Lower rate DLA, no mobility, should we appeal?

Oh the doctor doing the assessment threw the walking stick away, how awful. You are right they arent there to advise on treatment.

You may find these links useful www.ukfibromyalgia.com & www.fibromyalgia-associationuk.org

robin wrote:

Fibromyalgia is a complicated condition, some days my partner does very much need the walking stick as he suffers from falls.

I was under the impression that the Dr doing the medical was to assess your condition and not to judge or advise treatment, or am I wrong?

tricky one he is there to assess not to judge but if he really thought no stick was needed and did not say he is in breech of his duty of care using a stick where not needed can affect the hip on the other side of the body

by making such a statement which might differ with your partners own dr(you never said if the dr told him to use a stick) he is going out on a limb (sorry the pun)

Thank you all for taking the time to reply. I think what we will do is hold off for a moment, to gather more information. The award has been made for three years. the fear is that we could lose what we have been given, even though we honestly believe we are fully entitled to lower rate mobility and really do need the money.

Gathering more evidence sounds like a good idea Robin. Theres always the danger that you could lose what you have been given without further supporting evidence.

Regards

robin wrote:

Thank you all for taking the time to reply. I think what we will do is hold off for a moment, to gather more information. The award has been made for three years. the fear is that we could lose what we have been given, even though we honestly believe we are fully entitled to lower rate mobility and really do need the money.

Would still be very interested to know who said use a Walking stick in the first place, If its his/her dr or the local OT department then IMO thats very naughty of the atos dr to say to do not use it.

If you feel you have a strong case for mobility, you can ask them to just look at that and NOT to look at care. I had higher rate mobility indef and when I aksed them to look at care I wrote on the mobility part of the paper work
"NO change please just look at care" and got middle rate care indef. you would have to write something very strange IMO to lose what you have, and if you take expert advise they should when checking your form and helping you to fill it in, make sure you dont do anything daft