Criteria for PIP

[Deleted User]

sevenhills said:

poppy12345 said:

Again, this tells me that you have very little understanding of the PIP descriptors and criteria.

Unless you know everything about her health conditions and how they affect her then you can't just assume she's not affected.

I have zero experience of claiming PIP, but my ex-wifes experience leads my to believe it's easy to get.
I am sitting next to her now and she has no pain now, very little when she claimed. She cleans her dad's house, even though she is meant to have a bad back.

It really is NOT "easy to get",  most of the people who get it would swap the pain and inability to do things for themself in a heart beat . It's very easy to see someone who gets PIP  on a 'good' day and think they're fine,, but see them the next day and they may be crying with pain, not able to even walk to the front door, or do anything much of anything. Of course someone who is in pain still tries to do what they can, whether they get PIP or not, no one wants to feel themselves to be useless! 

Spoonie_Turtle

sevenhills said:

poppy12345 said:

Again, this tells me that you have very little understanding of the PIP descriptors and criteria.

Unless you know everything about her health conditions and how they affect her then you can't just assume she's not affected.

I have zero experience of claiming PIP, but my ex-wifes experience leads my to believe it's easy to get.
I am sitting next to her now and she has no pain now, very little when she claimed. She cleans her dad's house, even though she is meant to have a bad back.

a) irrelevant, PIP is based on the majority of the time not just a random snapshot.

b) how do you know?  Are you telepathically linked?  Even if she says she's not in pain, that's probably chronic pain language for 'no more than usual'.  Chances are she wouldn't give you a full and accurate answer, from just your posts here it's clear you wouldn't believe her, you already accuse her of making a drama about medical things.

sevenhills

[Deleted User] said:

Of course someone who is in pain still tries to do what they can, whether they get PIP or not, no one wants to feel themselves to be useless! 

She is not the sort of person to be in pain and not tell everyone.

Muttleythefrog

sevenhills said:

poppy12345 said:

Again, this tells me that you have very little understanding of the PIP descriptors and criteria.

Unless you know everything about her health conditions and how they affect her then you can't just assume she's not affected.

I have zero experience of claiming PIP, but my ex-wifes experience leads my to believe it's easy to get.
I am sitting next to her now and she has no pain now, very little when she claimed. She cleans her dad's house, even though she is meant to have a bad back.

PIP is usually quite difficult to get in that you need to be convincing that you suffer disablements in daily life. You've been given appropriate links regarding the criteria which you can look at to see if you would reach the benchmarks of disability for an award.
Any savings or working status are ignored although obviously the nature of someone's work might shed light on their disablements or lack thereof. 

As advised PIP is awarded based on looking at various activities and whether disability, injury or illness affects you in those activities. To that end a diagnosis can be helpful in validating/explaining claimed disablements but it is the disablements themselves which are examined for relevance.

General point... for hidden illness and disability it is very common for people to make false assumptions... and in my experience, and certainly plenty others I see detailing their issues, the greatest ignorance and sometimes wishful dismissal of problems comes from close quarters like family.  There is fraud in the system but for the most part the issue is disabled people trying to get what they're actually entitled to.

If your ex wife has had altered disability then if relevant to her claim it needs reporting by her... but I would query if you know full circumstances as often people will try to conceal illness or the symptoms. Being able to clean a house does not mean she would not qualify for PIP even if her only problem was a bad back... the criteria as such, for example, has to examine if she could do various activities to acceptable standard. 

There's nothing to stop you claiming PIP but first step I would suggest is to ignore what you think is the reality of PIP based on your ex wife's circumstances as reported/believed as it could take you up a blind alley of frustration.

poppy12345

sevenhills said:

poppy12345 said:

Again, this tells me that you have very little understanding of the PIP descriptors and criteria.

Unless you know everything about her health conditions and how they affect her then you can't just assume she's not affected.

