psoriasis zero points

have a client with acute severe psoriasis, he attends hospital every two days and is body is totally covered. I have submitted pictures as eveidence..

He received zero points and I have previously been unsuccessful with a similar appeal..

any case law etc?

I had a client in the same situation, his condition was also triggered by stress, so we argued that having to seek work, work and be around others he would not know would make his condition worse and in that case Reg 35 was agreed. We also made submissions on the MH impact i.e. client very anxious to go outdoors and no longer socialised.

similar case here as well, cl listed issues with social anxiety but these were discounted by HCP as cl does not suffer from MH

cl states since having to leave wrok due to condition now has suff time to manage it - daily creaming/washing etc - which would make an obvious reg 29/35 argument

a horrible condition given very little sympathy by the dwp it seems

Hoofer,

See CE/2323/2010 states that there need not be a specific mental illness in order for a tribunal to consider mental health descriptors.

It’s probably also worth arguing that the client should attract points in relation to mobilising & sitting/standing (on basis the condition causes significant discomfort when performing these sorts of tasks). I had a roughly similar case (not psoriasis- client had a condition which resulted in constant nausea and frequent vomiting) and we argued that the majority of the physical tasks would make this worse especially if repeated, which the tribunal agreed with. They also agreed that client should attract points in relation to socialising due to her reluctance to do so owing to the vomiting, despite the absence of any MH diagnosis. In these sorts of cases, where clients are obviously not capable of work but don’t pigeon-hole into the WCA functional descriptors, I’ve found tribunals are very happy to allow the appeal if you can give them something to pin it to.

Depends which parts of the body are affected. The condition can be very sore with cracking skin which can affect mobility, using the hands etc so it’s worth looking at how physical activity is restricted.

appeal allowed reg 29 applied