Wrag to support and PIP

Hello,

I could do with some advice.
My friend has been in the WRAG group since Nov 2014. He did not have an assessment as he was an hospital in patient and he did not provide an medical evidence when he made his claim. He left it far too late to challenge the decision so left it.

His JCP advisor leaves him alone and has only seen him twice since then and on both occasions has advised him to claim PIP and apply for the support group.
I am aware that attempting to change to support group will start a claim afresh and all the risks that come with that.

I am unsure whether it is best to claim pip and wait for the outcome and then start the fresh claim for ESA with the hope they will use the med evidence acquired from the pip claim or do both at the same time.
Currently the DWP do not have any idea of his condition or level of functionality and based their decision for WRAG solely on him being an inpatient with no idea why.

I'm a bit concerned that if both claims were started it would be a it to much to handle and may negatively affect the outcomes.

Any advice is welcome, Many thanks

Hi David and Welcome to the forum, you might want to have a look at the following FAQ which explains where everything is

Welcome to Benefits and Work

You are correct in saying that a full reassessment would be triggered if your friend were to notify DWP of a change in circumstances in order to try and be allocated to the Support Group - although this would not actually be a new claim.

The onus is entirely on the claimant to prove a deterioration in their condition and this must be backed up with medical evidence.

It is probably worth looking at the Support Group descriptors to see which of these your friend believes he meets.It is a sad fact that it is possible for someone to be too unwell to participate in Work Related Activities but still not meet any of the Support Group descriptors

Qualifying for the Support Group

Your friend will be reassessed for ESA at some stage anyway. It might be worth contacting DWP to ask when this is due.

It seems that many members of this forum have been reassessed for both ESA and PIP at the same time and have found the process difficult, exhausting and upsetting. I think your friend should consider this before embarking on such a path! If he does, it might be helpful to know that ESA claims are currently, on the whole, being decided in a shorter time than PIP claims.

Have a look at our PIP guide too and get your friend to do the self-assessment, scoring himself very harshly (as DWP will) and decide whether he thinks he would have a good chance of being awarded PIP.

PIP help for claimants

May I suggest that you bookmark/favourite this on your web browser now so that you can find it easily in future? This will allow you to return with further questions and comments without having to start a new topic each time. This helps us enormously - and I hope you wil find it useful too

Many thanks for your help. We've decided to just concentrate on pip for the time being.

Can I ask, would a syringe be considered an aid or device for taking medication or would it be discarded as medication delivery device such as an inhaler. I think I read somewhere a tribunal said an inhaler was not an aid.

The reason I ask is that it is needed for the 200mg morphine which he has 3 types and 2 are liquid with different times and amounts and sometimes taken at the same time. It gets confusing as he is able to increase this without the need for any consultation and can get further amounts without question so its important to know exactly how much he has taken. The GP and consultant have said take whatever amount works so its important to know how much has been taken and a spoon isn't suitable.

Many thanks