual, DLA awarded HRC because the claimant had care needs both day and night, PIP looks at the severity of the claimants problems and takes no real account of how long through the day that they are effected.

The requirements for the Mobility component are one of the areas where the PIP criteria are clearly more severe than those for DLA were, we are seeing a lot of members struggling to meet the criteria for both the Going Out and Moving Around Descriptors.

Have a look at the PIP Claim guide for more details about how the DWP assess claimants for the Mobility, you will need to directly address the issue "prompting" that the DWP guidance raises if you are to score 10 points.

You do need to be aware that although you can request the DWP only look at the Mobility component they can and regularly do extend their review to both, the risk tends to be low but we do have member who have lost their awards when appealing.

The first stage to challenging a Decision is for you to request a Mandatory Reconsideration, this needs to be done in writing to the DWP, within one month of the Decision, to the office that dealt with your claim, have a look at our PIP MR & Appeal guide for details of the process and template letters that you can use to make the request with.

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/help-for-claimants/pip

You should contact the DWP for a copy of the assessment report if you have not already done so, I would phone them but again follow up the request in writing. Once you have the assessment report you will have a better understanding of how the DWP Decision Maker has come to their conclusions and will then be able to argue against them.

Your primary task is to show that you meet the criteria, there are many reasons you may have failed, you need to address each of these but don't get bogged down in criticising the assessment report unless you can clearly show that it is incorrect, it is a lot easier to argue the facts of the situation;

"the assessor recorded that I walked 50m, I did but they have failed to document that I had to stop every 10m for a rest due to breathlessness"

than their opinions

"based on my observations of the claimant walking I believe that they can reliably walk more than 200m.

When you have a better idea of the issues with your claim, come back to the forum and we will do our best to help.

Gordon