I don't even know where to start with this, but, to be fair, it's 3am, and I had to check my phone to make sure it really was Sunday, not that it makes any difference.
I'm back in the PIP-system, and it's making me ill. Wrap your heads around that, a benefit for people who are already demonstrably-disabled is causing more harm. I re-applied in March, was 'assessed' in June, 0-points declined in July, Mandatory Reconsideration zero-points declined in August, tribunal request submitted in September. I have the dreaded 'bundle of papers' on my desk, over 300 pages. (most of which is my medical evidence, with big 'poor quality original' stamped on it, honestly, if they declined me because they couldn't read the hospital letters, couldn't they just have asked for clearer copies?) About 2 pages in, DWP are asking the tribunal NOT to hear my appeal, and somewhere near the back, they're conceding that I have 'communication and interaction difficulties the majority of the time.' Make your minds up, DWP. (I'll leave the assumption that DWP computer-monkeys have minds hanging.)
I mis-managed myself, I tried to continue in a very complex job, with some very complex medical issues. I don't have to worry about that any more, now, I just have to worry about my Universal Credit 'Work Coach' offering me contact details for bar-work jobs. (Really, she dd, after umpteen months of me telling her that I'm not remotely functional in the evenings, and that one of my hands doesn't work.) I didn't have a 'sick note' when I applied for UC, because I was trying to 'just find another job', and live off my own bank balance for two months, before I bit the bullet, in the misguided hope that a 'Work Coach' would do more than tell me to 'cheer up', and print me out contact details for jobs that aren't remotely suitable. (She's learning, she's reduced the 'actively seeking employment' part of my 'claimant commitment' to 10 hours a week, instead of 35.)
Linear-logical, I thought I could work my way through the PIP-system before I actually ran out of money, and that I'd be able to find a suitable job, on reduced hours. *Massive great big klaxon of "NO!"* I have a letter from my MP, well, I don't have it, because his really lovely admin-lady doesn't have my address. I have a 'Welfare Rights Advocate' who is unreliable, doesn't turn up for scheduled appointments, and can't extract very clear information from text-messages. I've never met him, and his sporadic phone-calls of "I will win this for you, you have a really good case!", when he hasn't seen any of 'the' case paperwork, or 'my' case notes are infuriating me. Irritability, you've got to love it, haven't you?
I emailed my local Headway branch after the MR decline, I've heard nothing back, I've asked my GP to refer me back to Neuro-psychology, because I've never had a formal functional assessment, my GP, myself AND 'Workplace Well-being' asked for that assessment a year ago, and nothing happened. My IAPT counsellor hasn't a clue what to do with me, because my issues aren't 'straight' mental health, they're complicated by the brain injuries. I have eight double-sided pages of annotations and contestations to the DWP/PIP 'evidence' for tribunal, and I'm working up an 'impact statement' of the physical/intellectual/emotional/social issues I'm trying to work around. I'm doing all of the running around here, and it's exhausting.
When I'm lucid, I'm hyper-functional, and when I'm not lucid, I present a risk of significant harm to self or others. It's not really much use being lucid at daft o'clock in the morning, because your sleep-patterns are wrecked, is it?
I'm waiting for a tribunal date, to explain AGAIN how many things I can't do safely any more. This process is fundamentally flawed.
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Gaia_rising
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Sounds like you have (despite the difficulties that you are faced with) done everything that you needed to do, and provided more than enough evidence that you are entitled to PIP. And yet they get back and turn you down. Th system seems designed to deny benefits whenever this can be gotten away with and not to ensure that those entitled to benefits get them. I'd say bleeding tories but thereagain it was Labour who brought in conditionality and started talking about welfare not social security. Bleeding political parties!
And I really wish I could help. Before my brain became home to a sizeable army of lesions, I use to do people's DLA and employment tribnal cases in my spare time (as equality law was my subject). But now I cant handle my own PIP application and had to get someone to fill it in and have had one face to face assessment cancelled and now been told that the one that they subsequently did needs to be done again. And they wont tell me why. Im guessing that the assessor accidently deleted all the answers! Maybe they simply didnt like the answers? Who knows.
As regards work coach etc, I would make it known to them in writing that having to apply for so many jobs each week (including entirely unsuitable ones) seems to be deletrious to your health and recovery and request that (as a reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act) they reduce the number of required applications and time spent to levels that you are comfortable with.
Also can you get someone else to help with your case, other than the person you refer to, who doesnt seem to be on top of his game? CAB can be good.
