The letter awards me 8 points for daily living which should
be enough to get the standard rate but they seem to be saying that because my
problems aren’t expected to last long enough I can’t get it. Page 3 says “ Your
difficulties with daily living started on 31 December 2020 and are likely to
reduce so you will not meet the disability conditions on 31 December 2021.” Now
my difficulties with daily living started long before 2020 and are expected to
last well beyond 2021. I think that they are confusing my current mobility
difficulties with my daily living difficulties. I was awarded 4 points for moving
around due to breaking 3 metatarsals and displacing a big toe on 1st
December 2020 (It looks like they got the exact date wrong as well). This has
required 3 operations with maybe another in the autumn. This IS expected to get
better so I can only think that this is where they get the “likely to reduce”
from.
Has anyone heard of this sort of thing before – is it even
possible?
While I’m on the subject, I might as well ask about the
points I have been awarded for daily living. Since my previous award I’ve
picked up 2 points for “preparing food” and another 2 for “dressing and
undressing”. However, I’ve dropped 4 points for “engaging with other people
face to face”. This doesn’t even seem to be a descriptor anymore. It seems to
have become “mixing with other people”. Is this correct and if so when did it
happen? Is there any actual difference between the 2 descriptors or is it a
change in name only? At the bottom of page 2 it says that “You can engage with
other people unaided” so I score 0 points. Now, as it happens, I can engage
with other people unaided but the chances of it being successful are rather
slim – less than 20%. So, does there have to be an element of success in the
engagement anymore? Does a state of confusion and/or antagonism with a common result of being physically assaulted count as engaging?
