My friend has been refused PIP what to do now?

heyskull
Online Community Member Posts: 3 Listener
I have a good friend who up until now was surviving on the current DLA.
This was until last month when I escorted her to her PIP interview (she would have never been able to get the 45miles on her own).
As a onlooker during the interview I was instantly aware that the questions she was being asked did not associate with her or her condition.
She has acute Bipolar, severe anxiety and depression.
On recieving her score this weekend she scored 0 on every account.
Yes she can make a meal and clean her self but to shut down her DLA/PIP based on such a test is a severe failing of the system.
Only three years ago I thought with the DLA when at the time she had an insurance policy mature that took her over the theshold and in the end she had to pay for herself out of the money she had been saving to maintain her house.
I can only see within the year that if something is not re-instated she will fall back into depression and once again start to think of self harm and selling her house.
Where do I proceed as she is in no fit state to fight this her self?
Thanks
SC
This was until last month when I escorted her to her PIP interview (she would have never been able to get the 45miles on her own).
As a onlooker during the interview I was instantly aware that the questions she was being asked did not associate with her or her condition.
She has acute Bipolar, severe anxiety and depression.
On recieving her score this weekend she scored 0 on every account.
Yes she can make a meal and clean her self but to shut down her DLA/PIP based on such a test is a severe failing of the system.
Only three years ago I thought with the DLA when at the time she had an insurance policy mature that took her over the theshold and in the end she had to pay for herself out of the money she had been saving to maintain her house.
I can only see within the year that if something is not re-instated she will fall back into depression and once again start to think of self harm and selling her house.
Where do I proceed as she is in no fit state to fight this her self?
Thanks
SC
0
Comments
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Hello @heyskull and welcome to the forum.
Has your friend, or someone on her behalf requested a mandatory review of the decision? This will need to be done before going to appeal. @BenefitsTrainingCo may be able to offer more advice.0 -
She only received the letter on Saturday so I was trying to find out what course of action to take for her. What is @BenefitsTrainingCo I cannot find what that is as it is only a part email address?
Thanks
SC
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Geoark can you answer my question? I have to get this rolling as she is getting anxious as ESA have wrote back today saying that they have not received paperwork from her that was sent of on recorded delivery two months ago!!!!!
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@heyskull,
If you put @ in front of a username it notifies that member they have been mentioned and leads them to the conversation. If you look at the right hand side at the top of this conversation you will see your user name and some little icons underneath, one looks like a picture of earth and should have a number against it. This shows I have used the @ against your name.
BenefitTrainingCo is a group which offers advice here when they can about benefits.
With the recorded mail you can check if it was delivered here: https://www.royalmail.com/track-your-item
Hopefully with the missing ESA items someone kept a copy of what was sent so these can easily be resent?
The PIP interview has little to do with what diagnosis you have and more to do with how it affects the individual on a daily basis. The descriptions and how the points are scored can be found here: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/Global/Migrated_Documents/adviceguide/pip-9-table-of-activities-descriptors-and-points.pdf
If your friend disagrees with the points, or lack off, against these descriptors than one of you need to request a mandatory review. The letter should tell you how to do this and by when.
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@heyskull, Has your friend been sent the assessor's report? It is a form PA4 If not someone needs to ring and ask for a copy of this to be sent to her. I suggest also you speak to your friend about you becoming her appointee for DWP benefits if you're willing to take this on. It only applies to DWP benefits and will give you the right to do your friend's paperwork and act on her behalf. This will take pressure off her and can be arranged by asking DWP to organize this as urgent if you both agree. Her decision letter mentions a timescale of a month to apply for a Mandatory Reconsideration. This is done by ringing the DWP number on her letter to tell them she wishes to do this and that should be followed by a letter headed with her name and NI number and the actual wording of "Mandatory Reconsideration". By going through the assessor's report and her DWP decision Letter you will both see what went wrong and what she disagrees with. This should form the content of the MR letter with her argument to say why it is wrong with references to medical evidence. If she didn't supply additional evidence this will need to be obtained from her surgery or specialist she is seeing or has seen in the past. The more up to date the better. If she needs more time to do this you can send the letter and say in it that evidence will follow or ring and ask for more time to make the MR. If you do the latter get the name of who she/you speak to and record the date and time of the call and what was said, i.e. the new date to apply for MR which should be a further month from the phone call. However it's better to try and apply on time. She will need a strong argument to get the scores changed but it is possible. Another useful tool is the option to book a call back from a DWP Decision Maker to discuss the result and chat about why it is wrong. You can prepare questions before hand. As she has scored 0 points there is nothing to lose by doing any of this. Hope that helps..1
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