DLA to PIP refused

Received 4 points for daily living ;
2 for aid for cooking and 2 for help with dressing.

I have an injury from childhood which has stunted growth on arm/hand and limited finger / wrist movement and nerve damage means I am unable feel most of the hand and fingers. Because I am able to drive a manual car , it looks like they do not believe that I need assistance to cook (peel/cut/chop etc) so only awarded to points , not the 4 I was expecting. , and the 2 points expected for not being able to cut food up. (taking nutrition)

My question is , is this a blanket judgement they use regarding driving and preparing food , or do they take other considerations into account.?
They seem to have paid no attention to the fact it is my right arm (grips power steering and use my fist to knock indicator up or down) , so limited use in driving and no mention of lack of fine finger movement and no feeling in fingers and hand which puts a stop to me using anything sharp or hot. Should I submit all this at the MR stage or would this be tribunal stuff.
I have just got hold of the hospital records with the neurologists test results and observations which back up what I am sayin , but wasn't able to get hold of these before decision made as all my doctors notes got lost when I transferred so had to make a SAR request.

Hi Shaun and Welcome to the forum, you might want to have a look at the following FAQ which explain where everything is

Welcome to Benefits and Work

I'm sorry to hear that your PIP claim has been refused

There are 2 school of thought regarding MRs -

The first says to do everything possible to try and get the MR in your favour. No point in going to appeal if it is not necessary.

The other says that MRs rarely do anything other than 'rubber stamp' the original decision so there is no point in wasting time and energy on it. Get it over as quickly as possible and move on to appeal.

Which opinion you prefer is entirely up to you, there are merits for both.

The PIP guide explains the MR process so I suggest you start there.

PIP help for claimants

You might wish to favourite/bookmark this on your web browser now so that you can find it easily in future. This will allow you to return with further questions or comments about your PIP without having to start a new topic each time. It helps us enormously when everything relating to the same claim is kept in one place - and I hope you will find it useful too

Thank you for your quick response.

I guess my main question before I take it further is if anyone knows if that is the definitive guide ie if you can drive a manual car then you can cook/prepare food , end of story? If that is the case I do not see a route to getting the 8 points I need. If it is more of a guideline then it is worth taking it further.
Any thoughts / info that you can share on the cooking/driving roadblock they have put in front of me , I would be interested in hearing.

Thank you again for any input

Thanks Gordon.

2 points were awarded for needing assistance in dressing (not able to tie shoelaces , do cuffs etc) , so my fine finger movement (lack of) and nerve damaged hands must have been taken into account there , but ignored when it came to handling sharp objects/open flames/hot pans etc. Seems inconsistent and contradictory.

The qualifications of the assessor who did the home visit was that she used to run a care home , and she could not have been less interested. At no stage did she ask me to demonstrate movement in fingers or wrists , just asked me to cross my arms and grip her fingers.

In terms of lack of sensation , she had no way of knowing if that was true or not , but hopefully my neurologists reports from 10 years ago might have some weight.

I am currently getting DLA originally for not being able to cook when I constantly asked for it to be looked at again it always went against me that I drive a manual car. In the end took it to appeal and won they even asked about driving.