Pain and fatigue when walking

Hi Anne

If you are in constant pain, you will need to try and explain how the pain affects you, what medication are you on and have you been referred to the pain clinic, if you have what was the outcome.

Quite often we hear from members who have been turned down as they were not in receipt of any pain medication, even though they informed that they were allergic to certain types of medication or they had not been referred to the pain clinic.

Reg 4(2)A Personal Independence Payment Regs 2013 stipulates that all Personal Independence Payment descriptor activities have to be done ‘reliably’ namely

Where [a claimant's] ability to carry out an activity is assessed, [the claimant] is to be assessed as satisfying a descriptor only if [the claimant] can do so -

(a) safely;
(b) to an acceptable standard;
(c) repeatedly; and
(d) within a reasonable time period.

Regulation 4(4) of the main PIP regulations provides -

a. "safely” means in a manner unlikely to cause harm to [the claimant] or to another person, either during or after completion of the activity;
b. "acceptable standard" - does it cause pain/exhaustion or fatigue - maybe you can't twist round far enough to reach everywhere
c. “repeatedly” means as often as the activity being assessed is reasonably required to be completed; and
d. “reasonable time period” means no more than twice as long as the maximum period that a person without a physical or mental condition which limits that person’s ability to carry out the activity in question would normally take to complete that activity.

All four of the above criteria need to be satisfied. In addition, Reg 7 provides that you need to consider what happens ‘on over 50 per cent of the days.'

CRPS may have been ignored as the assessor may have not known what CRPS was, I didn't so I looked it up; crps-uk.org, sometimes you need to send in information leaflets from a support group specialising in a condition such as CRPS, I would also reference McGill pain scale and add a link.

Gary