PIP Timescales?

GotToChange

In my case, it seemed that things moved "quite" quickly at first; My initial phone application was 4 September - I sent the form back halfway through October and then received a letter that implied that there would be no requirement for a face-to-face - but then, a letter with an appointment for a face-to-face did arrive (fortunately at the end of the road where I live at a local Physio practice).
The farce of an assessment took place on 2/1 and resulted in "nil points".... so I then requested a Mandatory Review - whch just repeated what the original assessment had said. So in March I requested a Tribunal.
(I bet you thought I was talking about last year to this didn't you? Nope; this all started in 2017.)
I got a letter just before Christmas with a date for the Tribunal - of 28 February 2019.

All in all, just under 18 months, with 11 of those being waiting for the Appeal.
If I had not already lost the will to live, this would have caused me to.

omear786

i been seeing a lot of people having bad experience with PIP Capita, anyone with good experience

poppy12345

omear786 wrote: »

i been seeing a lot of people having bad experience with PIP Capita, anyone with good experience

That's because you'll only ever hear the bad stories. If someone has a decision they're happy with, they have no questions to ask so we don't hear their story.


I've claimed PIP since 2013, had a review 2.5 years ago and never had a problem. Award was increased at review.


My daughter claimed for the first time last year and was awarded Enhanced for both.



Lots of people claim it successfully without any problems at all.

Iwanttobefree

I phoned the DWP yesterday (Thursday) asking for a copy of my medical report, just before replying to this thread, I received it in the post today.

Mind you I also had pages attached to the back that were addressed to other people.

One was a two page PiP decision refusal addressed to a man in Middlesbrourgh, the other was a 3 page letter to a lady in Liverpool asking for further information.

So it's nice they supply me with these two peoples full names and addresses and let me know they are claiming PiP. So much for data protection

Alice_Holt

Iwanttobefree wrote: »

I phoned the DWP yesterday (Thursday) asking for a copy of my medical report, just before replying to this thread, I received it in the post today.

Mind you I also had pages attached to the back that were addressed to other people.

One was a two page PiP decision refusal addressed to a man in Middlesbrourgh, the other was a 3 page letter to a lady in Liverpool asking for further information.

So it's nice they supply me with these two peoples full names and addresses and let me know they are claiming PiP. So much for data protection

Report this to the ICO
https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/

It's a serious breach of data confidentiality.

Iwanttobefree

poppy12345 wrote: »

That's because you'll only ever hear the bad stories. If someone has a decision they're happy with, they have no questions to ask so we don't hear their story.


I've claimed PIP since 2013, had a review 2.5 years ago and never had a problem. Award was increased at review.


My daughter claimed for the first time last year and was awarded Enhanced for both.



Lots of people claim it successfully without any problems at all.

I had zero problems wit ESA for years, but when for some reason things go wrong, it's like talking to a brick wall half the time.

I was just awarded the lowest rate PiP, the reason I didn't get awarded the highest rate was that the nurse who did the medical didn't understand how CFS/ME and depression affects people. It really is as simple as that.

That cost me points in a few sections, and I know (although I'm still trying) that my mandatory reconsideration will get me no where. Even though the assessor said I was getting no professional input and I can 100% prove I can, have included the names of the people dealing with me and say they are free to contact them, based on past experience with my ESA appeal, I will be extremely shocked and surprised if they budge one inch.

It's a bit like a bank or sky/virgin/BT. Tons of happy customers, but when things go wrong, sometimes it feels impossible to get through to someone that can fix it.

poppy12345

Iwanttobefree wrote: »

I had zero problems wit ESA for years, but when for some reason things go wrong, it's like talking to a brick wall half the time.

I was just awarded the lowest rate PiP, the reason I didn't get awarded the highest rate was that the nurse who did the medical didn't understand how CFS/ME and depression affects people. It really is as simple as that.

That cost me points in a few sections, and I know (although I'm still trying) that my mandatory reconsideration will get me no where. Even though the assessor said I was getting no professional input and I can 100% prove I can, have included the names of the people dealing with me and say they are free to contact them, based on past experience with my ESA appeal, I will be extremely shocked and surprised if they budge one inch.
.

It's your responsibility to explain in full detail exactly how your conditions affect your ability to carry out the activities based in the PIP descriptors. Everyone is affected differently and you never get 2 people the same.



