Years of fear, and now its here.

Like many others, I have been living in fear of the PIP assesment for years, since it was first announced. Its been about six years as far as I remember, and its morally wrong in my opinion to put such fear and stress on vulnerable people for such a long time. Anyway, its here and has to be faced.

I have been on DLA for over twenty years at the highest rate, and reading some of the horror stories, it looks as if I may, as many others have, finish up with nothing, forcing even more stress and anxiety through the MR and apeal process.

My worry is that I was told by a spinal surgeon twenty years ago, that arthritis and degeneration of the discs was my lot and there was nothing that could be done to help. Since then, my only medical records have been one MRI scan which confirms the damage, and a whole load of medications to help cope with the pain and spasms. I have no healthcare professional and no real track record. I was just basically told to go away and live with it. My back is now so bad, that I need help to dress, shower and much of the time my toilet needs. To compound this, I am very overweight and both my knees are completely useless, again, MRI scans confirm this. I cant get my knees done because of my weight. Being immobile, its very hard to lose weight. I have no real care plan and I only ever see the GP for repeat prescriptions. This disability is going to be hard to prove.

All this said, I am a proactive person, not really phased by much at all, and even I found the PIP form to be a real task. I am sure others must have struggled far worse and they have my genuine sympathy.

Already, I have had issues with the DWp over this. The PIP letter arrived the day before we went on holiday, and I rang to begin the process, and also warned them i was going away and asking for an extension. I was told I couldnt organise this until the form had arrived. I was ablr to get my daughter to check my mail to let m know when it did arrive, and immediately rang for an extension. I was told I could have two weeks. returning from holiday, I find a letter warning me that I hadnt returned the form in time. No mention of my call to ask for an extension, hiwever it did give me a further tow weeks to get it done. The moral of this is to be very carefull when dealing with these people. Whoever it was that I spoke to for the extension clearly did nothing about it. I posted the from this morning, I have until 3rd August to get it back. A point to note here is that even though you are returning the form in a prepaid envelope, by going to the Post Office rather than the box, you can obtain a proof of postage.

I now find that my local Capita assesment centre is right in the city centre, a good half mile from the bus station and with no parking facilities anywhere near. You have to wonder what planet these people come from as it doesnt appear to be earth.

Two years ago I had the Atos assesment for ESA and was placed into the support group. It is my intention to use the report as part of my evidence as their assessor pretty much says everything that I said on the PIP inquisition form.

I am now busy digesting every bit of information on this site and already preparing for tribunal as I feel that is going to be the end result.

All I can say to end this is that if we were Whales, they wouldnt dare treat us this way.

Update on claim.

I finally had my f2f at the end of July. Its taken until now to get a decision and that by phone, I still havent received the awards letter.

So, my experiences first of all. My assessment was carried out with decency and understanding, at first impression and I went away a little less worried than I went in. However, I am not naive enough to be sucked in by first impressions and how right I was. The main problem came from two events in the assessment. One, about halfway through the daily living questions, the assessor suddenly said "oh my God, I have lost it all, my laptop has crashed". I assume at this point that the information entered hadnt been saved. However after five minutes of faffing around she declared she had got it back. However, reading a copy of my report, virtually everything from that section of the assement didnt bear any resemblance to the converstions on the day. Two questions simply not answered by her, and the rest a pale shadow of the true facts. The was an other assesment directly after me, and the person being assessed almost passed me on the way into the room. By this, I assume tge assessor wrote the report later, and having lost critical information, just plucked a few trite statements out of the air for the report itself.

Secondly, towards the end of the assessment, she stated there were four exercises she needed to see me do, but wasnt going to ask me to do them as she could clearly see that I wouldnt be able to, and further that she could see I was in too much pain. According to the report, I refused to do them.

At this point i should state that I have been awarded mobility at the highest rate, and the care component lower rate, but in all truth it should have been higher for both. If I was being brutally honest I would have to state that all this is part ineptitude and part sheer dishonesty on the part of the assessor.

There is much more in the report, such as failing to note that I use aids for eating and medication, that I have help with therapy that takes over 7 hours per week, that all though I have falls, I dont fall ( yeah, work that one out), and have never fallen and injured myself. The last time was a dislocated knee and ruptured tendons. medical evidence provided. I provided three MRI scans of different parts of the body. My back, osteoarthritis and multilevel disc degeneration sparing only two discs became in her words, arthritis in lower back. My left knee, became arthtitis from a full description of at least 9 conditions in that knee m(again from MRI) and never even mentionded in her reprt the the third MRI scan for right knee, nor the letter from my consultant saying that my weight and general condition made it too dangerous to consider an operation. At 61 years of age, my spine is not going to recover, yet my award is for three years only. Worse, in the report she focuses almost solely on my knees, which in point of fact are very much a secondary condition.

This is only a fraction of the discrepancies in the report, and in truth, she contradicts herself at a number of points. I am goijng to fight this, and this is where I need advice. Is it worth actually complaining about the assessor and the report, and if so, how do I go about that. It is Capita by the way.

The mandatory reconsideration I am fine with, and even if that fails, I am more than confident about winning at appeal. For me it really burns me that we are all victims of such blatant disregard for our conditions and worse, that these people are actually getting away with dishonesty, backed up of course by the same MPs tthat were all fiddling their exepenses.

I really had hoped it would all be over after the decision, but now all the stress and anxiety of the appeals process is on me.

To end, I expected 18-20 pts on mobility, and got 12 as I read the report, on daily living I self scored 20 pts and got 9 pts - to be confirmed of course. These are big discrepancies whichever way you examine it.

I truly hope you all have a better experience than I have, but I would certainly advise you all never to give up. If you accept that situation as is, these people win. Dont let tham.