Does anyone have experience of arguing that physical difficulty walking due to visual impairment (risk of falling, need to scan from side to side etc) constitutes severe discomfort. Is there any relevant caselaw from IB days. Alternatively does visual impairment fulfil mental, cognitive descriptors - if not does someone registered blind fall in a no mans land between the two in respect of getting about. My client has been awarded 9 points for cant recognise a friend at 5 metres but I am trying to get her more points

how about awareness of hazards? no 13

but, see this document

http://research.dwp.gov.uk/esa/pdfs/t06-esa-factsheet-scenarios.pdf

example on page 8 of blind person.

the dwp seem to not take that into account, and have also assumed minimal DLA as well....

In reply to awareness of hazards suggestion - this brings me back to does Vis Imp fall under MH, Cog or intellectual decsriptors? If so yes I agree and have argued this in my submission.
Thanks

cognitive, surely...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognition

from the latin, to know or recognise

sight a cognitive function ...

what does her optician say about her sight?

can she really
" see well enough to read 16 point print at a distance of greater than 20cm. (15 points)"

I agree fully that a person with a visual impairment should score points under 'mental health' activities and descriptors, such as 'awareness of hazards' and 'getting about'.

The LCW test in schedule 2 of ESA regs is in two parts, and there's nothing in ESA regs (see reg 19) that stipulates that you have to have a 'physical' problem to score under part 1, or 'mental' problem for part 2.

Also Claire's point about 'cognition' including sensory impairments is I think fully justified. For every ESA appeal I've done so far I've included in my submission a dictionary definition of 'cognition' to make the point that part 2 descriptors should apply for a visually impaired person. Fortunately/unfortunately we've won the appeals on other grounds, so no tribunal has yet had to concede or reject the point.

The good thing about the ESA vision descriptors is that they take account of both visual acuity - (ability to read 16 point text, recognising person across room/street) - and field of vision restrictions. These are the factors that are taken into account when deciding whether a person could be registered as sight impaired (partially sighted) or severely sight impaired (blind), so at least it is possible to say that anyone who is registered at either level should score 15 points to qualify for ESA.

There are plenty of people, however, with significant sight problems who are not registerable, but they may qualify for ESA if they score 6 points on 'can't recognise person at 15 metres' plus 6 points each for 'getting about' and 'awareness of hazard'.

Thanks for link to that ESA guidance doc. We have no quarrel with blind people (with no other disabilities) going in work-related group, but that example of blind person getting DLA low mobility but not even low rate care is very odd ...

and almost forgot, back to the original question
- 'visual problems causing a physical difficulty walking'.

I frankly don't think there's much mileage in the argument - I'm not aware of any IB cases, and I think DLA caselaw like Lees RM1/84 and CDLA/3898/2006 will be cited.

Certainly we used to regularly regularly get visually impaired people 3 points under old 'can't walk up and down stairs without holding on', but now no chance under ESA 'walking' activities

alban

I was successful with an IB appeal and visual impairment due to the using stairs descriptor - Can your client safely negotiate even one step due to the visual impairment.

Sorry can't remember the case law we used at the time as some years ago.