DLA ATOS med-mental health grounds (now turned down)

firesidemaid

it seems that a lot of people get 'turned down' automatically.

the forms can be 'tricky' to fill in - it helps to have assistance.

i would suggest seeing if your local mental health service has a welfare/rights officer who can help you. perhaps your key worker can help or knows who can?

Kazzea

I joined the nefits and work site to get help with my form and I filled it in with all the relevant information explaining my condition(s) and how everyday activities are affected etc etc etc. Anyway - I have filled in the tiny form for an appeal (as this means they will look at the claim again first automatically) and I have emailed my local CAB to see if there is someone there who can help me when the hundreds of pages of stuff arrives from the DWP for the appeal and also if someone from CAB can accompany me and poss represent me at the oral hearing.

Thanks for the replies (and hugs) its just really upsetting to see in black and white that they basically think I am lying (I sooooo wish I was if u know what I mean - what I wouldn't give for a "normal" life)

cit_k

Kazzea wrote: »

I joined the nefits and work site to get help with my form and I filled it in with all the relevant information explaining my condition(s) and how everyday activities are affected etc etc etc. Anyway - I have filled in the tiny form for an appeal (as this means they will look at the claim again first automatically) and I have emailed my local CAB to see if there is someone there who can help me when the hundreds of pages of stuff arrives from the DWP for the appeal and also if someone from CAB can accompany me and poss represent me at the oral hearing.

Thanks for the replies (and hugs) its just really upsetting to see in black and white that they basically think I am lying (I sooooo wish I was if u know what I mean - what I wouldn't give for a "normal" life)

They say they look at the claim again automatically to see if the decision was wrong before taking it to the appeal stage, but it seems rarer than hens teeth for them to actually ever reconsider the claim (I think they dont even bother looking *unless* you ask for reconsideration specifically) and find in the claimaints favour.

After all - most of those that win at appeal (ones where its obvious at appeal the report was a pile of fictional rubbish with more holes in it than a sponge) should never get to appeal as the second decision maker should spot the obvious problems a mile off and stop the process then - but it just rarely happens.

If you think about it, thats two decision makers (the first and the second opinion) that are commiting benefit fraud - by forcing the appeal process to go ahead, costing the taxpayer money. But they never, ever seem to get pulled up over it - plus surely internal procedures should be able to spot the fact decision makers are failing in their duties, but the DWP is lacking in any sort of internal reviews or procedures that would be common and easy to implement.

Good luck with the appeal btw.

stazi

Yes cit_k, it appears that DWP DM's do have procedures afterall- it's called the DMG- Decision Makers Guide-freely available to all to read
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/publications/specialist-guides/decision-makers-guide/#vol1

Did you think DWP DM 's made it all up as they went along?.

I suggest that you read the DMG, so that you can understand what DWP DM's are/are not required to do, before you comment further.

cit_k

stazi wrote: »

Yes cit_k, it appears that DWP DM's do have procedures afterall- it's called the DMG- Decision Makers Guide-freely available to all to read
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/publications/specialist-guides/decision-makers-guide/#vol1

Did you think DWP DM 's made it all up as they went along?.

I suggest that you read the DMG, so that you can understand what DWP DM's are/are not required to do, before you comment further.

The decision makers guide (which its obvious is often not followed) does not cover internal procedures to spot the fact a decision maker can over time make the same mistakes over and over and over. It does not cover the keeping of stats to show that the system is either working, or NOT. The dwp dont have any meaningful stats as to who wins at recon, or at appeal, broken down by type of medical etc etc - its been requested before and they simply dont have the data.

If the decision making guide was being followed - can you explain why so many of the appeals are won, where its CLEAR the evidence in question was unreliable and self-contradictory, and why they got to that stage in the first place when the decision maker should have carefully examined all the available evidence?

firesidemaid

i take it you are just expecting the personal care element and not the mobility side. i also take it that you filled in the forms and described your illness and how it affects you at its worst?

if you got the extra money how would you use it/how would it improve or support your life/illness ie. what things can you not do for yourself because of your illness? (i am writing this as someone who has successfully claimed dla for mental health probs on behalf of someone) x

healy

People are sometimes successful at the reconsideration stage and this is carried out by DMs. I have read of cases for both DLA and IB where this has happened.

The success rate is low for a reconsideration at about 10%.

joyciebird

cit_k wrote: »

They say they look at the claim again automatically to see if the decision was wrong before taking it to the appeal stage, but it seems rarer than hens teeth for them to actually ever reconsider the claim (I think they dont even bother looking *unless* you ask for reconsideration specifically) and find in the claimaints favour.

