PIP MR help please.

Dave6789

Hi folks, recently I had a 5 year review of my PIP claim and I was on the enhanced daily living before for "mental health" issues and now after having a telephone assessment I scored 0 points on everything.

I am now looking at writing up my MR letter and I am looking at activity 3 "managing therapy or monitoring a health condition".

I have issues with complex PTSD, anxiety and depression. I stopped taking psychiatric medications a few years ago because the side effects were too much for me and I was concerned about how taking a combination of powerful drugs everyday could affect my health long term.

I did however do psychotherapy for a couple years after stopping this and the psychotheripsts recommended that I do journalling, meditation and psychotherapy to an amount of time that adds up to about 10 1/2 hours of therapies each week.

For the past 2 years my emotional wellbeing has been too bad for me to do any of these, I do need to do them as I am often in a bad way and suffering a lot but due to my conditions I haven't been able to manage them on my own.

I was abused in the past by an NHS "mental health team" that came to my home and so I would find having anyone here to prompt me to do this to be too distressing, I also have trouble trusting other people due to the CPTSD and I also have no friends or family who could help me with this.

I have tried to use apps to manage these but due to motivation issues from depression I haven't been sucessful with this either, I am wondering if I would qualify for 6 points on activity 3 here?

I read on the website of a lawyer who does PIP claim cases that in the past the courts have recognised that a person can have an unmet need for "supervision, prompting or assistance" with the thing their illnesses affect.

I also stopped seeing anyone who works for the NHS in relation to mental health as I have had abuse by mental health teams, mistreatment by psychiatrists and abuse in hospitals and I find that any attempt at assistance by the NHS with my "mental health" just makes me worse so as of a few years ago I stopped using any NHS services in regards to "mental health".

Also does anyone know in what act this regulation appears in please? This was posted on a legal site in terms of regulation 4(2a) "the law says that if you can do one of the activities in the test...then they must consider whether you can do it safely, do it as often as reasonably requited, do it to an acceptable standard, and do it within a reasonable time"

woodbine

@Dave6789 good evening and welcome to scope, sorry to hear that you have had issues with NHS staff and that this time round you scored 0 for PIP.
As far as an MR goes you need to point out where you think you should have scored points and why and give some real life examples as to when you tried to do something and couldn't.
You could also try and get some help with it from welfare rights.

Dave6789

woodbine said:

@Dave6789 good evening and welcome to scope, sorry to hear that you have had issues with NHS staff and that this time round you scored 0 for PIP.
As far as an MR goes you need to point out where you think you should have scored points and why and give some real life examples as to when you tried to do something and couldn't.
You could also try and get some help with it from welfare rights.

Thank you for the reply, one of my concerns were that maybe they wouldn't recognise some of the things I have been recommended to do as legitimate therapies?

Can anyone see any legitimate reason why I wouldn't have scored 6 on this?

Also thank you for the welcome and the advice.

chiarieds

Hi @Dave678 - & welcome to the community. Reg 4(2a) is from the PIP regulations 2013 which can be seen here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/377/regulation/4  'Reliability' is also mentioned in the PIP assessment guide part 2: the assessment criteria under 2.2 'Reliability.' See: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/personal-independence-payment-assessment-guide-for-assessment-providers/pip-assessment-guide-part-2-the-assessment-criteria#reliability-1

Whilst you may see this concept of reliability is important for all the PIP descriptors, an understanding of the actual descriptors is also needed. You may find the following website helpful: https://www.mentalhealthandmoneyadvice.org/en/welfare-benefits/pip-mental-health-guide/help-with-your-pip-claim/how-to-fill-in-the-pip-form/   this is about filling in a PIP claim form, but may still be useful in thinking about perhaps what you should have mentioned, & why. Please come back with any further questions.

Tori_Scope

Hi @Dave6789 Welcome to the community!

I'm sorry to hear that you were abused in the past by people who were meant to be there to support you. Do you mind me asking whether you made a complaint about this at the time? 

Do you think you'd ever consider going back on some medication, seeing as things have been particularly bad for you more recently? I appreciate that you experienced some negative side effects, but it could be that there's a different kind of medication you could try, or a different dosage of the medication you were on before? I know that you've said you've stopped seeing any NHS staff about your mental health, I'd definitely encourage you to speak to your doctor about this if you feel able to. Although you've had these negative experiences in the past, there are medical professionals out there who genuinely want to help and who'll take the time to discuss your options through with you.