ESA and PIP appeals WON in space of 24 hours

Hello good and great folks here

I have not ever really posted before but wanted to share the following that has happened to a dear friend on mine over the last six months or so

Back in February he rec'd his PIP form, having been on DLA for many many years (since around 1992) due to various issues with his health and mental state. At the same time he had been assessed for ESA in 2012 and been placed in support group for that since 2012 with one re-assessment in 2013

Anyway, the first bit of good news was that he was given an award for PIP (11 points for daily living) but that was tempered by getting yet another call in for ESA in March.

In meantime my friend decided to appeal PIP as he was only one point short of enhanced rate....

ESA was re-accessed and (what a surprise) was found to have ZERO points and not eligible for support group.....

Thus his whole summer was cued up to be mandatory reconsiderations, appeals and general vileness for both PIP and ESA at the same time....

To cut a very long story, and lots and lots of help from the manuals and forums on this fantastic website, he finally got the call for both appeals.....yep you can see how this is going, BOTH appeals came through at the same time, Monday and Tuesday (so yesterday and today). The main case for both appeals was chronic anxiety and depression related to a long term diagnosis from which there is no real possibility of recovery or improvement, so as you can imagine my friend was going a bit off the rails with the thought of having both appeals within 24 hours of each other.......

However the great news is
1. PIP appeal upheld and points increased from 11 to 18!!! Enhanced rate daily living awarded
2. ESA appeal upheld and points from zero to 18 and placing into Support Group for the maximum allowed time of 2 years under exceptional circumstances rules

To say that he was overjoyed is an understatement, but the best part of the day was when the ESA judge was informed (after ruling) that my friend had had his PIP the day before and that BOTH judges had ruled in almost the exact same way without knowing the other case was going on

My point in all this is that yes you can win, it's not an easy road, it's fraught with pitfalls, but with advice and help you can succeed.....even when fighting both PIP and ESA at the same time

I hope just one person here takes comfort from this and gets some help

Love to you all and good luck with whatever stage you are at

Hi and welcome to the forum. What a lovely reason for your first message!

Your poor friend must have been under terrible stress with both of these coming at once. I'm glad he had you to support him.

Thanks for letting us know and for your kind words about B+W

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Hello, so glad to hear about your friends great news, and also congrats to him for having such a great friend!

Thanks I will amend it

It was pretty crap for him to be honest. Dealing with one was bad enough, but two at the same time was vile.
Thankfully he got an initial award under PIP so he was not totally devoid of money and did not have to goon JSA when ESA stopped as he managed to survive for the 6 weeks or so before the appeal was accepted.
It wasn't easy though

This site is amazing though and does great work