Guy claiming PIP

[midlife]

I think you are right and I am wrong!

The tricky thing is that it’s completely different all over the country !

My colleagues in London tell me they get free travel at various times on TfL from the age of 60…..

 

[BoldonLad]

The tricky thing is that it’s completely different all over the country !

My colleagues in London tell me they get free travel at various times on TfL from the age of 60…..

London is a "special case" can't have us folk, out in the sticks, getting their perks 😂

 

[Mr Celine]

Mmm, i might apply for one then. I have an assessment coming up, hopefully in the autumn after a benefits adviser from a local charity said I should be on the higher level of PIP. He/we asked for the assessment, it wasn't the DWP who said I'd have to have one. Obviously I'd like to be put on the higher level of PIP, but I think I'd be happy with just a bus pass. I'll get one when I reach retirement age In February 2027, but something tells me that when I get close to that date the government will move the goalposts and make it 70 before I'll be entitled to one.

If you currently have 4 points for any daily living activity I would be very careful about asking for a review. Even if you ask them to look only at the mobility component they will look at both components and even under the current system you could lose your entire award.

I don't know your full circumstances but you do appear, from your forum posts, to be rather more active than most of the people I've represented at PIP appeal tribunals.

 

[Accy cyclist]

If you currently have 4 points for any daily living activity I would be very careful about asking for a review. Even if you ask them to look only at the mobility component they will look at both components and even under the current system you could lose your entire award.

I don't know your full circumstances but you do appear, from your forum posts, to be rather more active than most of the people I've represented at PIP appeal tribunals.

Oh really!! Active in that I walk to my car and back, and around a supermarket. I know a bloke who gets the higher rate of PIP and walks up and down the hills around here. maybe I should ask him for advice about what to say at my assessment!

 

[Accy cyclist]

If you currently have 4 points for any daily living activity I would be very careful about asking for a review. Even if you ask them to look only at the mobility component they will look at both components and even under the current system you could lose your entire award.

I don't know your full circumstances but you do appear, from your forum posts, to be rather more active than most of the people I've represented at PIP appeal tribunals.

Oh! And then there's the couple and the woman's daughter I know. The mother is 35, her partner is 29 and the daughter is 17. All three are on the higher level of PIP. None of them have mobility problems. They all get the higher rate due to 'mental health issues'.

 

[classic33]

Oh really!! Active in that I walk to my car and back, and around a supermarket. I know a bloke who gets the higher rate of PIP and walks up and down the hills around here. maybe I should ask him for advice about what to say at my assessment!

You might not like the honest answer given by @Mr Celine, but I nearly posted the same advice last night. Your answer above is one reason I didn't.

Asking for a review, at a time when they're doing everything possible to reduce the number of people claiming it, and harder for those applying for it, will quite probably lead to your review finding you no longer qualify. And if I remember right, because you requested the review, the right to appeal the decision is automatically withdrawn from you.

 

[Accy cyclist]

You might not like the honest answer given by @Mr Celine, but I nearly posted the same advice last night. Your answer above is one reason I didn't.

Asking for a review, at a time when they're doing everything possible to reduce the number of people claiming it, and harder for those applying for it, will quite probably lead to your review finding you no longer qualify. And if I remember right, because you requested the review, the right to appeal the decision is automatically withdrawn from you.

Yet I have a written doctor's letter saying I have significant mobility issues, as well as significant verbal communication issues due to 'malignancy of the tongue', which my adviser has sent to the DWP! Do you really think they'd take the standard rate off me, even if they don't grant me the enhanced rate?! Not only a doctor's letter, but I have 3 social workers (2 still working for LCC social services, with one now retired) backing me up with written statements, who say they are surprised on not on the higher rate.

 

[classic33]

Yet I have a written doctor's letter saying I have significant mobility issues, as well as significant verbal communication issues due to 'malignancy of the tongue', which my adviser has sent to the DWP! Do you really think they'd take the standard rate off me?! Not only a doctor's letter, but I have 3 social workers (2 still working for LCC social services, with one now retired) backing me up who say they are surprised on not on the higher rate.

