Hi, my name is brenthedread!

Hi brenthedread,

The decisions of the medical providers are so often very poor and go against what your own doctor says, and it goes against logic that they know more about your condition and its effects on your daily functioning than your doctor or consultant who may have been treating you for many years. 
If you have a Welfare Rights department helping you then it sounds as though you are getting all the help you need. As long as you have provided some medical evidence and explained how it relates to the PIP descriptors your appeal hearing should go well. You don't have to have medical evidence but it's better if you have. Good luck with it!

Lee

brenthedread,

Hi Randolph,

Unfortunately, if you are living in a 'full service' area, UC is the benefit for people who are not able to work, although if you previously worked and paid national insurance contributions, sometimes you can get contributory ESA instead, or in addition to UC. The WCA (work capability assessment) which Geoark mentions applies to both ESA & UC, where someone starts off submitting sick notes and then has the assessment. 

The decision you've got is, like you say, a decision that you are fit for work  - also known as a decision that you do not have limited capability for work.

You can challenge the decision by first asking for a mandatory reconsideration and then appealing if necessary. Your welfare department can help you with this, and can also tell you if you are in a 'full service' area. Even if you are not in a 'full service' area, I think you would struggle to go back to the old ESA benefit (outside the UC system) now, because you have a recent negative decision about your limited capability for work. But it may be possible for you to do this, outside the 'full service', if you have got worse, so do ask your welfare department about this. Or, you could be in the 'full service' and have got worse to the extent that it is worth asking for another assessment.

Unfortunately it's not unusual for people to get bad decisions in PIP and also have a bad decision about their limited capability for work, as you have. The assessments are very poor and the decision making often flawed. So don't give up and do challenge this decision. Tribunals often come to different conclusions.

The importance of having limited capability for work in UC is that it would mean you wouldn't have to look for work. At the moment, you are deemed fit for work in UC and so I'd also suggest talking to your welfare dept about getting a sick note, so you can have your work search requirement in UC suspended. You'd need to talk to your work coach about this and explain that you are challenging the limited capability for work decision and you can't look for work. 

Unfortunately if you've already had your work search requirement (having to look for work) suspended because of a sick note, your work coach may not want to do it again. If you have problems, get advice from your welfare department and consider complaining. It's important to try to get the requirements of UC made reasonable for you, so that you are not sanctioned (when you could lose most of your benefit).

Will 

Couldn't agree more @brenthedread !

When you read a lot of the reports it is really clear how standardised they all are, and they hardly ever give an accurate picture of the difficulties claimants experience (in fact virtually never).

I would just like to echo Will's sound advice above - get challenging the decision!