PIP Review/Change of Circumstances

Good morning everyone,

I'm new to the forum in terms of posting. I just thought I'd come here and share my experience.

When I first applied for PIP in April 2020, I received Standard Daily Living. I did a mandatory reconsideration using your templates - but it was turned down.
I was told to wait for the letter to then appeal at Tribunal. I was waiting, the letter never arrived. I called them again to ask how come I haven't received the Mandatory reconsideration result letter (I had heard the result over the phone). They told me they sent it out, but it must've got lost in the post. Granted, I do have an issue where sometimes I don't receive post due to my address being a little out of the way and some times they get lost if it's not my normal postie.
I expressed my desire to appeal, and I was told over the phone that I was too late as I only had a month from the date. I was fuming, but was told I had no choice but to wait for my renewal.

I had called multiple times after this, expressing that there was a change in circumstances due to the pain I'm in. I have fibromyalgia and arthritis in multiple areas, and chronic pain in my abdomen. I have Autism and ADHD which is only recently been found out. They told me over the phone that my renewal will be due soon so I should wait until my renewal. I took their advice and did so.

Fast forward to February 2023 and I received the Renewal form. I filled in the 'how my disability effects me' form, sent my evidence in etc. They received it and the wait began. I received a text saying they had it and they would look at it soon....

I called a couple of months later, they told me that there was a little back log and if I hadn't heard by end of April 2023, then call back. April came and went!

Since then, I received a further 3 text messages stating they had my form and will look at it soon.

I did call again and state a further change of circumstances, due to my pain increasing. This was when I had discovered about my ADHD and Autism. They said that I could send my evidence in and just add it in to my assessment, when I get that.

I FINALLY received a letter from CAPITA in December, stating that I would have a telephone assessment on 9th January 2024. The panic began! I have social anxiety so when this time came, I was shaking and my entire blood ran cold. My mother was sitting with me to help as I panic on the phone and kept forgetting everything. Panic made my mind go blank! It made me paranoid that the woman who was assessing me would think I was making it up!

Two days later, I received the text message saying they had the written assessment from the assessor and they'd look at it.

I was scouting the forums and reading everyone's experiences because I was so nervous. So scared that they'd take the Standard Daily Living off me because I messed up my assessment. I kept having break downs with fear and worry that I messed my own assessment up and it would be entirely my fault!

Thanks to you all here in the forum and the advice you give, I called DWP and requested the report the assessor had written. I explained as well about the change of circumstances and being told I should WAIT to report my change of circumstances for my renewal. The gentleman was really helpful and put me in touch with one of the decision makers so he could explain it to me.
He offered to send the report so It could give me a basic idea, even though it hadn't been assigned to a decision maker yet. I thanked him and decided to wait.

I received the assessment report 3 nearly 4 weeks ago now. I was upset with a lot of things the lady had noted down a lot of speculation. For example:

"Whilst she reports anxiety in activity 9 SOH shows she is able to engage with manager unaided" -- This I told her the ONLY person at work I was able to comfortably talk to WAS my manager. I explained how i had to have a complete redeployment to another role because my anxiety was prohibiting me from doing my job correctly. I was previously a manager of a team of 7. I explained all this and send in the evidence for it. So I wasn't happy after reading this.

H o w e v e r - Despite her putting a lot of restriction on my claims and explanations, the scores I got using your guides, was that she had given me 12 points for Daily Living and 12 points for Mobility. I was shocked!

I knew that there was still a chance the decision maker wouldn't go with her decision and could decide to not raise anything. I have been literally eating my fingers in anxiousness waiting for the decision letter.

I still have not received one to date - however on Friday 2nd February, at 6am I woke up to £5,000 in my bank account. I nearly choked. I waited until 9am to call PIP and the auto message that tells you what you'll get on your next payment date - told me that I was getting Enhanced on both!!

I burst into tears and started thanking all the deities I could think of for the help, and I wanted to thank everyone. Every single person on this forum who had written about their experiences, and all replies because it helped me and I wouldn't have gotten through it without you all and knowing there were a lot of people going through similar things.

I am so grateful. Good luck to everyone else and I renewed my subscription just to say thank you to everyone

Thanks all,

Nymeria x