What is classified as disabled?

JEB60
JEB60 Online Community Member Posts: 1 Listener
edited May 2018 in Everyday life
Hi I am after help and info on what is classified as disabled? ?
I am at my wits end. ...
I have had a hip replacementI but now can't walk far, I have severe spinal deterioration.
I have my right hand in a splint awaiting a specia list due to botched job which has left me unzbld to use my right hand.
Plus suffer with angina and other health issues.
It seems PIP are persecuting me in so much I keep getting fobbed off when I ring it has been 5 weeks since I asked for mandatory reconsideration after a mix up in not understanding when I had a home visit.
Please advise.
Thank you for reading 

Comments

  • Markmywords
    Markmywords Online Community Member Posts: 416 Empowering
    "Disabled" is the effect it has on you and is measured against certain criteria. It's never about the cause or and condition or disease.
  • thespiceman
    thespiceman Online Community Member Posts: 6,283 Championing
    Hello @JEB60 Please I can say disabled is a physical problems that can cause you to have an effect on your well being.

    From daily living.  Day to day .

    Have you looked at any our posts and threads on benefits. PIP and looking at Talking about specific conditions.

    Hope any of that helps

    Take care

    @thespiceman
  • Sam_Alumni
    Sam_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 7,602 Championing
    You’re disabled under the Equality Act 2010 if you have a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities.
  • JennysDad
    JennysDad Online Community Member Posts: 2,290 Championing
    Hello @JEB60 and a warm welcome to the community. As @thespiceman and @Sam_Scope have explained, a disability is a physical or mental issue which has a serious effect on your ability to live life 'normally' AND which is going to continue to do so for a long time. 
    Thus, someone who falls over the cat and breaks a leg is injured, even temporarily disabled, but does not become 'disabled' in the way the Law (the Equality Act) means it because the injury is temporary, can be expected to heal, and the person with the broken leg should be able to get back to living a full, normal life in a matter of weeks or months at most. Should the victim have an operation on the broken leg that goes badly wrong, so that the leg remains permanently broken, and perhaps a source of long term pain, that might be considered a disability under the Act. Technically, I have a disability like millions of others in that my eyesight is imperfect and I cannot function normally without spectacles. With spectacles, however, I can live a full and normal life, so again 'short-sightedness' like mine is not considered a disability under the Act.
    Neither a broken leg nor short-sightedness affect most of a person's living - he can still get around, even if using a stick, a crutch or a borrowed wheelchair, he can still see well enough, with spectacles, to be able to catch a bus, get on a train, plan a journey from home to the shops, do the shopping, do most forms of work, keep himself clean and tidy and things like that. It is only really when one cannot do most of those things without installing specialist equipment in the home or without having assistance from a carer of some kind, that a person is considered disabled.
    I think that's about correct :smile: Others will respond if I'm wrong. Hope it helps.
    As to PIP persecuting you - well it's perhaps not quite as 'personal' as that. It's just a system that is poorly thought out and badly run and which some people seem to use as a means of hurting others. 
    Please stay in touch and keep us up to date with your Mandatory Reconsideration. And perhaps look at our 'Talk about PIP/DLA' forum. You'll find you're far from alone and some of the conversations and resources there should be of use and interest to you.
    Do get back to us with any questions.
    Warmest best wishes,
    Richard
    @JennysDad

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