I’m an appointee for my sister who has a mental health condition (bipolar) and cannot manage her own affairs through no fault of her own. She had worked for 22 years at a very mental health supportive company, it was low paid, very gentle and not remotely taxing work. She wasn’t great at it, but they were very tolerant and gave her lots of reassurance, just as we all did at home to encourage her to go. Living at home with our parents, it was her life. The company changed hands just before Covid and she was out the door on the grounds of capability shortly after. She is still reeling from it now.
I was able to sort her ESA allowance last year, for which she gets the higher support group rate and I applied for PIP for her at the same time (2021). During the PIP assessment phone call my sister was really stressed and anxious and gave some really delusional answers to the questions, that me and my mum were on hand to gently explain how things actually were. It was very difficult as my sister gets very hung up on what people may think of her, as well as having psychosis which is impossible to know when this is happening unless she says or does something really out of sync with what is actually happening. She also cannot cope with any kind of criticism and for her, the entire PIP process has felt like a massive investigation into all her faults, many of the things that she struggles with, she isn’t even aware of most of the time. The phone assessment was 4 hours long. She got angry, she cried, if she could have glared me and mum to death I think she would have. We were really gentle too as we knew the fall out after the phone call was going to be bad. There many extra relevant things we didn’t even mention, as we felt it would cause her too much harm/distress to hear. The assessor got very mixed up with all our comments, often taking my sisters first answers which mum and I disproved / disagreed with and disregarded most of what we had said. In her notes, the assessor considered awarding my sister full awards in both living and mobility sections, but changed her mind on all areas due to the same 10 reasons, which were all assumptions or just plain incorrect. She was awarded zero points across the board.
My sister was devastated. She felt like they had decided that she didn’t have a mental health condition and that the last 27 years of her life had been a massive struggle for her because, well according to them, for no reason at all.
I went through the MR route and the DWP just rejected it each time. I used the assessment report, to submit another report stating where she should have been awarded marks, how each of their 10 main reasons to reject her from meeting the criteria were incorrect (things like they said she isn’t on any tranquillisers - when she is on very strong tranquillisers, they were listed all through her initial reports and in her repeat prescription list evidence) and a supporting Doctors letter (which all the gov website advice at that point had specifically said not to get, as the doctors will charge you - the website guides were updated a couple of months later), which clearly supported her claim, him having been my sisters GP and mental health consultant for 27 years. But again zero points.
I applied for the appeal back in October I think, signing up for text alerts as I didn’t want to miss anything after putting all this work into it and I 100% think my sister deserves to get the PIP. My parents, my husband and I are financially supporting her for what the ESA doesn’t cover, but it’s been such a strain. Citizens Advice allocated someone to support me and give me advice, but they phone just before Christmas to say they don’t do that anymore, but I could still text them if I had any questions. This whole process has been overwhelming, how on earth someone with mental health issues is supposed to do this themselves is beyond me.
I was away from home with work for 3 weeks, which I informed the courts about, but came home Tuesday to find the tribunal hearing is next Wednesday. It will be great to get it over with, but I haven’t told my sister to save her the stress and anxiety about it. It just doesn’t leave me much time to prepare a statement and I think I’ve already missed the minimum 7 day window to get it in before the hearing.
I very much hope the hearing will go in her favour, so long as I don’t mess it up somehow, then I can just tell her about it once the decision is made.
Thank you for letting me vent.
