PIP

Bizzymim

Hiya everyone, just looking for a bit of guidance and advice. 

for a bit of background I have a mobility disability due to meningitis as a baby, which also effected day to day live with what it did to my brain, with mental health issues alongside this. 

I went through a lot with my previous job and ended up resigning due to my disability a couple of days ago. My team leader who did all of my return to work forms with me and who tried to accommodate me knows a lot about my condition and why I had to leave. 

Because I battled the decision for months on whether to resign, including multiple sick days and being signed off for 3 weeks on top of that, I put in a claim for PIP. 

About a year ago, I decided to put in a claim but ended up giving up because I was declined so many times. 

With this current PIP claim I’ve now just been declined again when my condition is the worst it’s ever been due to working full time. I’m going to appeal this claim but I’m wondering if I can ask my previous team leader whether he can write a letter in support of me, considering he has been working with me and dealing with my condition for months or whether these support of evidence letters can only be written by friends or family. And also any advice on how to get through to PIP at all. 

Thank you  

Albus_Scope

Heya @Bizzymim and welcome to the community.

I'm sorry to hear you've been turned down for PIP, unfortunately this is something we hear a lot of. The claim is less about showing your diagnosis for any disabilities, but more about showing in detail how your disabilities affect each of the PIP descriptors. If you can do that, you should be ok.
   I'd recommend writing for a copy of your report, then asking for a Mandatory reconsideration (MR) in writing, it's best not to do it over the phone, as the operator may not write everything down correctly. 
As for getting through to them, we're hearing everyone's having issues getting through, but the best time to call would be as soon as lines open at 9am, that seems to have the best chance. 

Bizzymim

Hello! Thank you so much for the reply. 

I have around a month to do my appeal, so I think I’ll take just a week to recover because from just leaving my job I’m having a bit of a stressful time and just need a little bit to gather myself and piece things together for PIP. 

But thank you so much again for taking time to reply and welcome me to the community