PIP: Should I appeal/complain to ATOS?

I really need some advice about whether I should go to the Appeal stage after making some ground in MR. Should I also be complaining to ATOS?

After reading this forum, my DLA to PIP move is a depressingly familiar story.  I was given a permanent DLA award in 2013 at higher rate for care & mobility,  I ended up with a zero award after the F2F assessment, which took place in my home.

The copy of the ATOS assessor’s report contained multiple inaccuracies, misrepresentations and at least one blatant falsehood.

It took all my meagre energy to argue my case on paper to the DWP.  Not helped by a breakdown in communications with my GP.  It was obvious the ATOS assessor had made no attempt what so ever to get FME from the Consultants I quoted on my original PIP claim form, not even for my own GP.  I did manage to find some medical evidence among my own paper work to backup one aspect of my objections to the PIP decision.

I’ve recently received the MR decision and have now been awarded standard rate for care, but still nothing for mobility.  So that’s a partial victory, I guess.  At 66 years old, the MR says I will not be contacted about PIP again until after October 2020.

I don’t know if I’m right to suppose this change in the DWP decision is a tacit acceptance that the ATOS report contains a falsehood, etc. The MR letter does say, “If you consider that there are inaccuracies or discrepancies in the information provided by their health professional, or you have any concerns with how the consultation was conducted, you need to take this up directly with the assessment provider ATOS, under their complaints procedure”.

I have genuine and long standing mobility problems, but it’s hard to know if it’s worth appealing as I judge I would only be awarded standard mobility rate under PIP, assuming a fair and accurate assessment.

My major problem with an appeal is I would be unable to attend in person. Reading posts made by @Username_removed the likely hood of a “paper based “ appeal being successful seems pretty low.   

Is there anything to be gained in complaining to ATOS? I’ve read that people have got the ICO involved too, saying ATOS holds false data about themselves and have made a “subject access request” under the GDPR, etc. Would anyone care to outline/explain what’s involved and how they benefited from this?

I feel exhausted after the effort of challenging the original PIP decision at the end of 2018 and don’t know if I can cope with an Appeal and complaining to ATOS, but the sense of moral outrage is still very strong.