Unsure to ask for MR for PIP incorrect assessment report scored highest DL and M

Hi, I am not sure what the best course of action would be in my situation with the outcome of my recent PIP review where I retained both the highest rate of PIP for both Daily Living and Mobility, but where I disagree on the report and the advising by the HP that I do not need the “Additional Support” marker on my file.

I had my review done paper-based via SERCO a couple of months ago, and I received the result just over a month ago, as well as the report that I requested that details the SERCO assessors report which the DWP used to tally my points (they basically just followed exactly the points from the descriptors that the SERCO HP advised in her report).

I scored 15 points for Daily Living and 14 points for Mobility, which was down from about 23 Daily Living and for Mobility I got the same 14 points in the exact same way for mobility compared to my last assessment with the exact same points for both mobility part of PIP.

Now, my issues are that on the phone to the SERCO HP (was a call that was NOT a formal phone assessment but was her asking me questions to help her to see if she can do a paper-based report), and I notice in her report that I requested and received, that she mentions that I explained to her how I believe that I would struggle to mobility more than 50 metres (I have a doctors referral letter to the Chronic Pain Clinic, describing the pain I have all the time when walking any distance, but I only got this only after the assessment with SERCO, so they do not have a copy of this yet).

In her report she says that basically she does not believe this to be the case of me saying that I should be getting a higher score on the Moving Around activity, since she says that her reasons are for this that I am not currently prescribed strong painkillers (even though I said to the SERCO HP that I do not react well to opiates and I fear addiction so I only take the prescribed co-codamol 500/30 tablets sparingly, so I do not feel safe take these more than half of the week to minimise risks and side effects effect me badly and make me feel sick as well as the opiate addiction risk I fear), and so she said she is only awarding me the 50-200 meters on the Moving Around activity of mobility, which is the same as I had before in my previous assessment.

She said that since I do not mobilise regularly (I get descriptor E for planning and following a journey due to overwhelming psychological distress), she thinks that I have difficulty assessing distance of how far I can walk also. This seems silly since I told her that I clearly get pain at any attempt at walking for any distance, which I do not need to leave the house to know this.

She wrote that I can only walk a few minutes before the pain shoots up my leg, which is not what I said, as I clearly told her how I get sharp severe pain at any attempt at walking, and pain sometimes also when sitting or laying down not moving at all.

She also said in the report that since there is no ongoing specialist input or planned treatment (which is incorrect, as I had a referral to the chronic pain team from my GP in a referral letter dated 2024 and I recently saw them a month ago) that she believes that I can mobilise more than 50 metres using the STAR criteria (“Safety, Timeliness, Acceptable standard, Reliably and Repeatedly” I believe “STAR” means according to a google search I just did says this).

I have had this sciatica pain about a decade now and it has not responded to any physio or attempts at treatment, and it has not improved in that time since my injury that caused this sciatica in 2015.

In her report at the end saying how long my award is saying she recommends 5 years, the SERCO HP said that she believes that I may show improvement in my physical condition medium term (which makes no sense to me since my sciatica has lasted over a decade).
But then she mentioned that due to my difficulty with the mental health services in my new area in England that I moved to (which I described to her over the phone), she writes that believes that I am unlikely to show improvement in my mental health in the near future, and as such she recommends 5 years until next PIP review.

I also discussed with her how I have long wished for the option of doctor administered voluntary euthanasia to be an option, and I would apply for such if we had laws like Belgium or the Netherlands on this matter, but she did not put this in the report.

Perhaps the most important, is that I also have always had the Additional Support marker flag on my PIP and ESA file for as long as I have been claiming them, which is many years now.
However in her report at the end she ticked NO for the box that asks "The claimant has a mental, intellectual or cognitive impairment and may need additional support to comply with future claim processes".

Which to me seems absurd that she would advise removing the AS marker flag on my file, since they put me through to the Assessment Provider SERCO without the PIP2 review form being returned due to my mental health issues, and if the flag was not on my file for Additional Support I would have lost my PIP this time around for non-return of the “How your disability affects you” form, as well as every other time in the past pretty much as far as I can recall this has happened also). So not sure why she would advise removal of the AS marker flag on my file.

I am not sure if this AS marker removal on PIP is shared with ESA, and I so I worry that I may have lost the Additional Support marker on my ESA file also due to this with PIP and this risking me losing my benefits in future due to not returning a form on time due to my mental health severely affecting my ability to adhere to the process of forms.