I have zero experience of claiming PIP, but my ex-wifes experience leads my to believe it's easy to get.
I am sitting next to her now and she has no pain now, very little when she claimed. She cleans her dad's house, even though she is meant to have a bad back.

Isn't that a very good thing? I have chronic pain but i have times during the day when my pain is less. From the evening onwards my pain levels are through the roof because i've done all i can do during the day and everything i've done is then catching up with me. Just because she doesn't have pain at that moment she's sat right next to you then it doesn't mean she doesn't have any pain at all the majority of the time.

So she cleans her dads house, that's good and i'm glad she's helping her dad. I clean my house too and i will sometimes help my daughter with my grandchildren but this doesn't mean i dont have a health condition, that causes chronic pain.

When you're claiming benefits you don't have to be in bed the whole time and you don't have to have issues all the time. PIP is about the majority of the time not ALL the time.

I can quite easily put a smile on my face to please others, even for my children. They have no idea of the pain i experience 7 days a week, 365 days a year but just because i don't say anything doesn't mean i don't suffer.

tifo

Spoonie_Turtle said:

You need to know that people with chronic pain don't tend to act like they're in pain because if they did they'd never have time or energy for anything else.  Ignorant people tend to expect pain to look a certain way and then dismiss it if it doesn't look the way they think it should (and that includes medical professionals). 

It is very difficult to get PIP, the descriptors to score are a very high threshold, she doesn't get it for nothing. 

This is my experience with the medical professionals and pain/affect on daily life.

In my opinion PIP is very hard to get but then some people seem to have no visible issues and get the enhanced rates.

A little anecdote, a friend has cancer for several years and applied for PIP. Many of the other patients from the same treatment ward also applied for PIP. He got turned down, no award, but many of the other patients received the lower or higher award. It would be reasonable to assume that the same cancer would affect people the same way but the PIP assessors don't see it this way. I'd say it's some evidence that it depends on who you get on the day.

My friend got the lower PIP award at tribunal and still can't understand how and why some other patients with the same cancer and affects on daily life got the higher award, mostly at assessment.

poppy12345

tifo said:

In my opinion PIP is very hard to get but then some people seem to have no visible issues and get the enhanced rates.

That's simply because invisible health conditions do exist. Just because you can't see a health condition doesn't mean they don't struggle with daily life. My daughter for example, if you looked at her you would think there's nothing wrong. Spend a day with her and it would soon become very clear at the struggles she faces every single day.

tifo said:

A little anecdote, a friend has cancer for several years and applied for PIP. Many of the other patients from the same treatment ward also applied for PIP. He got turned down, no award, but many of the other patients received the lower or higher award. It would be reasonable to assume that the same cancer would affect people the same way but the PIP assessors don't see it this way.

Indeed that's because PIP isn't awarded based on any diagnosis. You will never get 2 people that experience the same symptoms. It's not reasonable to assume that everyone with the same health conditions experience all the same symptoms, far from it.

calcotti

tifo said:. It would be reasonable to assume that the same cancer would affect people the same way but the PIP assessors don't see it this way.

It would be completely unreasonable to assume that because it simply isn’t true. Some people with cancer have no impact on their ability to do things (other than short term post operative recovery which is not relevant for PIP). Other people with the same cance4 diagnosis maybe affected very differently.

mumf

I was awarded PIP in less than a week. In full. 6 weeks ago I found out I had a category 4 brain tumour. Most was removed,but it won’t go away. Even with the treatment I get,it will never go away.So now I have a life - limit .To look at me ( with a hat on!) folks may wonder how I can claim. It’s a good job I can though,as my energy level is smashed ,and work impossible now. 

Illness of all sorts I have become aware of,with my hospital visits. Not always obvious.

calcotti

mumf said:

Illness of all sorts I have become aware of,with my hospital visits. Not always obvious.

Undoubtedly true. But also true that being ill doesn't necessarily have an impact on the ability to do things.