It's not their responsibility to request any evidence from any medical professional because they're not their to prove you qualify. They very rarely contact anyone for any evidence. Its your responsibility to send in the evidence to prove those descriptors apply to you.

Iwanttobefree

poppy12345 wrote: »

It's your responsibility to explain in full detail exactly how your conditions affect your ability to carry out the activities based in the PIP descriptors. Everyone is affected differently and you never get 2 people the same.



It's not their responsibility to request any evidence from any medical professional because they're not their to prove you qualify. They very rarely contact anyone for any evidence. Its your responsibility to send in the evidence to prove those descriptors apply to you.

While I agree with you, I don't think I'm making myself clear.

When the person filled out the initial form for me, we went into detail about how both my CFS and Depression affect me.

On the form it asked for the names etc of people it could contact for further information. I supplied the names and addresses.

On the form I said I was having CBT and was under wellbeing.

I also included a letter from the hospitals pain management clinic supporting my claim for PiP and saying how much of a huge impact my CFS and Depression has on my life.

I also included proof that I scored 18 on the PHQ9 depression scale and 13 on the GAD7 anxiety scale. I scored 19 on the PHQ-9 scale Monday just gone but have no written evidence at the moment.


Here's how the scores work.

PHQ-9 Depression
0 - 4 None
5 - 9 Mild Depression
10 - 14 Moderate Depression
15 - 19 Moderately Severe Depression
20 - 27 Severe Depression

Gad-7 Anxiety
5 - 9 mild Anxiety
10 - 14 moderate anxiety
15+ Severe Anxiety

On my medical assessment report, at the beginning she goes into a fair amount of detail as to what I said on the form, only it's in her words which are no way like what I wrote.

For instance, one part says quote

Chronic fatigue, headaches when he is reading, head fog, lacks concentration, stress makes him more tired, says he is not always able to end a task due to the fatigue, poor memory, depression and anxiety. Is affected every day with this........

Cognitive problems 2004 says that this is linked in with the chronic fatigue and has had scans to make sure there was nothing else....

Says that he has replaced the bath with a shower and has a raised bed, raised toilet seat with two rails on the stairs. Is not working at present, this a is due to his health conditions, says he has just received a pay out early from work...

Says that he is not able to manage his hobbies at present.

Says he will sleep a lot of the time due to his CFS

Says he struggles with reading due to getting a foggy head

Throughout the medical report, activity after activity she repeats herself saying for example

Reports that he needs to be reminded, however informal observation showed that he was able to give a full history of conditions and medications, he did not need prompting and had adequate memory with no reported specialist input.

Therefore it would be reasonable to suggest that he can ..... unaided

and

Although he reports cognitive problems in condition history reports that this is due to CFS, however he reports that he has had CT scans which showed no impairment, informal observation showed.... (as in the previous quote)

My first quote of theirs where she's over viewing what my form said, she mentions "and has had scans to make sure there was nothing else"

I stressed on the form that the only reason the tests were done was they wanted to double check nothing sinister such as dementia was going on, they wanted to make sure it was only related to my CFS.

In the responses under almost every activity, this turns into (as quoted above) "however he reports that he has had CT scans which showed no impairment", the medical assessor implies the CT ruled out cognitive problems.

Likewise many activities said

"Although he is on medication for his mental health, however informal observation showed that he engaged well, he did not appear anxious, MSE showed he had normal facial expressions, he had adequate eye contact and rapport, he behaved in a normal manner and did not need prompting with no reported specialist input..........

She doesn't say that when she asked how I was feeling right now, I replied words along the lines of "I feel like screaming a load of abuse at you and running out of the room" (which is an effect of my mental health issues)

And she interprets the hospital letters, appointments to see specialists etc as me having no specialist input.

Final two of her quotes which were again repeated throughout

Although he declined to complete MSO, however informal observation showed he appeared to be in discomfort during assessment and mobilising

At the assessment progress he became more visibly fatigued, MSE showed that he appeared to be tired this is consistent with condition history and level of pain medication

Numerous times throughout the medical, she said she can see me dropping more and more, getting more and more fatigued, at the end, she walked up to me and said words along the lines of

"Normally I would ask you to walk to the bench and do an MSO (various exercises, MSO: muscular skeleton observation) but you don't have to do it, and looking at you now, I would advise against it", and I agreed with her.

