PIP. Profoundly deaf

Lobster53

Hi,

I've been awarded PIP standard on both - daily living and mobility. 

However, I'm not happy with the points. Got 8 points for communication and 0 for mixing with other people. This is wrong. And both those questions are very similar. 

Can I appeal on just this question alone? Will it affect my PIP payments? 

Thank you. 

poppy123456

Hi,

The first step to an appeal is to request the MR and you have 1 month from the date of the decision to do this.

You should put this in writing stating where any why you think you should have scored those points. Adding a couple of real life examples of what happened the last time you attempted that activity for each descriptor that applies to you. Yes you can just request it based on 1 activity but they will look at the whole award again.

Your payments will continue while you wait for the MR decision. Most of those decisions remain the same and it's likely you'll need to take it to Tribunal. If the decision's remained the same your payments will also continue while you wait for the hearing and a decision to be made.

Good luck.

Lobster53

Thank you. 

I will send my letter off then and hope for the best. 

yanni

@Lobster53

Like you I have severe / profound hearing loss. I scored 8 points for communicating and 2 for engaging socially.

 I agree It is difficult to separate the communication and engaging activities with hearing loss as if the communication difficulties where taken away the engaging difficulties would also be at least reduced in most cases.

 We know how to engage it is just we can’t do it in practice!

 Activity 9 considers a claimant’s ability to engage with other people, which means to interact face-to-face in a contextually and socially appropriate manner, understand body language and establish relationships so you won’t score any points for this activity on the basis you can’t hear what people are saying (because you have already been awarded points for difficulty understanding verbal communication).

 You can be awarded points if engaging with other people causes you anxiety and / or because the way you behave is not “socially appropriate manner” and this prevents you “establishing relationships”.

 I ignore people because I haven’t heard them, stand too close to people in order to try to hear them, shout at them because I am speaking as loudly as I need them to (especially where there is background noise which is most social events), mishear them and respond inappropriately - for example nodding  or saying ‘yes’ when they have asked where I live, stand there saying nothing as I can’t follow the conversation, talk over people because I didn’t realise they were speaking etc.

 I explained that this behaviour was not socially appropriate and it makes me look rude, unfriendly, stupid etc and this, in turn, prevents me from “establishing relationships” with new people. Being thought of like this makes me anxious about engaging with other people so I avoid doing this unless there is someone I know with me.

 However I still only received 2 points for this activity and as you only have 8 points another 2 points would not get you enhanced rate PIP for daily living.

 Did you claim any points under Activity 4 Washing and Bathing?

 You can be awarded points for either needing an aid or appliance or someone to supervise you to do this activity safely as you wouldn’t hear a smoke alarm without your hearing aids in (if you wear them)

 This would get you the 2 points you need for enhanced. Have a look at the first part under ‘Case Law’ here:

 https://pipinfo.net/activities/washing-and-bathing .

 You can add this to your mandatory reconsideration (and appeal) even if you didn’t claim for it on the PIP form. I did, explaining that the assessor only referred to physically being able to wash rather than the safety issue of not being able to hear the smoke alarm in the event of the fire.

skullcap

yanni said:

@Lobster53

 You can be awarded points for either needing an aid or appliance or someone to supervise you to do this activity safely as you wouldn’t hear a smoke alarm without your hearing aids in (if you wear them)

 This would get you the 2 points you need for enhanced. Have a look at the first part under ‘Case Law’ here:

 https://pipinfo.net/activities/washing-and-bathing .

 You can add this to your mandatory reconsideration (and appeal) even if you didn’t claim for it on the PIP form. I did, explaining that the assessor only referred to physically being able to wash rather than the safety issue of not being able to hear the smoke alarm in the event of the fire.

People that are deaf and consequently would not hear the smoke alarm can easily resolve that with a strobe light alarm in the kitchen and bathroom.
There are many aids and pieces of equipment that you can buy to overcome these types of issues. I too am deaf in both ears and did find that I could not hear the front door bell. I had it replaced with a two way intercom and when triggered, and what was the bell is now a siren and blue flashing strobe light. 

Lobster53

Thank you Yanni, I was focusing on mixing with other people and hadn't thought about washing and bathing - I have added that to my MR now. 
And thank you Skullcap for your input too. 

Lobster53

I also looked at your posts re washing and bathing, but it was jumbled up on here, so couldn't read it properly. Maybe it's my laptop - I don't know. 

mikehughescq

Good advice thus far. There should be 2 to 4 points for social engagement. It’s not “mixing with other people though”. It’s much more than that. There should also be points for cooking; bathing and budgeting and potentially reading.