On transferring to PIP from DLA I had a Medical Assessment at home, A young lady who said she was a nurse was doing the assessment and tbh on reading her report on the DM's letter I was convinced she had been assessing someone else not me! She'd said I can walk 50 metres with an aide - which happened to be my oxygen supply. Regardless of the fact that the oxygen supply is for when my heart is put under pressure and not as a walking aide. She'd said my legs were swollen causing me to walk slowly ie 2 mins to get to the toilet. My toilet is 6m away and takes me 2-3 mins to get there. I have 3 mins sitting on the toilet - even with my oxygen cannula on I need to get my breath for a 6 metres walk back to my chair. This is a distance of 12 metres and my heart is under stress and I'm gasping for air. So how she worked out that I could manage 50 mtrs clearly skipping all the way we can only guess. One of the questions implied I could cook a meal from scratch with an aid - my oxygen machine being the aide regardless of the Fire Brigade insisting I was to go nowhere near an open flame when using oxygen. There were lots of little errors she'd made and I pointed them all out on the Mandatory form.
It took the new DM around 2 weeks to come to her decision of awarding me High Care and High Mobility - exactly what I was on with DLA. Thank you Benefits and Work