Just re-read your post and read that DWP have admitted - 'communication and interaction difficulties the majority of the time.' That seems like a very important admission, though may not in itself indicate entitlement to PIP. Im guessing that you already have requested (under Data Protection Act and/ or tribunal disclosure procedures) all the relevant documents, iincluding internal DWP minutes and emails that refer to your case. If not then might be worth getting. If have them, then maybe go through with a fine tooth comb. Look of course for admissions that support your case, contradictions between claims they have made, and inaccurate statements that you can show are inaccurate.
Sorry have run out of steam for now. Need to top up with some breakfast.
Thank you, charlieab as ever, having 'outside eyes' on a situation I'm very much 'in' can be helpful.
I have submitted all of my medical files, along with additional evidence (everything but the kitchen sink), at least my evidence was accurate and accountable, the ATOS reports read like they were typed by a chimp with English as a second language, information has been copy-and-pasted into sections where it isn't relevant. The assessor-nurse seems to have functional memory issues as well, she's recorded 'tests' she didn't do, and appears to have forgotten to record quite a lot of things that did happen. (Yes, I am being very cautious with my terminology.) I've given them everything they would have needed to make an informed decision, but, let's face it, that's not really what PIP is for.
There was a wry smile when you mentioned your previous employment. Mine involved care planning, risk assessment, and writing legal-safe reports and documentation, which is why I'm so incredulous at the multiple inaccuracies in the 'reports' from ATOS and DWP, I could still do better now, with lumps of metal in my brain. (Hello, irritability, I haven't slept, and the majority of my crush-damage from the original haemorrhage was frontal-lobe, I'm permanently irritable.) Also part of my previous job was taking statements and disclosures, so I knew when the assessor was asking 'leading' questions, where she was doing the old 'assumed compliance' "You said on your form that you (whatever), is that still right?" trick. I wrote the answers on the form, I knew what I'd stated, because this half-life is my life now. Ask-the-same-question-three-times-to-see-if-there's-deviation is another underhand tactic, and she didn't even bother to change the wording of the question, just repeated it exactly three times in a row. (Gods, I'd make a better job of the assessment than she did, but I'd auction off any body parts still functioning before stooping so low as to work for ATOS.)
With regards to the Work Coach, she's doing everything she can to reduce my 'Claimant Commitment' now the stress of the PIP-process is so obvious. I don't have a mandatory number of jobs I have to apply for each week, and I only have to evidence 10 hours per week of actively seeking suitable employment. I'm leaning very heavily on the 'suitable' angle, and if I'm 'invited' to apply for something unsuitable, I should be able to articulate myself as to why it's not suitable. That's an awful thing to write, I DO want to work, I just know I'm no longer capable of full-time work, so need the PIP-award to cover the financial loss of no longer being fit for full-time. I haven't worked in over a year now, that in itself is impacting emotionally, I was fantastic at my last job, and I'd been there 14 years, another 'bereavement' of sorts, lumped into the loss-of-self after the haemorrhage. She has done what she can to make 'reasonable adjustments' to my commitments, my anxiety about the Universal Credit sanctions is more linked to the computer systems 'matching' me with a job, and me having to justify why I can't/won't apply.
CAB might be an option, but, from what I'm hearing, they're already at capacity with cases. I've never met this Advocate, and I already have concerns about his competency and commitment, he's cancelled appointments, not sent paperwork, been late phoning me, AND he puts a space before a punctuation mark on text-messages. (Yes, I know, that's just 'me', but I have a man who thinks he's going to write my MR, when I'd already advised him I was at tribunal stage... when I'm good, I'm very very good, when I'm bad, I'm horrid.)
I haven't made a Subject Data Access Request to DWP/ATOS, but it WOULD be interesting to see if there were any 'internal' emails flying around about me, the 'reports' and 'decision maker letters' contradict themselves on so many points, it wouldn't surprise me if there was more non DPA-compliant nonsense floating about behind closed doors.
I'll chase the Advocate again tomorrow morning, and if he's still being slippy, I'll report back to my MP's secretary, not to whinge for help for me, but because if he's behaving that way with me, he might be doing the same to more-vulnerable people. This situation is stressful enough without having to repeatedly remind your 'Advocate' that it's now almost two months since he assured me he would 'win this case', without having seen any of the case-notes, and that this is the third time I've asked him for the 3rd party authorisation forms to ask DWP to send him my tribunal paperwork. (Horrible feeling I'll get a date before they process the 3rd party paperwork...)
