Pip awarded

ray wrote: transfering to pip from DLA, consulted the guides on BW filled the forms in for my wife and waited. she had a F2F on 30 DEC got the results yesterday, standard rate for living and enhanced rate for mobility. disappointed, "HP" WAS A NIGHTMARE. He turned up early, used leading questions and refused to allow my wife to refer to me foe anything she could not understand. I might as well have been invisible, still deciding if its worth going for mandatory reconsideration or not ?

I've moved your post to it's own topic.

PIP was designed to be more difficult to award than DLA, also, if your wife was receiving HRC then this was because she had care needs both day and night, PIP is based on the severity of her conditions and takes limited account of when in the day that the claimant is effected, so there is no direct comparison.

If you decide the pursue the matter then you need to be aware that both an MR and an appeal re-make the original Decision so it is possible for there to be a reduction in your current award or even it's removal, it doesn't happen very often, but it does happen.

Two things to consider, how secure is your current award, for the Standard rates you need to have scored 8 points and 12 for the Enhanced, so if your scores were higher than this then you have a safety buffer if points are removed.

Secondly, are you to score the extra points to give you an Enhanced award in the Daily Living component. Be harsh with your scoring as the DWP will be. Also, how many points do you need to score, if you already have 11 then getting a higher award will be easier (in principle), than if you only have 8 points and need to score another 4.

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 your 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 you meet the criteria, there are many reasons you 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 I walked 50m, I did but they have failed to document that I 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