I have my PIP assessment today and I thought I was prepared, I’m absolutely not and now I’m so worried I don’t have any idea what to expect. Any tips from those been through it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in anticipation… Mandy
hi mandy
ok hope it went alright or better still they haven’t been yet.
be absolutely sure to let yourself stumble, fall or *shit yourself whilst they are there.
we have a tendency to put a brave face on but now is not the time for that.
sorry for being so gross * above but they need to see how bad things can get for you.
good luck
carole x
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Hi Mandy
If it’s not happened yet, have a look on an earlier post on this very subject: PIP Home visit - Everyday living - MS Society UK | Forum
Sue
How did it go? Hope not too awful for u
sophie x
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Hi all and thank you for your replies. I had my award letter back last week and it’s not good news. My care component came back as enhanced (that was middle rate for DLA) so that’s increased but my mobility component came back as standard (that was higher rate for DLA) so that’s decreased. I have to hand my car back on March 28th and to be honest I am at a loss as to what I’m going to do. I live 100 miles away from friends and family, my husband works full time and living in small village it’s not good. I have never had the confidence to catch a bus or a train and I have panic attacks as I have no sense of direction. So to say the least there goes my independence. I’m not sleeping due to the worry and stress I know I will have when I return my car
My husband has written my appeal letter and I have a letter from my GP outlining the struggles I will face should I lose my car. Does anyone know of anyone that has appealed and managed to retain their full mobility allowance please…
many thanks for taking the time to read this
all the best
A very worried Mandy
so sorry to hear this.have you looked at www.benefitsandwork.co.uk they are very, very good at helping you with appeals for benefits, it costs about £20 to join for the year but so worth it.Also get in touch with your local welfare rights, at your local council.Good luck with the appeal, it’s disgusting the way we have to fight to prove our disability.
J x
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hi mandy
i really hope you get a better decision on appeal.
i got standard rate for both components and will lose my car too.
put in my request for mandatory reconsideration and awaiting reply.
angry doesn’t cover how i feel.
good luck
carole x
Hi Carole
Yes that’s what my letter is mandatory consideration, then if that don’t work it’s a trip to court. I will fight this as much as I can but like so many say we should not have to fight for or prove we are disabled.
I missed out on 2 points, I got 10 for 1 of the mobility questions and 0 for the cognition based one. 0?! Apparently I can read a timetable bus/train, plan and follow a journey. The question was aimed at driving never in my medical was I asked about public transport. I was asked about walking more than 20 but no more than 50 feet/yards (that’s part of the mobility question) and I scored points there but I’ve never used a train or bus in my life, I wouldn’t understand a timetable and in any event there’s no train station or bus stop within 50 feet/yards of my home.
What a joke.
thank you for your reply, Mandy x
Hi Sophie
thank you for replying, it didn’t go too bad, so I thought. I have posted an update in this feed and as you can probably see I’ve lost mobility enhanced (was higher rate on DLA) so my car has to be returned which was my worst fear. If you have not yet changed over to PIPS please do as much research as you possibly can.
Mandy x
Hi Carole I have sent a reply, well so I thought, but I can’t find it I’ve not been on this site in over 4 years so I’m a bit ropey sorry. I have also put a reply to all messages of which I can find regarding my appeal/mandatory reconsideration. I’m posting mine today but good luck on yours it would be good to read very soon that yours works in your favour.
All the best
Mandy x
Hi Mandy, I went to my local CAB today for help with PIP form. The lady was smashing, I had done my research & gotten letters from specialists etc. She is now filling in my form with the evidence I managed to give her. She also is the officer that does the appeals, if/ when an application gets the wrong award. Apparently, most CAB offices have people that work for the local council & welfare & benefits apartments & she told me that if the PIP outcome is not successful, she would send the appeal. Might be worth going to a CAB thats nearest you? I was dreading going this morn, the stress of it all & trying to get ready was a nightmare. Shes even bringing the completed form to my house for me to sign & got me an extension on the date it was due back. Good luck Tracey x
Oh Mandy that’s terrible. I haven’t had my PIP form through yet. Dreading it. Why are they punishing the legit ones. Aren’t there enough illegit ones out there for them to focus on.
Good luck with your appeal.
Well done Tracey. It was the CAB that helped me to complete my original DLA form in 2005. I hope you get a really good outcome.
Shazzie xx
Thank you Shazzie. 1 step closer, highly recommend CAB, felt sick with worry with this stupid form, not out of the woods yet I know, but the relief of having support from people that know the ins & outs has made me feel so much better. I not trying to jinx anything, but even if its not what I hope for, I know Diane will support me again. (Hopefully it wont come to that!!) Tracey x
Hi Mandy
If your reconsideration is refused, you probably need to think about getting some extra help with the appeal. And just in case, it’s worth starting to get information together in advance.
As mrsJ said, the http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/ site is excellent for guides. They charge about £20 for the year, but it’s worth it for their guides. Alternatively, look at Personal Independence Payment - Citizens Advice What might really help is the table showing how the points are allocated for each of the Activities: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/Global/Migrated_Documents/adviceguide/pip-9-table-of-activities-descriptors-and-points.pdf
If you can, get help from a welfare rights advisor, e.g. from the CAB.
