How long is the wait for a decision letter? Should I submit MR?

AES19

Hi. So I applied for pip back in beginning of May. I had telephone assessment 2 weeks ago. I asked for a copy of my assessment recieved that today, whilst reading there are some things she has wrote that never even left my mouth.. when adding up recommendations she’s given 10 points for care 10 points for mobility. Firstly does anyone know roughly how long to wait for decision letter? And also wondering if I should MR against things she’s said and the things I have said they haven’t taken into consideration? I feel I was deserving of high rate mobility and care with my conditions. Please just asking for some advice!! Stressing me out. Ty in advance xx

AES19

Hi. So I applied for pip back in beginning of May. I had telephone assessment 2 weeks ago. I asked for a copy of my assessment recieved that today, whilst reading there are some things she has wrote that never even left my mouth.. when adding up recommendations she’s given 10 points for care 10 points for mobility. She’s also stated advise a review after 1 year!!! I can’t do this all again in a years time. Firstly does anyone know roughly how long to wait for decision letter? And also wondering if I should MR against things she’s said and the things I have said they haven’t taken into consideration? I feel I was deserving of high rate mobility and care with my conditions. Please just asking for some advice!! Stressing me out. Ty in advance xx

Cress

Sorry you didn't get the award you thought you deserved.
Only you can decide if you want to take it further...maybe get some advice from welfare rights?

But just to say you can also just ask them to review the length of your award.

I'm sure others here will be able to advise. 

Good luck @AES19

chiarieds

Hi @AES19 - & welcome to the community. An average wait to get a decision letter is 8 weeks from assessment. Apologies if you've seen a list of the activities/descriptors that are looked at with PIP. Have a look through & see if you feel you could get 2+ points for either/both components. Please see: https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/asset-library/Personal-Independence-Payment-Descriptors-and-Scores-April-2021.pdf

With a MR try to give detailed examples as to where you should have got those extra points & why, if these haven't been given in your initial claim pack, tho you can just use the following form & all the information will be looked at again by another decision maker. Many of us have had assessor's reports with 'inaccuracies' in them, but dwelling on them isn't a way forward with appealing a PIP claim. Please see: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/683380/if-you-disagree-with-a-decision-made-by-dwp.PDF

Please note, altho this form suggests it's faster to ring, a MR is always best done in writing. As mentioned above if you have an ongoing/debilitating disorder with little chance of improvement, then you could also request a longer award.

Commanded2bwell

chiarieds said:

With a MR try to give detailed examples as to where you should have got those extra points & why, if these haven't been given in your initial claim pack, tho you can just use the following form & all the information will be looked at again by another decision maker. Many of us have had assessor's reports with 'inaccuracies' in them, but dwelling on them isn't a way forward with appealing a PIP claim.

That's very interesting! I have written that down.

The only difficulty with that approach is where, in my claim, the mental state assessment apparently showed I was aware, not distracted, had good level of cognitive understanding, etc. which were surely going to be very difficult to assess over the phone! I was receiving a lot of non-verbal cues and encouragement from the person who was listening in, with me. That, clearly, was not noted. I wonder if I should say that we failed to point this out to the assessor at the time, rather than point out the impossibility of assessing such a thing over the phone.

poppy123456

Commanded2bwell said:

chiarieds said:

With a MR try to give detailed examples as to where you should have got those extra points & why, if these haven't been given in your initial claim pack, tho you can just use the following form & all the information will be looked at again by another decision maker. Many of us have had assessor's reports with 'inaccuracies' in them, but dwelling on them isn't a way forward with appealing a PIP claim.

That's very interesting! I have written that down.

The only difficulty with that approach is where, in my claim, the mental state assessment apparently showed I was aware, not distracted, had good level of cognitive understanding, etc. which were surely going to be very difficult to assess over the phone! I was receiving a lot of non-verbal cues and encouragement from the person who was listening in, with me. That, clearly, was not noted. I wonder if I should say that we failed to point this out to the assessor at the time, rather than point out the impossibility of assessing such a thing over the phone.

I wouldn't look too much into that because they won't be interested in any of that and it won't get you a PIP award. Remember also that PIP awards aren't based on any diagnosis, it's how those conditions affect you against the PIP descriptors.

The whole telephone assessment process has actually been very successful.

1984cathy

The DWP are all liars they word the report so it goes in the favor, the amount of time it is moved from one person to another then passed to a final assessor, I assure you this does happen,
to cover themselves  

chiarieds

I'm unsure what you're saying here @1984cathy - the health care professionals' reports are audited to ensure these are of a good quality. In my personal opinion, I had a case manager ring me up, &, as a result had another assessment pre Covid-19, so this was another face to face assessment, so agree this can happen.

There are assumptions that benefits claimants are set up to fail, & this has been looked into over the years, yet statistics don't back this up, &, for example with PIP, most claimants are initially successfully awarded.

I think that the unfortunate thing, again with PIP, is that some don't realise PIP isn't about any medical diagnoses, but rather on how they impact on specific activities relating to daily living activities &/mobility. Hopefully this forum helps people to better understand this really is all about 'How you disability affects you.'

Hi @Commanded2bwell - in my own case, discussing pain is also very difficult....pain also is subjective; your personal experience, so how to convey? Again, the assessor forms an opinion due to what has been said during your assessment, & the DWP decision maker will look at this & your initial claim form. Also be aware that there are some unfortunate 'cut & paste' responses, such as you didn't display a, b, or c. so didn't show problems with x, y, z in the assessor's report.

So, as Poppy has said, rather than pointing out that you didn't make the assessor aware/an assessor can't assess correctly with a phone assessment, phone assessments have actually been better than face to face assessments as far as success rates for the claimant go.

You may find the following link helpful as regards PIP & mental health: https://www.mentalhealthandmoneyadvice.org/en/welfare-benefits/pip-mental-health-guide/pip-resources/personal-independence-payment-pip-contact-numbers/

Kindly stay in touch, & let us know how you get on, thank you.

poppy123456

1984cathy said:

The DWP are all liars they word the report so it goes in the favor, the amount of time it is moved from one person to another then passed to a final assessor, I assure you this does happen,
to cover themselves  

I wouldn't call them liars as such. The whole point of the assessment is for the HCP to gather evidence. They are not there to write down every single thing you say, if this happened there would be no point in the assessment process.  When they have got all the information they write a report, which is their opinion based on all the evidence you sent, including the form that you filled in and returned. The report then becomes part of your evidence which is then returned to DWP and a decision maker makes their decision based on everything.

I've had a couple of assessment reports be sent to audit but this has nothing to do with claimants, it's to do with the HCP.