pip medical letters

could you please tell me if medical letters have to be recent . if an illness started a number of years ago and you send in a letter regarding that will they think it is out dated now.
with DLA the letter had to be recent but i can not find any PIP guidance on this. can anyone enlighten me ?

Hi and welcome to the forum. This link should help you find your way around the site.

Welcome to Benefits and Work

It's always better if you can provide recent evidence but you cannot send what you haven't got! An older letter confirming diagnosis can be helpful, especially if you can show that things have not changed (or got worse).

If your GP will not help with a letter (an increasing number are refusing to get involved), do you think it might be helpful to access your medical records? Some people have done so successfully.

Requesting your medical records

Charging for medical records

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Hi -

I accessed my partner's entire medical record from the hospital, which included letters back and to from consultants to the GP and X-Ray reports, hospital stays etc... We had it all photocopied.

We also had his entire psychiatric and GP surgery records photocopied.

We had to pay £50 for the entire lot but think it was worth it as we have managed to put together a lot of evidence for his application.
If you don't want to pay for copies you could go in and just look at them and use your phone to photograph what you want to print.

It takes about a month to 6 weeks to get all the copies so i would advise anyone wanting to go that route to do it ASAP before the pip application arrives on your doormat.

I had a helpful GP surgery who did my whole medical records back to the 1970's the same day.

I had to pick them up the next morning with a 'truck' LOL

This was two months ago and they haven't bothered to cash my £50 cheque.

I've also requested part medical hospital records and they helpfully did them in two days before closing for xmas.

I have never claimed before and have my ATOS assessment on Monday. All my medical evidence is old because I am not on a regular medication regime for my primary condition. I was very fortunate that I changed GP recently and on meeting with a link worker saw her access a letter confirming my diagnosis I had never seen before from 2009 from the hospital so I asked for a copy and the new surgery supplied it for free. It was well hidden on an obsolete IT system and I do not feel at all confident it would have been supplied with a request for a GP report from ATOS. To update the info (mental health so always going to be a tricky one) I completed a bipolar UK diary for the month prior to completing my form and I included some wellbeing service letters to show I was being treated in primary care (CBT) but via an external service to my GP. I also provided the depression & anxiety questionnaire I completed for the wellbeing service and some other recent bits and bobs.

I know mine is a long shot but I would always recommend viewing your notes/records if you have gaps.

Just to add to this, I had my ATOS assessment today and it was very clear from the guy doing the assessment he had read all my evidence and he did not seem at all concerned by the age of it (most of it was 2009). I know it could all be disregarded further down the line but thought would mention it. He also did not seem concerned by the fact I don't visit my GP a lot. Truth is, I don't because medication disagrees with me.

I suspect I will ultimately be turned down but went into it in that knowledge so anything else is a bonus!