P.I.P APPEAL

Hi I am new to this website and wished I had joined earlier. |I am going to appeal my P.I.P award as I was given zero points for mobility when to be honest that was my main physical disability. I was awarded standard care award for the other descriptors.

I did not get a good report from the assessor and the decision maker went by her report word for word. Also I put in about some mental health issues and haver received care from psychologists for eight months which although not the best of results from that treatment it at least helped with getting me into a better frame of mind and on the way to begin to get more focus on day to day things. The assessor wrote that I had received no specialist input for depression or anxiety but that was why I had contact with the psychologist, and I am not sure how to word this in my appeal letter. Any help appreciated. I cannot get an appointment with C.A.B for over a month and I need to get this appeal in for the deadline.

Hi Gordon
Thank-you for your reply and pointing out where to find the guides I can use.

I am sorry but I forgot to mention that I did ask for a mandatory reconsideration and it came back
without any change. Also the reason I am in somewhat of a hurry to get my appeal in is because although the mandatory notice was dated 5th March it did not arrive to me until the 12th March so I do not have much time.

I fully understand what you are saying about criticising the H.P. s report but the thing is the report was a complete fabrication from start to finish and whatever i answered to her questions something different was typed and put in her report. I am critical about the fact she
wrote certain things in her observations of me that were somewhat trivial and things that were obvious and i feel should have been documented were not mentioned.
I must mention that for several weeks before the assessment that one of my conditions was causing me alot of pain (I do have a lot of conditions) the condition was the De Quevains which is in the joint of left thumb and middle finger, in the past i have had to have steroid injections into the site of those areas and they are painfull. The area has now got osteoarthritis
and i do strruggle with it particularly in the cold winter weather which it was when i had my assessment. Those times i wear a moulded hand /wrist brace for support which i was given from the hand clinic and so movement of fingers and wrist is inhibited but the joints feel comfortable as they are supported. Anyway in the musculo-skeletal examination box the health assessor has written up about movement and flexion in left hand and wrist even giving

maths equivalent about how my wrist moved backwards and forwards. In fact she did not do tests for the left wrist as i had the brace on. I told the DWP about this but they did not say any-
thing. Also i told them about my walking for my other condition and i know this has nothing to do with DLA and the PIP is a different benefit but i have been on lfietime award of DLA and they have moved me to the P.I.P. From having the high rate mobility DLA and making the use of mobility car for last 9 years the assessor has ended that Motability access for me by the worst report i could ever have had. I know that by appealing i could lose whatever they gave me but at the moment i still have my car and have been told i can keep it up until the appeal. I have not used public transport for nine years and my car gets me to all hospital, G.Ps appoinments etc. This is the last chance at the PIP for me as i am now at pension age and i will not be able to claim PIP again which is why i feel they have made this transition so difficult for me and completely falsified my assessment report. I was left so upset because when i done my claim pack i said i could walk 20 metres but no more than 50. Also i said on occasions i have stumbled and fallen over. The assessor said she saw me walk 20 metres to her room but she said her musculoskeletal examination (which took no more than 4 minutes)
said in her opinion i would be able to walk 200 metrs The worst thing of all a few weeks after the assessment and before i even heard from DWP about any awards i fell over injuring the left knee once again the one already injured in a previous fall and it has arthritis in it, had an x-ray and no fractures but it was fully swollen and bruised all the way down the leg so two weeks with the leg elevated and putting on ice packs and trying to stay comfortable as possible. The day i had been to the hospital for the leg my brother came over he is good and is like an unpaid formal carer even though i keep telling him do not worry about me he always is around although when i had the depression particularly bad last year on many occasions i would tell him go home as i just felt unable to talk and communicate. The post arrived and there it was a letter from Motability saying they had been informed i had lost my high rate benefit and had to contact them about the car. Talk about rubbing salt into the wounds. I had not even heard from DWP and when i rang them they said their letter must have got lost, and they would resend it. To me this whole process has been a bad experience and although i want to give up and stay in a darkened room and never get out of bed which sometimes seems a good option i still have a bit of survival instinct and want to fight on . Somehow this post has become very long so will close now but any advice you can give is more than appreciated, and of course the sooner the better as trying to motivate myself to get this appeal in a.s.a.p. I am thinking is it possible to just put the basics in the first letter saying i will send in my submissions later. thank-you for now.

Gordon thank-you for your reply, and it is very helpful In many ways I am thank-full to get any award as I know it is difficult to get through the PIP criteria. I know I would not get enhanced rate for moving around/mobility however I feel that I should have scored some points for that one. A zero total was harsh. The descriptor for going out was also something that I was unsure about , I said I could not travel anywhere unfamiliar alone as I feel anxious and panic it is more to do with mental issues I suppose and the fact as I said because of mobility I have not been able to walk to bus stops or access train stations for many years because of pain in walking and the accompany of anxiety so all a vicious circle. I have had to use mental health services in the past and worked through my problems but when I contacted them last June it was because I had stopped going out of the house and keeping up a few activities I used to enjoy and I had started to suffer from agrophobia which I have never had in the past which is why I say my brother was a great help to me. After much C.B.T. therapy and then counselling I was feeling a bit better to at least function although as yet not doing the outside activities I used to. I was once again penalised by assessor because I went to assessment alone, that was because it was under ten minutes from where I live and my daughter organised the taxi for me and prompted me that morning to be dressed and ready. My eldest daughter is good like that but she needed to be at her job as the contract is not going well and I did not want her to take time off work, I never told them I could not find my way about outside locally anyway, also I do take anti-depressant but not anti-anxiety tablets so I got penalised on that also and my mindset is still delicate to the fact I keep to routines and need to have that routine or else I start to feel overwhelmed. It is all complicated and hard to explain particularly when people cannot see a sign pointing out I have mental health issues, I can acknowledge people working in shops but I cannot get into a lot of communication with them and anyway lately I get my shopping needs done and then delivered, as always asking my brother to visit the supermarket is unfair to him. That is why I say to appeal is a bit frightening as mental health is something I feel embarrassed about and also ashamed and at first telling my G.P I could not cope was hard and even harder still to say to mental health professionals I am struggling made me feel weak and inadequate although once in the treatment it helped a lot. Getting a bit brain foggy thinking about it now and still not sure where I stand on getting that across in my appeal letter and do not want to write a lot of irrelevant information in it. Any more help really appreciated.
thank-you..