Requesting a lip speaker for PIP assessment

EMMc1966

Need to vent... I have profound hearing loss and my husband phoned PIP on my behalf in March to make a claim for me to which was a fiasco. The first lady on the phone refused to speak to my husband and insisted on speaking to me, which my husband said that wasn't possible as I struggle to hear on the phone, she ended up hanging up on him. We were furious, especially after waiting an hour to speak to someone. So after another hour's wait my husband finally got through again and spoke to a more reasonable lady who said if your wife has trouble hearing on the phone we can send a claim form out for her to fill in to which he agreed. Three weeks later I got the form, sent it off straight away to have to wait a further two weeks for them to send the *How your disability affects you* form to which I filled in straight away and sent it off. In total it took five weeks just to make a claim. Fast forward the present day... after waiting 8 weeks from sending off my form my husband rang the assessment centre to have them log on their records that I will need a lip speaker when I get my assessment date. This was all logged into the system. Last week I recieved my assessment date 29th June, 8.30 in the morning. My husband rang the assessment centre again to make sure they had the details of my request for a lip speaker... low and behold they have no record of my husband speaking to them. Therefore they have to rearrange my appointment for a lip speaker to be booked. So frustrating to say the least.. now I have to wait for a new assessment date and no doubt my husband will have to ring again to make sure the lip speaker is booked this time. Just goes to show how much trouble deaf people have just using the phone alone even with someone phoning on their behalf. Sorry for the long post I just needed to get it off my chest... do you think I have grounds to complain about this? I don't really want to go down that route but I will if a lip speaker hasn't been booked for the new assessment date!

EMMc1966

I Know it's so frustrating. It just goes to show the difficulties a deaf/hoh person has.