PIP was 2nd claim with new conditions but from 15 April 2025 new 3rd claim as advised.

peteuk

ayupmeduck said:

Mental health (unless severe anxiety leading to mutism) is not considered within communication. MH is considered within engaging. Reading is - can you read...yes you can you have a driving licence. MH does not come into reading.

Communicating as in speaking in sentences & reading are very basic in term of what they look for.

 This echoes what I have previously said. (Thank you @a@ayupmeduck)

Certain activities are "paired" together so that the different types of conditions are taken into account.  Communication and engaging with others does this. Communicating (physical and cognitive conditions), eg reading, listening, talking.  Engaging (mental health) the social aspect of communicating.  The two mobility activities are similarly paired. 

When discusing your social situation you may have been asked about education, this shows the cognitive ability to learn.  Unless you have dyslexia (which can in some cases be overcome) or have had a physical condition that then affects the abilty to do so, either at a younger age or later in life eg stroke.  Then you will not score for this activity.  

Where as mental health does come into engaging. 

tifo

ayupmeduck said:

Vision is only considered when it affects both eyes, so having issues with the second eye only occasionally and you being able to drive the rest of the time (whether you do or not) is the point. They don't care how many miles you drive, it could be just to the end of the road but you are driving. 

As you  haven't been told to give up your licence, then your vision is fine for PIP purposes. 

I know, and the point is i've never said my vision isn't fine in any assessments, lack of vision is nowhere in my claim .... i say one eye (blind) is always (100% of the time) affected because of the conditions i have and this affects my daily living, physically and mentally (pain (more than 50% of the time), migraine left side (occasionally), high eye pressure (40+, 100% of the time), several inflammations (100% of the time), tears (more than 50% of the time)). The second eye has occasional issues but nothing substantial to worry my consultant or his team (regular hospital check-ups) but they keep an eye on it (pun intended) because if i get the same conditions in my other eye it'll be leading to blindness.

tifo

I get it that they use having a driving license as a reason for no points across multiple activities even when millions of successful PIP claimants have a driving license and even if i don't drive (as many people with a driving license don't) but i don't get how they can use the lack of a blue badge as reasons that mobility across multiple activities is fine. This is a new one to me this time. PIP and a blue badge have different criteria and assessments and a blue badge is only for parking a vehicle outside. I could have a driving license but no car hence no need for a blue badge.

But if I had a blue badge i bet they wouldn't say i have mobility problems because of it ...

born_again

tifo said:

ayupmeduck said:

Vision is only considered when it affects both eyes, so having issues with the second eye only occasionally and you being able to drive the rest of the time (whether you do or not) is the point. They don't care how many miles you drive, it could be just to the end of the road but you are driving. 

As you  haven't been told to give up your licence, then your vision is fine for PIP purposes. 

I know, and the point is i've never said my vision isn't fine in any assessments, lack of vision is nowhere in my claim .... i say one eye (blind) is always (100% of the time) affected because of the conditions i have and this affects my daily living, physically and mentally (pain (more than 50% of the time), migraine left side (occasionally), high eye pressure (40+, 100% of the time), several inflammations (100% of the time), tears (more than 50% of the time)). The second eye has occasional issues but nothing substantial to worry my consultant or his team (regular hospital check-ups) but they keep an eye on it (pun intended) because if i get the same conditions in my other eye it'll be leading to blindness.

I found that contradictory. Either it is or it isn't?

If this is how you come across in assessments, then I can see why you keep getting declined.

As it effects your daily living then it should be part of your reasons & explanations on how it effects your actions in the descriptors.

On engaging with other people. I have this with my wife.
Walk into a room of people, or out & about & she will not talk to anyone, other than me. Unless they talk to her & even then it is often a simple yes/no.
But assessor said she is fine, as she answered questions asked...

I know you posted in another section, quite a while ago about another issue you have & feel that this part of your driver to want to get PIP.

Muttleythefrog

tifo said:

I get it that they use having a driving license as a reason for no points across multiple activities even when millions of successful PIP claimants have a driving license and even if i don't drive (as many people with a driving license don't) but i don't get how they can use the lack of a blue badge as reasons that mobility across multiple activities is fine. This is a new one to me this time. PIP and a blue badge have different criteria and assessments and a blue badge is only for parking a vehicle outside. I could have a driving license but no car hence no need for a blue badge.

But if I had a blue badge i bet they wouldn't say i have mobility problems because of it ...

