PIP stress...

moofla

Hello all, I'm mew on here so hopefully it's the right place to post, any advice is greatly appreciated!
Long story short, I've been on high rate care low mobility DLA for almost 7 years with no dramas. Got the dreaded PIP form in January and filled it in (quite well I thought), got a great GP letter and waited.
Recieved a letter last week stating they'd written to get more information from people involved in my treatment or care, then today I hear I'm called for a face to face on Thursday.
My problems are all mental health related, and I'm wondering whether this is normal to be moved along so fast and what to expect? My anxiety is through the roof and I'm so stressed about it. Any advice would be very welcome and appreciated, thank you all so much in advance!

Alice_Holt

May be helpful:
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/sick-or-disabled-people-and-carers/pip/help-with-your-claim/your-assessment/
https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/personal-independence-payment-pip/pip-medical-assessments

Good luck

Marketdown1980

moofla wrote: »

Hello all, I'm mew on here so hopefully it's the right place to post, any advice is greatly appreciated!
Long story short, I've been on high rate care low mobility DLA for almost 7 years with no dramas. Got the dreaded PIP form in January and filled it in (quite well I thought), got a great GP letter and waited.
Recieved a letter last week stating they'd written to get more information from people involved in my treatment or care, then today I hear I'm called for a face to face on Thursday.
My problems are all mental health related, and I'm wondering whether this is normal to be moved along so fast and what to expect? My anxiety is through the roof and I'm so stressed about it. Any advice would be very welcome and appreciated, thank you all so much in advance!

hi

i've recently been through the same thing, i just posted about it on here actually and i think i was in a similar boat to you

been on DLA for around the same number of years

the transition to PIP from DLA is inevitable so it has to happen sometime

when i wrote my thread today i mentioned that when i had my face to face interview i still had a few months left of my DLA award, there's no need to panic, nothing untoward is happening, this is all pretty standard procedure from what i've both read about it and experienced myself.

them contacting the relevent people is pretty standard as well

now all you have to do is go along and do the interview, it'll be fine

get someone to go with you if you can, i would've had someone with me anyway as it was so far away but the person with me was a massive help, they new my situation, helped with the answers and me understanding the questions.

write a list of some bullet points, things that you absoloutely want to make sure you mention regardless what they ask you so you dont forget

and take all the letters and documents you've got from every medical professional you've seen, it'll help if you haven't sent them in already, even if this means going to a couple of the specialists at the last minute and asking for a summation of what you've been going through and how it affects you, i completely forgot about one aspect of treatment and had the person write a brief summary for me and leave it at the desk an hour later the day before my appointment, it might nit have made much difference though, although if you've given an overall generic doctors letter that covers everything and have informed them who the specialists are they may not need it but i usually like to be over prepared with stuff like this, it'll be ok just try to be as thorough as possible

and just to further reassure you i had to wait 8 weeks for my face to face and it had gone on for so long they gave me the direct number for the assesors who rung and then in turn gave me an appointment for the next day! it was a bit manic seeing if the person that helps me with getting around and doing stuff like this could come at short notice but they could so iy was fine, anyway just saying it can go both ways, take ages or be done instantly, seems quite random to me and i would'nt read anything into it

it actually sounds like everythings progressed with your claim/case pretty normally

good luck with it

Danday

Hi Market.You sound like the move from DLA to PIP went well. My experience of my move was anything but. I suppose it depends on the assessor you get. The person who came with me was told to keep quiet and warned that any further interruptions would see her removed from the room. The questions put to me were either to agree or disagree with what she said. There was no option for me to talk about anything. Then when I presented loads of evidence she told me that the office deals with that not her and handed it back to me.
I was on DLA with high mobility and middle care. With PIP I got standard care only. I didn't appeal the mobility part as I didn't want to risk losing everything.
Your experience should be what everybody has but that is not the case.

Marketdown1980

Danday wrote: »

Hi Market.You sound like the move from DLA to PIP went well. My experience of my move was anything but. I suppose it depends on the assessor you get. The person who came with me was told to keep quiet and warned that any further interruptions would see her removed from the room. The questions put to me were either to agree or disagree with what she said. There was no option for me to talk about anything. Then when I presented loads of evidence she told me that the office deals with that not her and handed it back to me.
I was on DLA with high mobility and middle care. With PIP I got standard care only. I didn't appeal the mobility part as I didn't want to risk losing everything.
Your experience should be what everybody has but that is not the case.

my experience was the exact opposite actually, except for the actual interview part

i was waiting 2 months for my letter, on their case non stop, then they gave me the direct number and got an appointment the next day

the person that did the interview was nice, the person that came with me answered a lot of the questions for me as i get flustered and nervous and she was really ok with it all, asked me to elaborate on things, add things i wanted said, i was dreading that part but it went ok and i was grateful the person who was with me came, they did a lot of the work for me.

was disapointed with the result, was getting middle care, and lower mobility, £308 a month, and wound up getting standard care and losing the mobility so lost £22 a week

couldve been worse i thought, although since i last filled out my last form my life collapsed, i thought i'd get the top level of care and standard mobility, then when i got the letter and saw my money went down i was dejected, but i thought i got 11 points only needed 1 more to get higher care, did a massive appeal, still got nothing more, in the end gave up, didnt do the tribunal and just thought be happy with what i got, but no way was their summation an accurate representation of my situation

sounds like what you went through really sucks, sorry to hear it, i can see why you got chucked off of the mobility part as they did with everyone with mental health problems (that the court has now said you cant really do guys lol) but hopefully the courts decision will see you back getting the top rate, fingers crossed you'll get a letter sometime this year saying as such!

Danday

Thanks Market, I am due to be interviewed on Friday, my third one since 2013. Having already had two extremely poor ones with awards well below what I thought I should have had doesn't fill me with any hope for a good one this time round.
I've got to the point of going on automation, get on with it, ask the question and let me get out of there.
I still can't get my head round how many different opinions there are about making these claims. CAB tell you do it this way, the DWP forms say do it another way and experienced people on here say do it that way.

Marketdown1980

Danday wrote: »

Thanks Market, I am due to be interviewed on Friday, my third one since 2013. Having already had two extremely poor ones with awards well below what I thought I should have had doesn't fill me with any hope for a good one this time round.
I've got to the point of going on automation, get on with it, ask the question and let me get out of there.
I still can't get my head round how many different opinions there are about making these claims. CAB tell you do it this way, the DWP forms say do it another way and experienced people on here say do it that way.

i think that's probably more down to how erratic and unstable the system as a whole is

ask 10 random people about what their experience of it all was and get 10 completely different stories

different interviews with completely different types of interviewer, different admin sides of it with some going smoothly some taking forever and everything getting lost etc, different awardments with some getting the same, most getting less and very few getting more

i think a lot of peoples advice is born out of experience and unfortunately the consistency just isn't there to get a huge number of people saying the same thing and their being a specific formula to follow

it really does seem like the luck of the draw with who you get doing the interview, how the whole process is done and what you get awarded

dont let it all get you down mate and definitely dont do what i did and just give up on it, i regret that now i know what i was entitled to, i was going through a really bad time and just didnt want the hassle anymore so gave up, wish i'd done the tribunal now

good luck with the interview