Daughter denied PIP after assessment - need help

sharron wrote: My daughter has been on DLA for the past four years due to her having ME and liver diesase. We have had to transfer over to pip because she is now 16.
The assessor came to the house to asses my daughter, I got my daughter out of bed for the assessment, she was walking with a stick and by me holding her up the other side. We answered her questions to which my daughter couldn't do the memory questions, we explained that someone gets her tablets, she can't cook a meal, can't dress herself etc to find out today that the assessor put the total opposite down to what we said.
We are going to go through the process of appeal, can anyone give me guidance as to what we do and how we go about the process please.
Thank you.

The first stage to challenging a Decision is for you to request a Mandatory Reconsideration, this needs to be done in writing to the DWP, within one month of the Decision, to the office that dealt with her claim, have a look at our PIP MR & Appeal guide for details of the process, the PIP area also has template letters that you can use to make the request with.

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/help-for-claimants/pip

You should contact the DWP for a copy of the assessment report if you have not already done so, I would phone them but again follow up the request in writing. Once you have the assessment report you will have a better understanding of how the DWP Decision Maker has come to their conclusions and will then be able to argue against them.

Your primary task is to show that she meets the criteria, there are many reasons she may have failed, you need to address each of these but don't get bogged down in criticising the assessment report unless you can clearly show that it is incorrect, it is a lot easier to argue the facts of the situation;

"the assessor recorded that she walked 50m, she did but they have failed to document that she had to stop every 10m for a rest due to breathlessness"

than their opinions

"based on my observations of the claimant walking I believe that they can reliably walk more than 200m.

When you have a better idea of the issues with your claim, come back to the forum and we will do our best to help.

Gordon

sharron

I would go through your PIP2 and the PIP Claim guide to make sure that you have shown that you meet the criteria to score points. Make sure that you have used "reliably" and "on the majority of days" where applicable.

Make notes as you go if there are any discrepancies and of the primary reasons that you should score and keep this by the phone so your can refer to it when they ring.

The DM is looking to see whether there are any misunderstandings in your assessment that might mean that you can score higher.

Gordon