change of circumstances

Hi jaxw17,
I'm sorry to hear that your husband's health has deteriorated. I am a little confused as there are only 2 rates of PIP - standard and enhanced which can be awarded for Daily Living and or Mobility needs. When you say your husband has middle rate care, do you mean standard rate daily living? If he already achieves enhanced rate then this is the maximum rate of payment.

You are correct - if you get PIP you can not get Attendance Allowance. If someone becomes disabled after reaching state pension age then they need to claim AA, as no other disability benefit is available for new claimants of this age. However, for anyone who has been awarded PIP before they receive state pension can continue to receive PIP for as long as they continue to have sufficient disability to give rise to the relevant points scores. There is one big exception. After pension age there can be no increase in the award for any Mobility disabilities, unless this relates to an appeal of a previous award that occurs at the same time as reaching state pension age. Thus, for your husband being 71, it will not be possible for him to ask for any increased benefit for any increased mobility needs.
If your husband is in receipt of the standard rate of the Daily Living component he can ask for a review, in order to attain enhanced rate if he qualifies for this. Be aware that not every deterioration of health will be sufficient to achieve the enhanced rate. For example, someone who has chronic back pain can only bend to the knees - he needs help to put on lower clothing. Unfortunately his health deteriorates - the pain on movement becomes worse, bending down is now much more difficult, and balance is more difficult on walking. This person has always been able to put on his shirt and other upper body clothing without much difficulty. Although this claimant's movement and mobility is much worse than before, he won't be able to claim more points for dressing as he has already achieved the maximum possible and he doesn't have any further disability in any other areas within the dressing descriptor to be able to score additional points.
Before you ask for a review, have another read of the members guides. Consider each descriptor and how your husband now performs each activity- in order to achieve more points there will need to be disability in new descriptor areas or an increase in disability in existing descriptor sets, being sufficient to award a higher points value.
Remember also that your husband will need to attain 12 points, so you will need to find enough points to reach that amount. So, if your husband's current score is eg 8 points, 4 extra points are needed. If he can only achieve another 2 points, this won't be enough and enhanced rate can never be awarded.

If you are confident sufficient points can be attained then ask for the review. Whilst many reviews for pensioner claimants are done on paper, there is still a possibility that an assessment may still be required. Get all the evidence you need now eg medical reports etc. You can also complete a disability diary over a week or so which will provide a detailed ficus as to how your husband's Daily Living needs have changed, and will help if you need to fill out a review form. It is much easier to get all the evidence etc together beforehand, and then there won't be any panic later as a deadline looms.
I hope this helps.
Let us now how you get on.
LL26