PIP Meltdown

To All,
It's taken a year for me to reply with a huge Thank-you with all of your posts of help and the amazing PM messages of love recieved. Unfortunately I have been in a very dark and nasty place - although not entirely out of the woods yet I felt obliged to update you all. I am still here, hanging by a thread, with a massive sticky plaster added to help last week. 52 weeks later, PIP decision was thrown out by judge - it took 41 weeks to get to court.

I have hopefully passed some helpful information of my PIP experience onto another thread in the hope that it can help some-body else.

Thank-you for all being so kind - its not over - but here is to hoping that life is going in the right direction. x

Hi xXMessedUpXx, to be honest I am still slightly unsure of what exactly happened at the appeal. I went with support workers and we didn't need to say a word. The judge asked the DWP lady to explain why my original decision was superceeded - her response was to apologize because she could find no defence. The DWP had failed to respond to her requests for clarrification.

This all occurred because I received a review form (2nd one in 16 months - 1st was paperbased resulting in no care change but standard mobility removed). This review form resulted in a face-to-face ATOS appointment from hell, followed by DWP stopping my award 2 weeks later. The judge asked 'what medical evidence was available that over rode the original evidence and would have given reason for cancelling my award'? The DWP representative replied 'She couldn't provide any defence or evidence based on the information she had'. All recent medical information provided supported original evidence. The only piece of contradictory (non-medical) evidence was the ATOS health assessors report. I will now add that, since meeting various welfare and support agencies, all have said 'if they get this particular ATOS assessor for their clients, they specifically request another appointment'.

The judge, with immediate agreement from the DWP lady, 'set aside' the appeal. Reinstating my original award from Dec 16, when it was cancelled. The problem now is, my original award expired a few months ago, I have had to submit a new claim immediately (and the forms have already arrived). But, the judge also directed that 'if I receive a further award, DWP should consider claim from expiry, due to DWP failure to provide renewal paperwork whilst appeal was ongoing. The DWP lady agreed with the judge, that she would also put forward this recommendation, but it will ultimately be down to the decision makers.

I won the appeal 3 weeks ago. Today I rang the DWP helpline to be informed that I am unlikely to get any response regarding back payments until, at least, later part of Febuary. It will actually have been 63 weeks since they stopped my award, 42 weeks of which have been reinstated, by the time I even find out if they are going to honour the appeal judge decision.

These last 18 months have been sheer hell, including total mental and physical breakdown, too ill to work, severe harrassment and intimidation issues with Landlord (very complex situation), loss of my dad, and the usual dramas with my high funtioning ASD teenager. As I explained in a previous post, although I am happy the appeal awarded in my favour, it is just a very large sticking plaster, that hopefully can help me hold things together for a little longer.

P.S. During this time fortunately I have survived on tax credits and carers allowance. Wild horses wouldn't drag me to apply for ESA in any capacity. I have read far too much to know that I couldn't face another ATOS medical. Although I was also called in for interview regarding my carers allowance claim, as the ATOS assessor had suggested that it would require further investigation on my health report.