It's an observation... evidence... they're entitled to ask you for it and entitled to use it - stop complaining about someone doing their job (just because they didn't do it exactly the same as someone else you also had issue with) as it will not achieve anything useful for you! I suspect they lack credible evidence from you as you repeatedly prove to not be reliable in giving it... another example above where seemingly your vision in not relevant to this PIP claim yet you then detail it is.. where does truth lie... I'm sure you'll find some way to fudge an argument that both are true... in that it's not the vision but the other issues... but I'm exhausted trying to estimate your truths and claim details. As above I can quite believe it when you say you do not get believed or claim your words are twisted. PIP assessors will take facts they obtain and extrapolate them.. sometimes they go too far (I've been victim myself with the good old 'you had standard education decades ago so have no cognitive problem')... but the lack of a blue badge allows them to make certain inferences alongside things like the fact you are fit to drive and do drive. Yes this observation may be new to you.. but as explained.. every assessment is unique... and every assessor will ask questions they see fit given their training and the case in hand. If you have another assessment in the future expect to face a different assessor who asks some similar and some different questions to previous ones. They're trying to get at your truth... and frankly it seems a difficult task.. because after 47 pages here I know I have failed to and I think now I have spent more time considering your PIP circumstances than dealing with my own PIP claims.

The millions of other people who get PIP and have a driving licence presumably have different disablement to you. Those other people are essentially irrelevant to your case and create no argument whatsoever to get PIP. Of course if you did want to pursue that nonsense.... the vast majority of people with a driving licence do not get PIP.. debate over! 

"I could have a driving license but no car hence no need for a blue badge." - but you do have a car... so it's an utterly worthless point... if you didn't have a vehicle and didn't drive you could tell them that! Similarly people who don't drive or have a vehicle can have a blue badge... like me.. not relevant to your case.. move on!

tifo

born_again said:

I know, and the point is i've never said my vision isn't fine in any assessments, lack of vision is nowhere in my claim .... i say one eye (blind) is always (100% of the time) affected because of the conditions i have and this affects my daily living, physically and mentally (pain (more than 50% of the time), migraine left side (occasionally), high eye pressure (40+, 100% of the time), several inflammations (100% of the time), tears (more than 50% of the time)). The second eye has occasional issues but nothing substantial to worry my consultant or his team (regular hospital check-ups) but they keep an eye on it (pun intended) because if i get the same conditions in my other eye it'll be leading to blindness.

I found that contradictory. Either it is or it isn't?

If this is how you come across in assessments, then I can see why you keep getting declined.

As it effects your daily living then it should be part of your reasons & explanations on how it effects your actions in the descriptors.

I genuinely don't understand why it's contradictory .... i don't claim any lack of vision but that the inflamed, painful left eye affects my daily living, not mobility, and there's only occasional issues with the right eye but no vision issues, i.e. i can see fine with it. This is demonstrated from my regular eye tests.

tifo

@Muttleythefrog "I think now I have spent more time considering your PIP circumstances".

I know, it's appreciated and your posts are insightful even if i don't always reply directly to them i do note the points you make from your experiences and knowledge.

Of course, the same goes to the other posters who've helped me.

tifo

I know by now that the assessments aren't always fair (not me but for a lot of other people too) and it's a running theme that most claimants have problems with their report. It's more a cost saving exercise than an assessment and many people will give up at the report stage or after an MR. Only some will go to a tribunal. None of it is an easy process.

tifo

The assessor seems to have looked at the evidence i sent but in the report she refers to a few documents and for many issues she says 'no FE submitted' even though i did for that issue.

She kept referring to the latest GP record from May this year when i submitted the claim but there are also 2 others from January this year and October last year. For example, she says there's no evidence of OA yet the GP record from October clearly has a full paragraph from the hospital x-rays and a letter they sent to the GP. It's not in the later GP records but the records are a summary not a full print. She even read out the paragraph to me in the assessment call and i said "yes, that's for the OA". In the report she says there's no FE for OA.

I asked if she'd looked at all the evidence i'd submitted and she said "Yes".

tifo

For example, in mobility she asked if i can walk for 10 minutes (now seems like a trap question) and i said "yes but with a 5 min rest after 2-3 mins" so i'm only walking for 5 mins max, that's with the gout flare up and OA.

In the report she's said "able to walk around the block for 10 minutes" but in the FH she says "he stops a couple of times within the 10 minutes after 2-3 minutes he stopped for about 5 minutes" and in the activity report "able to mobilise further than 200 metres reliably". I know they don't include stops as a actual stop but even then i wouldn't walk 200 metres in 5 mins of actual walking, going slower and taking longer than a person without my issues.

Is it the case that if i take 30 mins to walk a distance but stop 3 times for 5 mins so actual walking is 15 mins they can say it was 30 minutes of walking and hence over 200 metres (which is why they say it).

The sections 'recommendation and evidence used' and 'reported restrictions not supported' seem to have the same text across all activities, as if it's been copied and pasted. This is why most have 'has driving license' and 'no blue badge' even where these are not relevant (to me).