Classic me-behaviour, I don't post for months, and then I go all War and Peace. Thank you for your concern, and your suggestions.
Hiya Gaia. Seems as if I'm at the same stage as you are, only I applied 4 times before finally going for the tribunal. I asked how long it maybe before the tribunal. The lady answered " about February ". This is after receiving DLA in the past. I think I may have a better chance this time due to a new, and for me a more serious complication. I know I can walk 200 yards but, obviously they never look at the medical notes recording the falls I've had, ending up with smashed face, ruined clothes, stolen shopping, and even 2 fires in the kitchen. I have epilepsy, heart disease, had 3 brain injuries, deafness and just been diagnosed with sensory peripheral neuropathy causing the balance problems. I'm 63yrs old, live alone so I have to do everything myself or it doesn't get done, hence I don't meet the criteria for the help of PIP. Good luck. Dave x
I'm tripped up by living alone, too, both physically and metaphorically, it's a horrible system, that over-rides the multiple and debilitating difficulties with "I have decided that you can..." statements. Well, yes, I 'can', because if I don't, it doesn't get done, I didn't say I "couldn't" perform any of the descriptor-activities, I said I needed aids/assistance to be able to complete them 'reliably, repeatedly and within a reasonable time-frame'- bloody semantics, and bloody systems, if I wanted to take the mick with it, I would have recorded 'cannot' for pretty much everything, because on bad days, nothing gets done. Literally nothing, sometimes for several days in a row.
I'm currently waiting to see if DWP's 'instruction' to HMCTS not to uphold my appeal is carried, apparently either party can make an instruction/recommendation to the panel... didn't know that until I re-read the paperwork once I'd requested the tribunal. I think my side of the paperwork is tighter than DWP/ATOS, they're all over the place, contradicting themselves, whereas I've been consistent about my difficulties since 2016, when my initial application was declined. (Yep, being able to construct a reasoned argument will go against me as well, because they can't see that it takes me hours to type up something that used to take minutes.)
It's a vile system, based on the media-myth of people with 'a bad back' claiming for disabilities, and being caught on camera pole-dancing in Ibiza, I do accept that the systems need to be robust, but these ones are skewed. Being able to raise my arms to shoulder height means I'm fully fit, does it? Being able to remember three words, under 'test conditions', and count backwards by 7s means I have no cognitive issues? It's a 'guilty until proven innocent' system, and it sucks.
My MP has forwarded my email of concern to the 'Minister of State for Welfare Reform', whatever one of those might be, so, even if I don't 'pass' the PIP tribunal, my concerns have been raised. Good luck with yours, I'll update if I hear anything on mine.
Good reply. I like the bit about bad back and pole dancing. Just to match it is a close relative of mine, with practically the same trouble as myself. He's had a heart attack in the 70s, one TIA , and his wife as a carer. OK the car he used to have has been taken off him, but he still gets the rest of the benefits. As you say, we're penalised for trying to do something for ourselves. Take care and good luck. Dave x. P. S. I like the name Gaia. An ancient name for Mother Earth.
Gaia theory, through cycles of destruction come re-growth. (DWP and ATOS are having a fair crack at destroying me, but the 'rising' part of my username is a phoenix reference, I don't stay down.)
It's the underhand way the 'points' are allocated that does me in. During a 30 minute assessment, I could stand up, sit down, pretend to be a flamingo, and fold a piece of paper, so I MUST be fully fit. Aye, find me a job as a flamingo-impersonating paper-folder, that only lasts half an hour a day, and has to be in the morning... There's no reference at all to the piles of medical evidence I supplied until now, when they're trying to contest the Tribunal, and even now, they've only cherry-picked lines that appear to suit their argument...
When I'm good, I'm very, VERY good, and this half-life existence is my life, has been for the last 3 years, so when the assessor tried to trip me with "You said on your form... is that still right?" I was on the ball. (Conversely, that could be indicative of cognitive lapses rather than 'lying', which is what they're determined to prove everyone's doing...) I've annotated the Tribunal reports with all of the omissions, errors, and opinion-based speculation from DWP/ATOS end. Even if I'm not awarded PIP at the end of this, I'm going to rip into the system at the Tribunal, I used to write legally accountable reports and care-plans at work, even with brain injuries, I can see the inaccuracies and assumptions ATOS/DWP have committed to paper.
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Here we go again (PIP)
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