ADP and mental health

carer24

I am new to this forum and found it while searching for people who have been awarded disability benefits for mental health. I'm in Scotland and we have our own version of PIP called Adult Disability Payment. My son (26) has suffered from anxiety, depression and OCD for the last 10 years. I applied for ADP for him this year and he was awarded standard care, however, it looks like the system leans more towards physical disabilities rather than mental health. The points system defaults to "prompting" for MH and lowest score applied.

We were promised the system would be better than the English system but I've yet to see evidence of that.

Jimm_Scope

Hey @carer24, thanks for sharing your experience with ADP. We don't hear as much about ADP because of how new it is and due to it being in Scotland only. Would you say then that it is much the same as PIP is in England?

How did you feel the assessment process was? I don't know if you have any experience of PIP before ADP was introduced to compare it?

carer24

I don't know PIP but ADP allows one to register online with a few personal details and then submit the bulk of the questions up to 2 months later, giving the claimant time to gather all the information and seek assistance. The award is backdated to the time of registration. ADP do not obtain medical evidence and don't advise the claimant of that fact, until near the end of the decision making process, thus leaving the claimant to have to submit SAR to GP, meaning the length of time waiting for a decision goes from 6 months to 8/9 months.

I'm not sure how the new system is performing overall but my biggest concern is the lack of medically skilled staff working as making decisions. All jobs are at a SVQ level (social care) which is similar to having 2 GSCEs. This must be leading to a high number of re determination and appeals.