Incorrect PIP letter and wrong helpline information

When you think things can’t get worse .... yesterday I saw a client whose PIP claim had been refused:

“Your total daily living score is 8 points. This means that I cannot award you PIP for help with your daily living needs”
“Your total mobility score is 8 points. This means that I cannot award you PIP for your mobility needs”

The client had been awarded points for cooking, washing, toilet needs, dressing and mobilising less than 50m.

We rang PIP together and the officer on the helpline said the letter was not incorrect as I was asserting, as “you need 10 points for an award, not 8”. She reluctantly put me through to a case manager who was profusely apologetic for the incorrect wording in the decision letter and the wrong information from the helpline. She has promised to investigate how the decision went out in the state it did and why the helpline is giving out wrong information.

She did say that they have a new batch of staff on the phone. I cheekily offered to train them up on the PIP rules as they clearly had not had the correct training before being let loose on the phones.

A corrected PIP letter award and arrears back to Feb 23 will be sorted by the end of the week.

It made me wonder how many people will have had the same incorrect communications and not realised they were actually entitled to PIP.

Hi Tracey - if you want to email/DM me the claimant’s details I can send it up via the stakeholder forum and they can look into it and see

We’ve had a few of the “8 points therefore no award” letters mentioned in passing on here over the years.

The “... as you need 10 points” element is just another consequence of 100% staff turnover on telephony.

I am beginning to idly wonder if this is an area where machine learning could only bring about improvement.