After all - most of those that win at appeal (ones where its obvious at appeal the report was a pile of fictional rubbish with more holes in it than a sponge) should never get to appeal as the second decision maker should spot the obvious problems a mile off and stop the process then - but it just rarely happens.

If you think about it, thats two decision makers (the first and the second opinion) that are commiting benefit fraud - by forcing the appeal process to go ahead, costing the taxpayer money. But they never, ever seem to get pulled up over it - plus surely internal procedures should be able to spot the fact decision makers are failing in their duties, but the DWP is lacking in any sort of internal reviews or procedures that would be common and easy to implement.

Good luck with the appeal btw.

All claims are looked at again and the Decision Maker will either request further evidence, reconsider the decision or send it to appeal.

Cases that are successful at Appeal are mostly ones where additional information may have been obtained or the Tribunal had the benefit of seeing a claimant in person, which obviously helps.

There are internal checking procedures in place and problems identified are addressed, but when you are dealing with a business that looks at thousands of claims a year, it is very unrealistic for them all to be checked.

Maybe if the DWP had more staff or the actual work involved in reading and deciding a claim wasnt so time consuming there might be more scope for common and easy internal review,

cit_k

joyciebird wrote: »

All claims are looked at again and the Decision Maker will either request further evidence, reconsider the decision or send it to appeal.

Cases that are successful at Appeal are mostly ones where additional information may have been obtained or the Tribunal had the benefit of seeing a claimant in person, which obviously helps.

There are internal checking procedures in place and problems identified are addressed, but when you are dealing with a business that looks at thousands of claims a year, it is very unrealistic for them all to be checked.

Maybe if the DWP had more staff or the actual work involved in reading and deciding a claim wasnt so time consuming there might be more scope for common and easy internal review,

Its obvious they are NOT all looked at again, and certainly not all looked at properly (a quick glance at the total points would not constitute following proper procedures).

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]CIB/664/2005
In CIB/664/2005 (Bulletin 188, p15), the commissioner agreed with the tribunal that the electronic IB85 relating to the claimant was unreliable. It contained nonsensical statements such as ‘Usually can do light gardening for 1 minutes’ and failed to carry forward relevant findings relating to the claimant’s mental state to the choice of the mental health descriptors.[/FONT]

How did that get past the two decision makers?

Or all the obvious errors in

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:kaOEB6ec5NsJ:www.rightsnet.org.uk/pdfs/CSIB_69_2003.pdf+commissioners+decision+unreliable+medical+report&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

or

In another case1 the same Commissioner agreed with the tribunal’s view that
the electronically-prepared IB85 report was unreliable. This was based on its
finding that some of the list of entries in Box 7 were factually incorrect.

with

What does this mean for DMs
As with all evidence DMs have to decide what weight to give to the content of
an electronically-prepared IB85. The report should be read as a whole and
any inconsistent or improbable entries addressed before a determination of
incapacity for work is made. Procedural guidance on gaining clarification or
questioning of the content of IB85s should be followed. See STB Guide, Part
32 paragraphs 32.481 to 32.486.

Yet I myself had had a few reports that if read 'as a whole' would clearly result in that report never making it to tribunal (my last report - it only took a welfare rights advisor *seconds* to spot glaring problems with the report, based fully on info in the report, with no additional evidence required - ie the problem was with the report)

The DM should either rule the evidence unreliable and request more, or clarify with medical services as to why the report is inconsistent and contradicts itself, and the report should be then updated, or notes included as to what the clarifications/reasons were.

That did not happen, and has not happened in any previous cases with me that went to tribunal.

Nor does it happen to all those people who are reporting inconsitent reports that contracdict themselves (for example on one page it may say client has chaotic sleeping pattern, then on another page it may state 'client requires help waking up' yet on another page it may state 'client has no sleep problems' all on the same report..

Any report with problems like that making it past a decision maker, then a second decision maker is obvious proof they are either not looking at all, or just rubber stamping the points page, without reading the full report.

System

firesidemaid wrote: »

i take it you are just expecting the personal care element and not the mobility side. i also take it that you filled in the forms and described your illness and how it affects you at its worst?

if you got the extra money how would you use it/how would it improve or support your life/illness ie. what things can you not do for yourself because of your illness? (i am writing this as someone who has successfully claimed dla for mental health probs on behalf of someone) x

The OP could claim for low mobility in regards to mental health as needing supervision to prevent yourself from danger has been a sufficient reason in cases of some people i know