DLA Appeal  Advice and Personal experiences p

Highwayman,

You have a month to appeal this decision. I suggest you go to your local Citizens Advice Bureau or other Welfare Benefits Advisor for help with this. They can negotiate on your behalf and may be able to represent you at an appeal.

You may want to ask: The msscociety for any possible help too.
Re your suggestion that the decision may have been made by the "wrong" person, you would need to find out who did make that decision and when (the date might be wrong or it may not be the date the decision was made). If you still think that is the case you can ask them to review your application (a Welfare Benefits Advisor will be able to help with this).

There is a guide to DLA Appeals here Benefitsandwork Appeal guide
however you should be aware that those people who appeal with the help and support of a professional welfare rights organisation have a much better success rate that those who manage their own appeals, so it would be worth also looking at the BenefitsandWork guide Getting help with your benefits

The point you make about your condition on a particular day (EMP visit) compared with your condition as it normally is or can be on bad days is a valid one which the appeal panel will take seriously. It would help the panel properly appreciate this point if you kept a diary, logbook, of you need for care from another person during the day and/or night so that the occurrence of "Bad days" over a period of a month or so could be monitored. You may find some weather conditions particularly stressful, these should be noted. Once you have read the EMP report you will be in a better position to ask your own GP/Consultant to refute those statements which may have mislead the Decision Maker over the severity or duration of how you experience the condition over a period of time.

I think your other point regarding the date of the decision rather gives the appearance of clutching at straws and I think it could be counterproductive. Many DWP workers didn't strike and your DM could have been one of them. You have only a month to notify them of your intention to appeal so you really do have to reply now. Before you can make a detailed reply to the Appeal Panel you need to see the medical evidence on which the decision was based and have a written statement of reasons for that decision. If you write for these now you will have a fortnight from then to get your appeal in. In some areas the Welfare Rights providers prefer to do all the work themselves and are reluctant to help at the appeal if they haven't prepared the submission so if you are hoping to use a welfare rights professional you should see them straight away, before writing for the medical evidence and statement of reasons.

Here is the section of The Disability Handbook devoted to Multiple Sclerosis. It would be worth reading so that the way your condition presents which differs from the official DWP understanding may be highlighted in your submission.

You may get a better idea of how the Appeal Panel understand the criteria by reading the Disability Alliance digest of DLA decisions and by contacting your local MS support organisation which may also be able to provide practical support for your appeal. If you need branch details, telephone the MS National Centre on 020 8438 0700.

I am sorry to here of your problems with DLA. My husband applied for DLA way back at the beginning of 2002, he was refused any help. He had a reconsideration and oral appeal in which he was all turned down for any DLA. This whole process took a year. We were treated badly at the appeal by comments made by the chairperson which led to our CAB representative making a formal complaint to the Social Security commissioner in London. We received an apology but our request for a whole new unbiased appeal hearing was refused. We then waited 6 months before reapplying, meanwhile my husband started to suffer with depression. He said he felt that the DLA people were saying he was a malignerer and that he wasn;t really ill because they kept refusing him even the lowest rate of DLA. On reapplication we were refused yet again and applied for a reconsideration which we were told would take 16 weeks. Meanwhile we went to see our MP. We told him briefly the situation and he said he could not make the DLA people change their mind but he could contact them and ask them to double-check that they are applying their own criterior correctly because we felt they could not be appyig the criterior correctly as my husbands condition is so severe.

Surprise, surprise within a week we had a letter from the DLA people stating my husband was awarded highest rate mobility and care (no back pay though) and a direct dial number to the person dealing with the case in Leeds incase we needed to speak with someone directly.

Sorry for the long winded post. Basically what i am trying to say is that you are not the only person having problems with DLA and i also want to say is that try your MP for support. We felt like we were banging our heads against a brick wall and the MP was the only person we could think of the contact as we had tried absolutely everyone else over the 2 years. It took the MP one week to do what we couldn't do in over 2 years.