Pip points

Hi,

Yes this is normal/common. They are allowed to use evidence from past assessments.

Am I reading right that you were awarded after MR this time? Or have you got to go to tribunal again?

Hi again @Stratford - I'm not saying it happened, but perhaps the DWP felt they had insufficient input from yourself so looked back to your previous assessment as your last 'result' was rather made by a tribunal which is independent from the DWP.

Importantly remember that you still have to wait for your actual decision letter, & tho the decision maker usually goes along with the assessment report, this isn't always the case.

I don't know if you followed the advice given here:

but I can't stress enough how important it is to give such anecdotal evidence.

That said, I see you now mention you suffer from epilepsy. Whilst normally PIP is about how you are the majority of the time, depending on the severity of your epilepsy, it can be said that you may need supervision with many of the activities of daily living as you may be at risk of having a seizure at any time.

Please see the following from a Benefits & Work Guide:

''Until now, the DWP have argued that a claimant can only score points for being unsafe if harm is likely to occur on more than 50% of the occasions on which they attempt an activity.
So a claimant with epilepsy who has seizures twice a week would not get points for needing supervision when cooking. This is because they could not show that it is ‘more likely than not’ that they will have a seizure on any given occasion when they prepare food.

However, on 9th March 2017, in CPIP/1599/2016 a panel of Upper Tribunal judges held that the DWP were wrong.
Instead, they said, the decision maker should look at whether there is a real possibility that harm might occur and also at how great the harm might be. The greater the potential harm, the less likely it needs to be that it would happen on any specific occasion.

So, if there is a real possibility that a claimant with epilepsy might have a seizure whilst cooking then then they reasonably require supervision for this activity, even though the chances of a seizure happening on any specific occasion may be quite small.
They should score points for needing supervision even if they don’t actually have anyone to provide it.

But the Upper Tribunal went even further than this.
They ruled that where a claimant is at risk all the time, then they may also be at risk when carrying out PIP activities that do not carry any additional likelihood of harm.
So, a claimant may not be at any additional risk of harm if they have a seizure when using the toilet or taking medication, for example. But, because they are at risk whatever they are doing, then we would argue that they still reasonably require supervision during these activities, because they cannot do them safely without supervision"

The above may be helpful if your decision letter isn't as hoped.