Medical Reports

Dear Gordon ,
The Tribunal accepted the X-ray Evidence was applicable to the time.
will send further thx

Luke,

There is little I can add to the comments I've already made and until I retired in 2005 as well as being a moderator here, I was a Welfare Rights Lawyer & former DLA Tribunal Member, so I am familiar in representing clients at Tribunals, now called First-tier Tribunals, and with Appeals which were heard by Social Security Commissioners, now called Upper Tribunal Judges.

Although titles have changed, the procedures are still the same, except for the point I made where before accepting an appeal, it is a requirement that a Mandatory Reconsideration is made before the DWP will consider an appeal. These new regulations were not made by the DWP, but by new legislation and statutory instruments introduced by the Coalition Government, some of which I predict will be appealed in the future.

As I've already explained, moderators cannot and are not authorised to give advice on individual claims in the Forum. We currently only have a handful of Moderators dealing with the forum:
bro58, Gareth , Gordon, Mrs Hurtyback, Puccalove and myself. We are all volunteers and all have chronic ill-health and or severe disability ourselves, so frequently not all moderators are online.

Often we respond to 30 plus new posts each day, not to mention follow up replies, so it is an impossible task to give advice on an individual member's claim. Also, the forum is provided as a courtesy to members, it is not part of your membership which is charged to access our guides.

The preamble in the forum clearly states : Please note: this forum is provided as a courtesy for members to share experiences, we don’t guarantee an answer to your query.

Gordon and I have done our best to answer your queries to the best of our knowledge and experience, but unless any other moderator has something to add, then I'm afraid we cannot reply to any further queries in this thread.

I'm not sure if you're aware, but even if you decide to appeal to the Upper Tribunal, there is nothing to stop you making a new claim, which can run in tandem to an appeal to a FtT or to a UT.

Best wishes.

Jim

Dear Gordon,
Unfortunately when writing and making points it is sometimes difficult not to make assumptions that the person will understand and appreciate all of the circumstances from what is written.

The Tribunal stated in their reasons that the best Evidence came from two sources, those being the August x-ray result and report which detailed the clinical condition of anterior lipping in the L4/L5 vetrtebrae and which the GP confirmed was causing persistant lower Back Pain and which was accepted by the Tribunal as being a medical condition obtaining at relevant dates and time of claim and also that from the Physiotherapist report of 11th June 2013 in which she stated that she knew of no aggravating factors in relation to my spinal function(despite her knowing that I have cervical spondylosis) and the therapist giving an opinion of what she allegedly believed that I would be able to do with no problems in respect of pain or breathlessness as regards my walking ability without any actual observations made by me of that walking she describes, which is hypothetical.( Nonsense actually because I am the one who has the problems with my pain and breathlessness not her)

Obviously she could not be aware of the lipping in my vertebrae as the X-ray evidence of that was not available to her at the time she made her report which was actually contradictory to a previous Report containing matters that she sent to my GP in April when she had discharged me stating that I may have Psoriatic Arthritis but which the Tribunal dismissed as being simply a Standard Discharge letter.

However although I have argued that the Report of the physiotherapist is deficient because of the fact that she did not know of the lipping identified from the x-ray, which is clearly an aggravating factor causing my pain and severe discomfort and thereby confirming the extent of my disability as being sufficient to satisfy the criteria for an award of HR DLA mobility component the Tribunal have regarded the Physiotherapist's report as factual evidence that shows that the clinical condition of my spine identified by the x-ray is only a slight and minimal disability.

I have even provided proof that the clinical condition that has been identified in my vertebrae gives rise to severe pain in persons generally 10 -15 years younger than myself who have had to have operations and cages inserted and which is what I am suffering from constantly but which the tribunal pass off as me having some pain when walking although apparently the physio a couple of months after telling my doctor that I have pain made a report for the DM which says I have none at all.

The Tribunal has either decided that the X-Ray report confirms the Physiotherapists opinion rather than contradicting it or else they have decided that her opinion and her report confirms that lipping on the vertebrae which causes everyone else severe pain and requiring operations is a minor ailment.

I have even pointed out that in America persons with lipping in the L4/L5 vertebrae are automatically entitled to be registered as severely disabled when suffering from that clinical condition and given details of my sister in law who with the exact same condition had to have surgery to insert a cage.

I hope this explains my predicament Gordon and many thanks for your time and help which is appreciated
kind Regards
Luke

Jim,
Thanks a lot for your time.
I am just trying to obtain as much information as I can to try and put this matter right.
I am going to try and get help with my appeal from the Welfare Rights because I do not think the way the system now works that I have got an earthly chance of being granted leave to appeal by the UT even if I can show a hundred errors of law because just as the FTT judge has said to me that I have not shown any arguable errors of law,Material to his decision I believe they will just state the same even though all case law that concerns the same Criteria for entitlement must be Material to all of the decisions unless the Tribunal were using different criteria for me than applies to everyone else which to my mind is exactly what has happened with the opinion of the physio.
kind Regards for your time and help
Luke