Partially hearing / sighted

Gay wrote: Mr B, Many thanks for your very helpful response. We have already gathered much extra evidence in preparation for the MR - including a current report by an ophthalmic consultant - which needs to be submitted quite soon. If that fails to produce a result - ie 8 points for Daily Living - then we will definitely go down the RNIB route. I am about to make contact with them in anticipation that we will need their help. Gay

My pleasure Gay thanks. Yes it's very important to submit the MR within the strict time limit and to make it as effective as you can as suggested by Gordon. In my case I was in touch with the RNIB at an earlier stage in the process than your son/you. Even so we were also getting close to the deadline for the MR submission. The MR request was drawn up, and submitted. on my behalf by my RNIB rep having first read through and discussed it with me for my approval. As a belt and braces exercise on the recommendation of my rep I phoned PIP to inform them that the request had been sent to them. The person I spoke to was very helpful and said that he would 'register' my MR request as if it had actually been received on the day that I phoned him. He also said that he would put some kind of note on the system so that they would wait for an extra month for any further evidence that might also be sent in. As it happens there wasn't any further evidence at this stage in my case but you might wish to also contact PIP to let them know when you've sent the MR request off and request extra time if you might have some further evidence to send fairly soon afterwards. As you may know unfortunately in the majority of cases MR requests do not result in the DWP changing their decision in the claimant's favour however they sometimes do and I hope of course this will be so in your son's case. The RNIB will of course be able to advise on this and much more besides. It the MR is unsuccessful your son will have a right of appeal to an independent appeal tribunal. If he does need to appeal the mandatory request and subsequent MR notice will become part of the appeal 'bundle' of documents copied to all parties to the appeal. If time constraints mean that the mandatory reconsideration request is made directly by your son, ie not by a rep, the RNIB rep might ask him to send them a copy of the request as it takes some time for the bundle documents to come through once an appeal is lodged. In my case my submission to the tribunal was also made on my behalf by my rep, with a lot of further discussion between the two of us first, and it built on, and considerably expanded on, the 'case' we made in the mandatory reconsideration request. Both the MR request and our submission to the PIP tribunal contained references to relevant case law and even to DWP's own guidance to its decision makers (which they routinely ignore of course!) and this is one of the many reasons why expert reps are invaluable in such cases.

Good luck to your son, you and all other helpers re all this!

Kind regards

Mr B

Hello Mr M,
Thank you so much for your help, support and input into this. My son contacted the RNIB, as you suggested, and he now has a case officer.

Unfortunately we have handled the MR in a rather topsy turvey fashion. Here is the timeline:
1) The decision letter arrived on 11th March.
2) My son submitted the MR about a week ago, including more medical information about vision and hearing as well as better CQ evidence.
3) My son contacted the RNIB.
4) We then received the *medical assessment. (Why are we not sent that automatically at the outset?? It was only through this website that we discovered, rather late in the day that we are entitled to be sent a copy.)
5) We have now submitted a response to the medical assessment.
6) Meanwhile, the RNIB has appointed a case officer.
7) I have also sent the PIP dept a letter asking them to contact me as well as my son, if they need a conversation. Important phone calls cause him much anxiety and he finds it difficult to do himself justice when put on the spot verbally, just as happened at the assessment interview. But that is another story!
8) Yesterday my son received a text confirmation that his MR application has arrived and that the decision could take up to 6 weeks.
9) This evening I have asked him to contact the RNIB, to ask whether they might be able to intervene at the MR stage – which is where we are at the moment.
10) I continue to gather evidence, which we will save for an appeal if required, if it does not arrive in time for the MR. He does not have a CVI yet (something else we didn’t know about) but has asked his consultant if he can sort it out for him. He has an old certificate showing that he is partially sighted / hearing.

*After we had submitted the MR based on the Decision Letter, we were stunned to discover that the assessor had awarded my son 4 points for Daily Living and nothing for Mobility. However, as we already knew, the decision maker had awarded him 10 points for Planning and Following Journeys and therefore the lower amount for Mobility. This leaves me with mixed feelings: why did the decision maker take the mobility CQ evidence seriously and not the Daily Living evidence? Could a different decision maker take away the Mobility element at MR? Hopefully, they will find that our additional evidence strengthens rather than weakens his case and in any case we feel strongly that this is something worth fighting for.

