Do I Appeal, Mobility?

East Anglia Girl

Only you can decide whether to challenge the Decision!

The mobility activities do not consider your ability to drive, so this is not the reason that an award has been refused, the Decision Maker has decided that you have no problems going out or following a route and that your walking is not so restricted that it warrants an award.

You will need to look at how you described your problems for the two Mobility activities to see why you did not score the minimum of 8 points needed.

If you want to challenge the Decision then the first stage to challenging a Decision is for you to request a Mandatory Reconsideration, this needs to be done in writing to the DWP, within one month of the Decision, to the office that dealt with your claim, have a look at our PIP MR & Appeal guide for details of the process, the PIP area also has template letters that you can use to make the request with.

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

You should contact the DWP for a copy of the assessment report if you have not already done so, I would phone them but again follow up the request in writing. Once you have the assessment report you will have a better understanding of how the DWP Decision Maker has come to their conclusions and will then be able to argue against them.

Your primary task is to show that you meet the criteria, there are many reasons you may have failed, you need to address each of these but don't get bogged down in criticising the assessment report unless you can clearly show that it is incorrect, it is a lot easier to argue the facts of the situation;

"the assessor recorded that I walked 50m, I did but they have failed to document that I had to stop every 10m for a rest due to breathlessness"

than their opinions

"based on my observations of the claimant walking I believe that they can reliably walk more than 200m.

When you have a better idea of the issues with your claim, come back to the forum and we will do our best to help.

Gordon

East Anglia Girl

The 30m per minute are derived from respected sources, for example the Ministry of Transport use them to set the times for traffic signals. This is for someone walking very slowly, a healthy adult would mange between 72m and 90m in a minute, so there calculation of how far you could walk in 10 minutes is not unreasonable at first glance.

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 distance 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