I told the SERCO HP over the phone that I was sectioned under the Mental Health Act in 2023 and have trauma and PTSD since then as a result of being homeless and sectioned since in 2023, and the HP mentioned this in her report, so then I think that for her to suggest I do not need the Additional Support marker is something that I can not understand.

Also since it is 5 weeks since the date of the decision, and due to my OCD and severe depression, I have been unable to get onto this issue of my PIP and possible Mandatory Reconsideration sooner, since it is rarely that I have the ability and motivation (due to depression) to write anything or read up on things to respond to such paperwork to do an MR or such, I would be doing the MR late if I do submit one and I am not sure if they will accept my reason why.

Additionally an aspect of my severe OCD makes it an absolute nightmare to post physical documents due to the compulsions which is an extra hurdle on top of being able to compose such an MR letter checking it over and over obsessively, I then could take days of trying hours a day to get the printed letter and MR form into a physical envelope and seal it and post it, due to severe checking OCD which can make this take many many hours and still end in failure and having to restart many times over wasting lots of paper, ink and time and energy, and if I were able to send documents electronically it would be easier to send after composing it, even if composing it takes a long time and would alleviate a lot of distress on me that this causes.

If I decide to submit the MR by hard copy in the post, when you add the time it would take me to obsess over composing it and finalising it, then the time to print and post it which could take many hours and days and severe distress to get this done (I would need to video myself doing it so my OCD feel certain that I did not write anything rude or nasty in the letter, and the reason electronic sending would greatly help alleviate this, is that I can clearly see the sent copy that I submitted as a file on my computer whereas a physical paper, my OCD brain will say that I wrote something offensive or rude on it in pen just before I closed the envelope, which would trigger repeat checking from the start.. which sounds crazy but that is how it can be with OCD).

I asked for reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act due to my OCD disability, asking them to allow me to send documents to them electronically but they refused.

As far as I am aware, appealing to Tribunal can be done entirely electronically with uploading attachments I believe, but I do not really want it to get to that stage of Tribunal, as I worry what would happen then and if I would risk getting my award reduced for either component and possibly less number of years until next review.

Should I apply for an Mandatory Reconsideration late and what are the risks of this?
I would likely need to send that letter from my GP showing the referral to support my argument for more points in the Moving Around activity yeah?

I did have the pain clinic appointment already a couple weeks ago but it as not great, and the prognosis is that they can try injections but these aren't guaranteed to work and that they try this once and if it does not work the NHS won't try again the Chronic Pain Clinic said and that they want me to try changing my diet and losing weight before they try injections.

I asked the chronic pain clinic for medical cannabis to try to treat the nerve sciatica pain, but they said the NHS does not approve my condition for prescribing cannabis at the moment for nerve pain, and the conditions are limited to only a few conditions (which I do no suffer from any of those listed conditions which are required for a cannabis prescription to be possible under the NHS).

I feel effectively stuck in pain with no real hope of improvement, and upset they won’t prescribe me medical cannabis to try to see if it can help as I see cannabis as the only real hope of chance at finding a treatment that works.
I am not sure if I should mention this in a MR also as it was not in the HP SERCO report.

I am worried about how she missed many of the points I should have got for OCD like from my last assessment and I told her all of these on the phone but she seems to have ignored those.

For some daily Living activities she seems to have copy pasted a generic answer saying: “The claimant did not report significant functional problems with this activity in their questionnaire or at consultation, and there was no evidence to suggest otherwise”.
However I never returned the PIP2 review form and they did not do a formal assessment as far as I am aware it was done only on the papers and the call was only to chat about some aspects of my health and was not a formal telephone assessment as far as I was aware and was told.

I know I scored the 15 for Daily Living and 14 for Mobility so I keep my highest award for both components of PIP, however I am concerned that a lot of info in the HP report is incorrect, and I believe that I should be awarded more points, and that I should have the Additional Support marker on my file and not for it to be removed for either ESA or PIP..

What is the best thing to do?

If I ask for an MR when I already have the highest rate of PIP for both Daily Living and Mobility, will they just ignore this and is this even possible to be MR or appealed to tribunal if I have the maximum for both components of PIP already?

Even though in the PIP decision letter that arose from the report that the SERCO HP wrote does not mention on the DWP PIP decision letter if I have the Additional Support marker on my file or not, so can I appeal this being apparently removed from what I read from the SERCO HP’s report?

Apologies for the long post,
I am just not sure what to do and it is causing me severe stress (which is partly due to my OCD being triggered more by this due to my need for accuracy and correctness and also the late filing issues due to my OCD and Severe Depression and mental health in general).

Kind regards