'Illegible' Medical Records

Hello Alice-Anne,

Do you agree that they are illegible? I guess if they truly are then there is little you can do, however, if they are simply difficult to read then I would suggest that you do your best to transcribe them (even if you have to insert 'xxx' for the odd word you can't work out) and submit your transcription alongside the originals. (If you happen to have a friend with a medical background who will countersign your transcription as being reasonable, that would help even more!)

Beyond that I fear that I am out of ideas, sorry
Catherine

Hi Alice Anne

I wonder whether there could possibly be another problem alongside eligibility. You said in your first post to Catherine that you gave them twenty years of medical records. I don't know how many pages that is or whether all of it is relevant to your PIP application. What I mean is are they having to pick out the mental health issues among other medical conditions? Either way, 20 years is a lot - so if you haven't already - I would try and produce a table with a timeline that they can more easily absorb the information. So in the first column you have a date - in column 2 - the medical condition - in column 3 - reference to the letter or page of medical records and in column 4 - which of the PIP criteria that it is covering.
They may have looked at the pile of notes and not wanted to unpick it.

When I help people fill out PIP forms, I always put in a timeline as well as I put a reference within each question - so they can't pretend the evidence isn't relevant. So I would be saying "X is unable to prepare a basic meal because of their severe depression (see letter A1. 3/04/2016 from Dr. Y - Consultant Psychiatrist), They do not have the motivation, they have tremors from their medication meaning they can't carry heavy pans and because of their mental state cannot handle knives."

It can be time-consuming if you have a lot of evidence, but I try to make it as simple for the reader as possible. At a bare minimum, I would put in a timeline.

BIS