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Agoraphobia - unable to get to ATOS PIP assessment. Doctor charging £20 for letter. Any other options?
It still doesn’t explain how you qualify for the benefit.
That’s my line as well; it has saved me many a chewed ear over the years.
Depends what you’re trying to achieve with the MR. If you’re looking to actually change the decision and believe that possible then you do what you need to do. If you accept that an MR isn’t going to change the decision and you just need to get it to appeal then I wouldn’t give it a great deal of thought. As Nick Lowe was once quoted. “Bang it down and tart it up!”.
FWIW I tend to steer clients away from their thoughts on HCPs. My line tends to be that there is nothing they can tell me about their HCP appointment which will be anything new or surprising. I emphasise that you can destroy a bad HCP report with minimal effort but, after you’ve done that, so what? It still doesn’t explain how you qualify for the benefit. That’s where the effort needs to be focused, whether at MR or appeal.
Cheers Mike. I think I was thinking along those lines so it is good to have confirmation. Like you say it’s mainly about what qualifies them for the benefit.
FWIW I tend to steer clients away from their thoughts on HCPs. My line tends to be that there is nothing they can tell me about their HCP appointment which will be anything new or surprising. I emphasise that you can destroy a bad HCP report with minimal effort but, after you’ve done that, so what? It still doesn’t explain how you qualify for the benefit. That’s where the effort needs to be focused, whether at MR or appeal.
As well as the reasons given it also has the benefit of not working your client up into (understandable) anger on the day of the hearing if they are challenging findings that they are typically very angry about. Clients give better evidence sticking to the facts as they see them than going off on one about the assessment.