I feel that we are floundering in the dark somewhat but are greatly cheered when we receive encouragement, such as your postings. I will let you know what happens next. Gay

Many thanks for your update Gay as I was wondering how things were going. I am very pleased your son now has an RNIB case officer. I am in no way wanting to put you off posting here as hopefully we can offer support as this process continues however as far as the details of your son's case is concerned I think it would be better for your son and/or you to discuss these directly with the rep. Your son will, if he hasn't already, be asked by the rep to complete an RNIB consent form authorizing the rep to act on his behalf and authorising the DWP and the tribunals service (if he needs to appeal) to disclose information to the rep.

I wouldn't worry too much about what you call your 'topsy turvy' handling of the MR, most of us, including myself, who come to these procedures for the first time find it all rather confusing but your son and you should find things become considerably clearer as time goes on especially now your son has an expert rep. I ought to have stressed it earlier but I am personally no expert on these things but I have been through the whole of this procedure and have sort of developed a working knowledge of the process.

I will just make a few further points here as I don't want to make it unnecessarily long. I am pleased that your son has received confirmation by the DWP that his request for MR has been received and being considered. It's good that he submitted further medical evidence with his MR. Regarding the PIP medical report you mentioned, and you son has now obtained, the DWP does not send these own routinely. When I was turned down for PIP upon transfer from DLA I asked DWP to send a copy of it otherwise I wouldn't have got it until further down the line myself!

I think it's largely just a question now of waiting for the DWP to respond to the MR request. If your son is unhappy with that response then he will be able to appeal the decision to an independent appeal tribunal. I obviously hope it doesn't come to that but if it does there is likely to be a lot of detailed discussion between your son and the RNIB re the precise details of your son's case. As part of the appeals process your son's original claim form, the PIP medical report, the DWP's response to his request for an MR and other documents will all become part of the appeal 'bundle' of documents which will be copied to all parties in the appeal including the rep. Your son would then be able to discuss anything he was unhappy with re the PIP medical report, the DWP's subsequent decision on his claim etc with the rep in great detail.

I hope the above is of some help and that your son's MR request is successful so that he doesn't need to appeal. Do please let us know how things go as although the rep is the best person to discuss the specifics of your son's case we can offer support and general information on the process on this site.

Kind regards

Mr B

Update on my son's PIP application:

It is now over 2 months since we submitted the MR for my son and almost as long since the RNIB agreed to support his application for the MR. It has taken many weeks for the DWP to send the RNIB case worker the evidence used in my son's case but it finally arrived this week.

Presumably the DWP is waiting for the RNIB to present their case based on all the evidence before a decision is made.

However the PIP and MR evidence originally submitted by my son , which has just been received by the RNIB (from the DWP), is very incomplete and only includes the official PIP form and not the very detailed word processed additional evidence which my son could not effectively write on to the form, as his handwriting is too large, and which was originally securely attached to the form.

By the way, the RNIB case worker has not been sent my son's personal MR evidence either. We have sent her a complete list of all documentation for both PIP and MR, so that she can assess what was / was not sent by the DWP.

Obviously we can and have passed all evidence directly to the RNIB and they are receipt of all of it from us but am very concerned that the DWP (for whatever reason) did not include this evidence to the RNIB, whether accidentally or on purpose and the RNIB case worker seems to think that this is unusual.

What I want to know is: is it worth my following this up with DWP in some way, or alternatively asking the RNIB case worker to do so or whether I should simply leave it. I am concerned that, if I (or the RNIB) do not draw attention to this omission, that the MR might fail simply due to some of the evidence becoming unavailable to the new decision maker.

Hi Gay

Just a quick message to say hello and thank you for the update. I am, of course, sorry to hear of the delay in your son's MR and the confusion re what supporting evidence the DWP actually has. This situation fortunately didn't arise during my own MR. As Gordon has said it seems more likely that the delay in considering your son's MR is simply down to the increased time the DWP is currently taking to carry out all MRs rather than them waiting for more evidence from the RNIB. Also, as Gordon has reccomnended, it would be better for your son to contact the DWP directly to clarify exactly what evidence they have received. Unfortunately for my own MR the supporting evidence was completely ignored - just as it wss by the nurse who carried out the assessment - it was not however ignored at my appeal which I won! I hope, of course, that your son's MR is successful so he doesnt need to appeal the decision. Do please continue to update us on how things are going.

Kind regards

Mr B