The other thing to consider is what evidence you have supplied with your claim, evidence from your GP is always good, but if you have any other health care professionals who can judge your walking etc, that would help. Things like letters from physiotherapists, or occupational health, or if you have a care plan from the council. Keep in mind also, that the test is not just whether you can walk twenty metres, but whether you can do it safely, reliably and repeatedly. So if you can walk up to fifty metres, but once you’ve done it you need a long rest before moving again, then you need to be clear about this.
Best of luck.
Sue
If you couldn’t travel by bus or train, even if there was a local service, that should score you some points on the cognitive section of mobility. If panic attacks are also an issue, that should get you points as well. I know that the recent changes to the PIP descriptors make it harder to qualify for high rate mobility, but if you’ve got 10 points for walking then you only need 2 points on the cognitive section.
I agree with the people who have recommended Benefits and Work. I also agree about needing medical evidence to support your claim. I didn’t include any with my application and was awarded standard rate for both components. I used the Benefits and Work guides for my mandatory reconsideration and included a letter from my MS nurse. Together they got me enhanced rate for both. So get in touch with any healthcare professionals who knows how your MS affects your ability to do things and ask them to write a letter in your support. I also recommend contacting the company that did your assessment and getting a copy of the assessor’s report. You’re entitled to it and you may find errors or omissions that give grounds for getting more points. I know I did!
Good luck with your mandatory reconsideration.
Hi Mandy, I don’t think that you’re going to like this post particularly because I feel that you may have some problems with getting through a Mandatory Reconsideration purely based on what you have told us here – not that many people get through a Mandatory Reconsideration with a positive result anyway! However, based on what you have said, I do think that you may have problems getting a positive result from an appeal without much more work and more evidence.
I think I can see what you are trying to say about your mobility but the problem is that the ways you have expressed it could be construed in less favourable ways in respect of a claim than, I think, you were intending. It is very easy for a genuine “I can’t do that” to come over to an unsympathetic assessor as someone being a bit of a Diva, saying “I NOT going to do that “
I also think that you may have misunderstood how certain things are assessed and how conclusions were drawn.
First, how did you explain your reluctance to travel on public transport to the assessor? Did you mention that you have panic attacks? Are such panic attacks evidenced by any of the materials you submitted with your application? If not, will your doctor be in a position to provide such information in the letter they are providing? Someone who has genuine panic issues with taking public transport is in a very different position to somebody who simply “never has, never will” travel on public transport.
Please note, however, that you should be very careful on how you express the combination of having a bad sense of direction and it is causing you panic as this begs the obvious question from an assessor or a tribunal – “how are you able to drive anywhere in the car then?”
Unfortunately, the fact that you live in a relatively isolated place or somewhere where there is little public transport available is of no relevance to an application for PIP. As far as the rules are concerned the fact that you need a car where you live means that you are in no worse a position than your able-bodied next door neighbour.
Re the issue regarding using a timetable. What, exactly, are the reasons why you say you could not plan a journey using a bus or train timetable? At the moment, it might read as if you “couldn’t be bothered” to learn how to use a timetable because you never had to. I am sure that this was not what you intended to suggest but it could be construed as such. Do you have sight problems that mean that you could not read a timetable? Or are your – recorded – cognition problems such that you would be unable to interpret such simple written information? It is clear from the fact that you are communicating with us easily in writing that you can interpret written information and the way in which you could communicate with the assessor over the course of your assessment would have allowed them to reach the same conclusion without asking a specific question about timetables.
So, are there other recorded aspects of your condition that would affect your ability to make and plan the journey? In my case, I did get 12 points for mobility but I was also awarded some extra points relating to my inability to safely make and plan a journey arising from other issues I have. My safety is affected by the fact that, not only am I unstable my feet but I also have serious hearing loss that, because of the manner of my walking expose me to risk from cars and other road users.
Although I can plan a journey efficiently, MS has so badly affected my immediate short-term memory that I am completely unable to remember more than a couple of directions before having to stop and remind myself of the route (when walking this can mean stopping every 10 seconds or so). Even in familiar places I can become completely disorientated and not recognise where I am – it is quite common for me to walk past my own front door and the two or three houses away before I realise!
As you can see, if I just explain the situation as “I don’t have a very good sense of direction these days and I get distracted/disorientated at times” that would give very little flavour of the reality of my situation and would have been little more than me trying to claim benefit for being a bit ditzy!
This is why I always emphasise to people when talking about PIP that they should give a long and thorough explanation of how their disability affects them in various situations. As much as you possibly can, every point in your explanation should be backed up by evidence.
The information you have had on here about a Mandatory Reconsideration and Appeal is very sound. What people like Sue and others have said about having your request and/or appeal “professionally” looked that by CAB is, in my view, 100% vital. Sadly, a great deal of the success of an application for PIP comes down to the way your claim is expressed.
So, good luck with your claim – just make sure that you have covered all the relevant issues. It can be done, a few people on here have had success at Mandatory Reconsideration when they have been able to provide additional material and other people have been successful at appeal.
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hello
i did lots of research before my PIP. I think the minimum number of points available (apart from 0) for planning journeys is 4 points. I found if you can drive it is considered you can plan a journey. That seems that’s how it is viewed.
best wishes
Paul
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