DS1500 while appeal pending

The decision refusing benefit was made on 5th March 2022, and her cancer diagnosis was made on 22nd March.

It’s a question of judgment at the end of the day. If a new claim is more likely to succeed because of the new evidence and the somewhat worsened circumstances, then your client might wish to consider it but this needs to be weighed against the administrative hassle of a new claim and the various consequences of how that new claim interacts with the existing appeal (closed periods and so on).

I wouldn’t be particularly interested in how the form was completed, more what the actual state of the client’s health was then and whether their health now might allow access to some materially higher scoring descriptor or gives them a significantly better chance of success on the previously claimed descriptors. There is something to be said that the client’s cancer diagnosis might now give them a better chance in front of a HCP because it may better explain the symptoms, although as I have said, that will still be considered by the Tribunal re the ongoing appeal.

Thanks for your help Va1der