Failure to attend PIP review assessment

I have just met a new client. She was in receipt of PIP enhanced daily living/standard mobility, her initial award was due to end 27th May. The DWP instigated a review of the claim last September, however the client who suffers from mental health and substance misuse difficulties failed to engage with this process, she did not return the review form and failed to attend two assessments. Following her failure to attend the second assessment in December, her claim was terminated. She requested a mandatory reconsideration but the decision was not changed.  I’ve just put in an appeal of this decision.

I just wanted to check thought, if the tribunal is successful and accepts the client had good cause for failure to attend assessment then I believe they will send the case back to the DWP for a decision on entitlement. If this is the case, as the original claim has now ended, I don’t think they are likely to now send the claimant for an assessment on this claim.  Nor are they likely to have grounds to supersede the original award as the DWP didn’t get to review the claim,  therefore I believe that they are likely in the case of a successful tribunal just to reinstate the original claim until the claim end date in May and the client needs to make a new claim.  Does this sound correct?

Yes - provided ‘good cause’ is accepted then I’d say that sounds about right.

I had a similar case where my client failed to attend 3 PIP assessments due to ill health and ATOS would not allow a home visit. The client had her benefit stopped as a consequence. We appealed and the decision was revised in the client’s favour. PIP was put back into payment and all arears paid however, she had to attend another PIP assessment yesterday and now await the decision.

My client has a serious respiratory condition plus mental health issues and ATOS would not allow a home visit this tme eitheron the grounds she gets aggressive due to her mental illness, something that was never mentioned before.