PIP Medical. Is it guesswork?

nairn62 wrote: I've just received my PIP medical report. Apparently, the medical assessor can deduced that I can walk for 4 minutes and for more than 20 metres, repeatedly. How can they make that assumption, when they have only seen me walk 10 metres from my front door to my living room (in pain, breathless and slowly)?

You need to go back through what you included in your PIP2 to make sure that you have fully explained the problems that you have with walking.

You are not required to walk pain free but any pain that restricts the distance that you can walk should be taken into account.

Specifically for the Moving Around activity, if you are able to walk but you are in severe pain when doing so, then you can argue that your walking is not to a necessary standard and should be disregarded.

The legal test requires you to stand and then move (walk), so if you have problems getting up then you should document these as well.

If you walk slowly then it must take you at least twice the time to cover the 20m as a healthy person would, this could be down to the speed of your walking but could also be the result of having to stop.

You must be able to repeat the distance, so if you could walk it once but not then be able to walk it again within a reasonable timescale then you should be classed as unable to repeat the activity.

I'm afraid I can't tell you how to show your walking is more restricted but things you need to think about is what you can't do, for example what can you walk in your house, how far is the toilet from where you normally sit, things that will count against you are any trips that you make outside, so for example, how do you do your shopping?

You must be able to walk the distance you can, reliably and on the majority of days, both these terms are defined in the PIP Claim guide

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/help-for-claimants/pip

So you need to explain what you can, how you are limited and why.

Gordon

nairn62 wrote: Thanks Gordon for the reply. I did explain all this in my PIP2, but it seems the HP has made assumptions about my mobility and not put down the plain facts, and is ignoring my PIP2 and not just for mobility.

I'm afraid this is normal for a lot of reports, all you can do is make sure that you have explained your problems in detail and referenced them to your evidence.

Gordon