Applied for a Blue Badge on line 1st August and received an application confirmation ref no. from my County Council.
Kept checking on the site with my tracking no and all it said was “application received 1st August”
Rang my local C.C who issue the B.B. on 17th September and asked for their reason for delay. They informed me my G.P surgery had not provided sufficient evidence to support my application and had in fact replied “person not known”, so they suggested I contact my GP and let them know the out come.
As the normal wait for an appointment is minimum 2 weeks I decided to write to my GP and sent her a copy of the letter from C.C. also requesting her assistance with my badge application
I have today received her reply
“the criteria for B.B. is quite strict and depend on distance achievable walking without severe difficulty. I would suggest discussing the exact criteria with the agency ad discussing with me if I can be of further help”.
I already had little if any confidence in my GP and now, well what can I say!
She knows I have COPD despite taking over one year to inform me.
At the beginning of this year and after a second stay in hospital in less than 18 months for pneumonia I visited her surgery and she informed me that I had been diagnosed with COPD by the hospital after my first emergency admission and she had received a letter from the hospital informing her. Unfortunately no one at the surgery thought it necessary to inform me!Or indeed requesting I visit them.
Despite no support or info from the surgery I have managed to arranged repeat prescriptions for my inhalers and tablets and of course the obligatory antibiotic stand by in the cupboard.(Thanks to info obtained here).
Like many of you I have good and bad days and although I am fortunate enough not to require oxygen I have great difficulty walking slopes, hills and on bad days even on the flat. Have any of you come up against this sort of situation and if so where should I go now?
Written by
carlo
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Hi Carlo, it wasn't until I was on oxygen all the time that I managed to get a blue badge, they appear to have made it more difficult now.
My GP did not supply any info when asked to so they assumed I could manage fine - and I am on oxygen and classed as very severe. The surgery said they do not reply to these letters unless requested to by a patient, who would have to pay the appropriate fee for a letter to be sent on their behalf. I spoke to the DLA and asked them to contact my consultant instead. I then received a badge.
I can sympathise with the delays as I went through something similar. In my area they no longer contact the GP for an 'opinion' as most were just ticking the right boxes and saying 'thanks for the fee'. Instead, we have to go for an assessment and they are pretty strict with it. I passed and got my badge, but COPD and general difficulties alone are not enough to get a blue badge issued.
I'd suggest going back to the council department who deal with these things and appeal, particularly on the grounds of them getting a GP response of “person not known”. That is obviously invalid. Ask them what the criteria is, are you not supposed to attend an assessment of some sort? See what they come back with.
A lot will depend on what you said in your application. You have to be truthful and state your condition clearly. They have no idea who you are, let alone how you cope day by day. They don't take slopes into account when they look at the distance you can cover and the speed at which you walk. I hear the Welsh local government offices have very tight rules on qualifying if you don't get the higher rate mobility of DLA or have some other automatic qualifying condition.
If you feel that your GP is being unsympathetic then write to the practise manager and ask for a review of your treatment. It might be worthwhile getting some assistance from an organisation like DIAL - scope.org.uk/dial - if there's a local branch.
Sorry Gordon I accidently touched the report tab on my tablet (so sensitive) I pressed the back button straight away so hope nothing untoward has happened, but am telling you just in case.: -(
Join the club, my husband is on loads of tablets and inhalers, oxygen, nebuliser, wheel chair and all the disability aids known to man and the doctors still cannot get his prescriptions correct. They cannot work out how many every four weeks to give him when he has to take tablets four times a day. i.e 4 per day = 28 per week =112 every four weeks. We have two days worth delivered. I have written to them rung them up even given them the amount needed every four weeks, they have seen the specialists letter and still get it wrong.
We absolutely dread the prescription being delivered.
Thank you for your replies. Apart from COPD I have always been healthy and still try to be active. I have never asked for anything from my doctor or the state and now it seems unless you are on some sort of benefit you are not entitled to help.
I am disgusted with the system in this country especially when I see perfectly fit and healthy people getting numerous monetary benefits and a BB.
I know of a number of people who are able to walk far better than me and for some unknown reason they qualify! Where is the justice, do I have to join the 1000's of benefit cheats to simply get what I really need?
As for my GP well I can't even begin on this subject or I will be here all day!
And, there are a lot of people you may consider 'fit and healthy' with invisible illnesses who like to appear normal when they go out. My mother would never have wanted anyone to think there was something wrong with her, but she had a blue badge issued as she had terminal lung cancer.
She didn't get much chance to use it, and when she went to the shops with Dad she would have held her head high - and would have ripped into anyone who dared to question why there was a blue badge displayed.
She was no benefit cheat and to look at her you may think there was little wrong, apart from her age slowing her down perhaps. She was able to walk reasonably well until a week or two before she passed. She had an automatic reason to have a blue badge, unless you knew her you would not have known what was wrong with her.
On a good day, if I've been rested on the way there, I can get out of the car and walk the first 10-20 metres on the flat quite normally, after that I run out of breath and need to grab a trolley or something to give me support. Quite often now I will just stay in the car as I can't cope with going round the shops, it's much too far to walk, even with something to hold on to.
If you know of anyone fiddling the system then there are ways to report them, but you need to be really sure of your facts and not use only your own opinion to judge someone, just because they have a blue badge and seem to walk OK.
Is there some reason why you feel you qualify for a blue badge - other than having being told you have COPD? You say yourself "Apart from COPD I have always been healthy and still try to be active.". I've looked at this web page - monmouthshire.gov.uk/468/ - and it gives a number of reasons for getting a badge, but the one I think applies to yourself would be "You have a permanent and substantial disability which means you are unable to walk or have very considerable difficulty in walking. Please note: if this is your reason for applying we will write to your doctor for more information about your disability."
If you feel that you really need a blue badge on those grounds then state your reasons to the council and try again. It is not an automatic right that having COPD gets you any benefits and you can lead an active life for many years. I was hospitalised with pneumonia over 18 years ago, I was finally diagnosed with COPD and Asthma about 5-6 years ago now, but didn't qualify for a blue badge until this year, as my abilities lessened and I was able to demonstrate to an occupational therapist that my walking was compromised and limited as well as getting short of breath very quickly.
You can get a lot of help from this site and people like myself who contribute, we try and give good advice, but I'll be honest in saying I don't see where you've given good reason for getting a blue badge issued, apart from you say you have some difficulty walking. Whatever you think is a problem must be described fully in your application. They've obviously looked at what you've put and decided they need more info so asked your doctor, the fact that they've not supported you is between you and your GP.
The benefits systems are being tightened up all the time and this is one area where a lot of new rules came into play earlier this year. Many people who have a blue badge now may no longer qualify when they come to renew it.
Please don't think I'm getting at you in any way, I'm trying to give a constructive view on how I see the information you've given here. I'm not in a position to issue a badge, but have spent a lot of time finding out about the procedures and how they affected me when I applied a few months ago, so probably know a bit more than most on the topic.
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