Orientation aids

Hi Aytch67

A specialist orientation aid is a device or tool specifically designed to help a disabled person follow a route safely, such as a long cane for visually impaired individuals, or specialized GPS/tracking devices. These aids assist in navigating familiar or unfamiliar routes, essential for PIP mobility assessments:

Specialized Navigation/Tracking Apps: Programs specifically designed for tracking routes, such as "Brain in Hand" for cognitive support.

Requirement: The aid must be necessary to follow a route safely.

Evidence: It is crucial to explain in a PIP claim why a specific device is needed for the condition and to provide examples of how it helps.

You say that your daughter has consistently been turned down - but it is not that she doesn't use an orientation aid - but they are not convinced that she requires supervision and support. Go back to the guide to PIP Claims and Reviews and look at the suggestions and compare them to what you said, and see if there is anything you can tighten up. (I'm not saying there's any errors on your part - just you want to make the strongest argument you can at the Appeal.

BIS

Hi Aytch67,
An orientation aid is a specific device for disabled people. A white stick for a blind person is an obvious example.
A normal car sat nav or phone equivalent is NOT classified as an orientation aid.
The device has to be specialised and only for disabled people. I'm afraid I don't know what gadgets are available for this purpose. However if you can locate a specialised device to help disabled people get around then that would qualify. You don't need to get a doctor or anyone to ratify it. However you might need to argue it with DWP. It really is a very limited definition and that's very Important not aware of what you could legitimately use.
Maybe you need to revisit why your daughter needs to be accompanied. Why can't she follow a journey, what has gone wrong in the past? What help do you provide, to enable your daughter to travel about? Maybe your daughter is still very panicked etc despite your help?
For all descriptors there are 4 criteria - all need to be met. These are often called 'reliability'.
Safety - is there a risk of substantial if daughter is out alone. This could be from falls, physical illness such as epilepsy, fainting, poor balance. It doesn't matter that the number if times eg falling happens is few, the crux is whether there is potential for eg fainting to happen and of course that leads to potential substantial harm - falling in a pavement or in front of a car is very likely to cause this.
Also if someone is unaware of risks, eg blind person or someone with learning difficulties might not be aware if the risk.
Other 'safety' issues outside could be getting lost, especially eg if this might cause a delay in taking vital medicine etc being taken advantage of for a vulnerable person.
Reasonable time - if you get lost then you may fail the time test. This is no more than twice that of able bodied person.
Repetition - repeat the descriptor activity across the whole day as many times as reasonably required. Most people will make several journeys per day. Eg kids to school, work, shops at lunchtime, back to school, go home, visit Granny on way home etc etc. These are the types of journeys that would be reasonably expected across the day? Can your daughter do these? If not, why not? If your daughter can not, then she can't 'repeat' . The same thought process can be adapted for each descriptor. If your daughter can go to one or two places alone, but not all possible places, this would indicate lack of repetition.
Acceptable standard - any significant pain will indicate that this standard hasn't been reached. It is not actually defined so a common sense approach needs to be adopted. What do people normally do- so as examples for eating and drinking - if you constantly spill food down you and drop cups. This is unlikely to be acceptable. Similarly if an activity causes panic attacks or breathlessness or to hide in a cupboard, this is not likely to be acceptable.
Maybe your daughter avoids activities? Why? There has been caselaw on avoidance. In particular avoiding going out alone can be indicative that it's too distressing to go out. If that is the case then it is good evidence of having 'overriding psychological distress'. Another case stated that even if distress wasn't so bad to be OPD, a significant amount of distress could show an acceptable standard has not been reached.
So, considering your daughter's behaviour, state of mind, pain, safety concerns etc how can she travel with you, what does your presence provide? How does this help your daughter to reach the 4 reliability criteria.?
Or perhaps your daughter never does?
Mobility descriptor 1 activities are cumulative. The highest score must be given if more than one descriptor in a set applies equally.
Starting from 1d
Need to accompanied on familiar journey (or assistance dog/orientation aid)
1e OPD prevents any journey
1f - need to be accompanied etc on unfamiliar journeys.
For 1e although this is 'any journey' this actually means 'journeys on the majority of days'. So if only a few journeys can be made eg to GP, but nothing else then this won't be a majority of days and won't be repetition. The reason to be accompanied can be due to OPD.
If eg panic attacks are a problem, but are partially or not at all alleviated by being accompanied, your daughter won't reach 'acceptable' standard, which proves the need to be accompanied.
Maybe the need to be accompanied is unfamiliar journeys, that's ok, then 1d applies.
If OPD exists, and this is the cause to require being accompanied, then both 1e , 1d could apply if problem is on unfamiliar journeys. 1d,1e, 1f could all apply if familiar journeys ie all need to be accompanied. (DWP may try to deny this, but there is strong caselaw on this!) And, cruciallly, due to the highest score rule (Regulation7 PIP Regs.2013) then 1f -12pts are correct.
When was your daughter's last review/decision? Are you within 13 months of that date? If so you could put in a Mandatory Reconsideration (first stage of appeal) and then go to tribunal on appeal if need be.
If not, unless there is a change of health circumstances it's unlikely you can ask for a revision, but certainly at the next scheduled review you could state that daughter has always had problems with mobility and then explain the 'why' using the hints I have provided above. Note - If your daughter's health changes for any reason you could ask for a revised decision. (Not just mental health.) This may if course require an assessment of some nature. Then argue the mobility issues as described above.
I hope this helps.
LL26