While it's true that I did decline to do the MSO, it was at her advice, her writing like that doesn't really imply the same thing.


CFS affects different people in different ways. With me, I can get up in the morning, feeling extremely tired, wife will leave for work, during the course of the morning, I will wake up numerous times (I don’t sleep well due to pain) , but I will feel like a zombie, even if I’m bursting to go to the toilet, I will usually fall back to sleep before I’ve plucked up the energy to move.

My wife can put a pint of water and a sandwich next to me at 8am, if she then came home at 4pm, I would be half asleep in the armchair with both untouched. This has happened numerous times when she wasn’t able to return home during the day, I had gone from when she left for work to when she returned without eating or drinking anything.

My long term memory is perfect. I have had most of my illnesses now for about 18 odd years, they are embedded into my memory, I don’t have a problem memorising them, and I can recall some of my medication (I didn’t recall all of it at the medical) .

But the CFS affects my short term memory badly, at least once a fortnight I have no recollection of having taken my medication. I can have a conversation about say what I want for dinner, Then 5 mins later I will ask my wife what we’re having for dinner and she will respond “we just had a 10 min discussion about that and you agreed to have xyz” and I have zero recollection of the conversation taking place.

This sort of thing happens almost daily with one thing or another, and when I forget these things, they never come back. I don’t remember them a few days later.

All the above was on my original PiP form

In December 2018 I did a mindfulness course at my hospitals pain clinic, one of the others on the course also suffered from CFS/ME, he said that he disliked going out as he couldn’t trust his memory as since getting CFS, his short term memory was awful. The more he went into detail, the more like me he sounded. That was a relief to me as I knew at I wasn’t the only one suffering from this
(when you hear of others with CFS and they don't have this problem, you worry it's something else) .

I can read something short, 100% fine. If it’s something I’m concentrating on though, for example reading the medical report, it makes my head go foggy, physically exhausts me etc. The reason I now listen to audio books instead of reading is that due to my CFS/ME I simply can’t cope with the reading.

One of the things with most people who have CFS/ME, if something urgent needs doing, (or if you want to get something off your chest, like this post) we can do it, but pay in a big way in the coming days.

As far as my depression goes, I had a face to face meeting with a CBT therapist on Monday, and she's arranging an hour appointment for the next one.

There is a huge huge huge difference between going to a pre-arranged appointment and engaging with others.

I know I have to talk when I go to a medical, hence I am prepared to do so.

The medical assessor didn’t see how ill, stressed and anxious I was in the week leading up to my assessment, she didn’t see me coming off my diabetes diet as I was so stressed, she didn’t see me drink loads of alcohol every night as I was so worked up/anxious.

She didn't see the state of me for days after

Look at my post history. My PiP assessment was Monday 7th Jan. My last post was on the 5th January, a thread called "reported" where you can see I was all over the place going on about the DWP etc (stressed to breaking point) .

Then look at my next post. 21st January Two weeks and two days later. I haven't been away, I've just been too ill recovering from the experience (Like a zombie due to CFS etc)

What I'm trying to say is, a nurse (she was a nurse) with no real experience in depression or CFS can not possibly understand how it affects someone on a day to day process and any depression/CFS specialist would say with 100% certainty that someone not specialised, can not possibly make a diagnosis based on someone sitting in a chair answering a few questions for 45 mins.

The actual PiP decision was very fair based on what she put in the medical, but again she had failed to understand/grasp how my CFS and mental health affect me.

Some might say it's up to me to portray that. I did on the initial form, I was like a zombie in the medical assessment which is why she kept commenting on me getting more and more fatigued and advising me not to do the MSO.

Anyway another long post Sorry

Alice_Holt

What points did you score, and against which descriptors?

Please just set it out in a simple table, i.e:

Daily Living
Activity 1 Preparing Food....Ib.. 2 points for needing an aid;
Activity 2 Nutrition...............2a.. 0 points; etc, etc

poppy12345

Alice_Holt wrote: »

What points did you score, and against which descriptors?

Please just set it out in a simple table, i.e:

Daily Living
Activity 1 Preparing Food....Ib.. 2 points for needing an aid;
Activity 2 Nutrition...............2a.. 0 points; etc, etc

Thanks Alice, completely agree that simple form is better.


Posts from the OP are as usually far too long and i find it extremely difficult to sit and concentrate to read the whole post.