Mandatory Reconsideration - how I've written it, and what evidence to attach?

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Commanded2bwell

Hello again!

Thanks for the help, so far. It's been very useful. I've more or less finished my letter. I've looked at the areas that I think I should have scored in, and discussed my difficulties using specific examples of events to illustrate them. I've also repeated the list of medications I'm on and given specific examples of what I take and why (in the original, I just listed them and their purpose).

I think one of the reasons my original application failed was because I used very general language rather than highlighting specific situations or instances. But it was difficult to figure out how to answer questions that are obviously biased towards physical disabilities when applying for a mental health disability. I'm certainly not the first to remark on this! 

Anyway, I'm going through it and trying to guess how it reads from the point of view of an assessor. I've found this document quite useful in guessing what they're looking for and structuring my answers to make my meaning more obvious: https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/asset-library/Personal-Independence-Payment-Descriptors-and-Scores-April-2021.pdf

Now I'm wondering if there's any evidence I can add. I'll have a letter from the person who sat in with me on the phone call assessment, giving their impressions of what was missed out in the summary. I'll add a recent test result. But other than that, I can't think of anything. There's a document on the government site that suggests things like medical reports (that was in original claim) or care plans (don't have any - I lost the postcode lottery on that one. My local NHS doesn't fund such things for autism).

So, that's the plan. What do you think?

Cheers

poppy123456

Hi,

You need to forget the assessment, that's gone and is now in the past. Put the report away and forget about it because this isn't going to get you a PIP award.  A letter from the person that sat with you during the assessment will only be helpful if they know exactly how your conditions affect you. If they don't then you should think to yourself will it help.

The only person that knows how your conditions affect you is yourself. Medical evidence is only useful if it's states how your conditions affect you and most medical evidence doesn't state this.

You mention you have Autism. My daughter also has this and for her PIP claim one of the reports i sent for evidence was her ASD assessment report, which does go into a lot of detail. It contains several pages so i highlighted the parts that i thought were most useful. If you have the ASD report then this can be useful to send, if it goes into a lot of detail.

Having said that, the best evidence you can send is your own anecdotal evidence. A couple of real world examples of what happened the last time you attempted that activity for each descriptor that applies to you. Where were you, what happened, who seen it etc. You should aim for at least one A4 sheet of paper per descriptor that applies. This is exactly what i did for my daughters review a few months ago and a paper based assessment was achieved. (for the 2nd time)

Hope this helps.