ringing in the evening

ac

Sometimes follow-up calls do happen. The questions on how long it takes you to walk a given distance allow the assessor to calculate how fast you walk and whether you are walking to a necessary standard and half as fast as an able person might, things that can lead to points.

Gordon

denby

Yes and no, or more appropriately no and yes!

Walking in pain does not mean that it is not to an acceptable standard, remember the primary assessment for Moving Around is the distance, walking 200m in pain is unlikely to convince an assessor that a person should score.

There is Case Law but it looks at pain and a number of other factors such as stopping, speed of walking, whether it is repeatable and the speed of the walking.

You could certainly argue that severe pain (note: this is not defined in law) means that it is not to a necessary standard and of course, pain that limits the distance that can be walked should always be considered.

As always it is consistency that matters, saying you are in pain walking and then telling the assessor that they go shopping will undermine the argument.

Where shorter distances are being looked at and in particular less than 20m then it would be reasonable to assume that the claimants walking in the house will also be limited, even though the test itself only looks at moving around outside. I always suggest members time themselves moving around their house and to measure distances from, for example; where they sit to to the toilet and to do this over a period of time so they have a dataset of their limitations. Empirical data will always help overcome the assessor's assumptions.

Gordon