Laugh away lad.

Their own "medical staff" make the decisions, not your doctor or specialist(If under one).

 

[Accy cyclist]

Laugh away lad.

Their own "medical staff" make the decisions, not your doctor or specialist(If under one).

Give it a rest, and stop trolling me!

 

[classic33]

Give it a rest, and stop trolling me!

Cut the false accusations out.

 

[Webbo2]

Laugh away lad.

Their own "medical staff" make the decisions, not your doctor or specialist(If under one).

It’s some years since I have supported patients at review tribunals but I had cases where despite the patient being under treatment by a Consultant Psychiatrist for a serious mental illness and said they were unable to work or engage in everyday life without major support. The doctors working for the benefits agency overruled this despite them being much less qualified in Psychiatry

 

[gbb]

If you currently have 4 points for any daily living activity I would be very careful about asking for a review. Even if you ask them to look only at the mobility component they will look at both components and even under the current system you could lose your entire award.

I don't know your full circumstances but you do appear, from your forum posts, to be rather more active than most of the people I've represented at PIP appeal tribunals.

I'd probably agree. The government is clearly putting a lot of pressure on the benefits system and it would be an own goal of the highest order if it went wrong.

Another thing Accy. One thing I gathered with my wife's application, the assessment you have at the end of the application is partly to see if there's any deviation from what you say at that assessment and what you put on the initial form. I've read people sometimes fall down (metaphorically) at that point.

So importantly, if you appeal, revisit the process, whatever, any deviation from what you put on the form will be seen as a change of circumstances....which will almost certainly end with withdrawal of the benefit on the groundsnyou didn't notify them. You'd have to be very careful indeed.

 

[Mr Celine]

Oh really!! Active in that I walk to my car and back, and around a supermarket. I know a bloke who gets the higher rate of PIP and walks up and down the hills around here. maybe I should ask him for advice about what to say at my assessment!

Given your disdain for 'mental health issues' I presume your difficulties are purely physical in which case to be entitled to any mobility component you would have to be unable to walk 50m safely, to a reasonable standard, repeatedly and in a reasonable time period.

Next time you go to the supermarket pace out the distance you're walking.

Hint: Even the disabled spaces at all my local supermarkets are all more than 50m from the entrances. The ATOS/ CAPITA assessors know this, as do appeal tribunal members.

 

[Accy cyclist]

Cut the false accusations out.

I'd probably agree. The government is clearly putting a lot of pressure on the benefits system and it would be an own goal of the highest order if it went wrong.

Another thing Accy. One thing I gathered with my wife's application, the assessment you have at the end of the application is partly to see if there's any deviation from what you say at that assessment and what you put on the initial form. I've read people sometimes fall down (metaphorically) at that point.

So importantly, if you appeal, revisit the process, whatever, any deviation from what you put on the form will be seen as a change of circumstances....which will almost certainly end with withdrawal of the benefit on the groundsnyou didn't notify them. You'd have to be very careful indeed.

I know what you mean about not contradicting myself regarding what I wrote on my many questions form and what I might say at the assessment. The welfare/benefits adviser helping me with my case is very experienced in such things. The last time we had a meeting he told me that he's asked the DWP or whoever it was, I can't remember, if he could speak on my behalf, due to my speech/communication problems, with them saying he could do. Him speaking for me should help me quite a lot at the assessment.

 

[gbb]

I know what you mean about not contradicting myself regarding what I wrote on my many questions form and what I might say at the assessment. The welfare/benefits adviser helping me with my case is very experienced in such things. The last time we had a meeting he told me that he's asked the DWP or whoever it was, I can't remember, if he could speak on my behalf, due to my speech/communication problems, with them saying he could do. Him speaking for me should help me quite a lot at the assessment.

Partly through former work necessity, I long since started taking photos of any complicated forms, pages by page as I complete them, just so I have a record of what I actually wrote at that time. One, two or more years later, it can be impossible to remember a fraction of what you said.