I put my form in in September. Finally got an Initial Information pack three weeks ago.
‘Clinical Assessment hear I come’ I thought so I rang to make the appointment. I held on their system for 17 mins til I finaly got someone to answer but they said no appoinments available and i will get a letter soon.
Has a letter arrived? No
Can I get through to them on the phone now? No, waited 33 mins this time.
Anyone else had problems?
Hi, i will get my PIP re-assessment in 2015, as I am a long timer on DLA.
I can just imagine what sort of back log and kerfuffle there is with it all.
Hope those lengthy calls were free.
Hang in there hun…you, me and several thousand others.
luv Pollx
Yes, they are very slow until the point THEY want you to do something and then there’s very little movement!
I rang and started the application off when I knew I had MS… forms showed up and I tried to sort out getting assistance completing and hadn’t really got it sorted out as I’d returned to work (surely my desire to continue working should go in my favour?!)…
letter came thru saying if I didn’t return within their timescale my claim would be disallowed (yes, clearly a rubbish excuse that I’d misread their previous letter which did have a deadline in it and having returned to work fatigue had wiped me out!), called and grovelled and was given a 14 day extension, me and hubby filled out forms without assistance
Returned all paperwork by registered post (paranoid!) and then waited for over 3 months and got nowhere calling ATOS as it had been referred to another dept for assessment.
Letter from ATOS finally arrived giving an appoinment at 2pm on a Tues…
Telephoned and grovelled some more and eventually when I got upset, the lady agreed to look for a more suitable appointment for me - being self employed and unable to drive, this would have cost both me and my husband a days pay so I was pretty upset. They would not allow me to delay or anything, apparently they are given blocks of time to appoint the assessments - the first line of the letter said if you failed to attend without good reason they would disallow the claim. Anyway, that might be why you had no luck calling for an appointment.
By some minor miracle, they did re-appoint so lady on the phone did what she’d said and my appointment is now first thing on a Monday, so we can work round it 
It is a stressful experience, simply that 
I feel like I’ve been thru the wringer and I’ve not been assessed yet!
Good luck , I suspect we all need it. I stupidly imagined they might not assess me face to face given my consultant’s letter says it appears I have ppms sigh Getting better would truly be the thing I hope for most and the best outcome… I hate feeling so weak and out of control of my life, I wish it was simple but I guess with the number of people that get away with fraudulent claims they have to be harsh but it feels like we’re all tarred with the same brush! If I didn’t need to do this, trust me I wouldn’t!
I’ll report back on my assessment, it’s in the next few weeks
Sonia x
Good News? Nope, got through to them yesterday but still no appointments available. There seems to be major problems catching up with the back log. Still they have on record that I’ve called twice, just need to chill out and wait.
Good News? Yes, current relapse is responding to oral steroids and I managed to get the kids down to the school today without having to call on friends, yay!