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Internal guidance on setting award periods for PIP

Daphne
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Sent out to members of the PIP Forum including info on 10 year awards

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Mike Hughes
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This is most useful but reads like it’s part of a slightly longer document which perhaps covers the review process in more detail? Any clues?

FWIW I have taken to completing the “any other information” section of claim packs with a specific request for an ongoing award where a condition is lifelong or degenerative. I make the point (when true) that the claimant has done all the “adapting” they’re going to do and, if the DM is minded to make a time-limited award, ask them to identify the specific evidence upon which they believe justified that specific length of time. Thus far a 100% success rate (on an admittedly small but growing sample). Weirdly DWP are somewhat reluctant to go with HCP recommendations for 2 years etc. when there’s literally no medical justification for that at all i.e. no possibility of improvement and any anticipated deterioration cannot be pinned to a date by anything written in evidence.

I suspect that most often claimants get time limited awards because, where we’re involved, we think it’s self-evident and don’t actually ask for anything.

When I’ve done this on an equally small number of MRs the outcome has also been 100% positive and in 1 case more points to boot. I have of course now cursed it. 

Just a thought.

jamiemac
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Hi Daphne
Further to the last post from Mike Hughes, this new guidance is not headed or marked as a DWP document. I have looked elsewhere and have found no reference to it on DWP sites so far. If we are to use it in future claims/appeals then it needs to have some authority so can you add a link to where it is online, hopefully with evidence that it is a DWP document.
Thank you & kind regards

Mike Hughes
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A quick look at the pdf properties and we find

“Murphy Amanda JCP JSA NEW CLAIMS”

The plot thickens…

Daphne
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jamiemac - 15 August 2018 01:03 PM

Hi Daphne
Further to the last post from Mike Hughes, this new guidance is not headed or marked as a DWP document. I have looked elsewhere and have found no reference to it on DWP sites so far. If we are to use it in future claims/appeals then it needs to have some authority so can you add a link to where it is online, hopefully with evidence that it is a DWP document.
Thank you & kind regards

It’s internal guidance that was sent to members of the PIP forum so I presume only available on the DWP intranet.  I guess the only thing would be to do an FOI to get it?

Ed Pybus
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Is it just me or does this new ‘guidance’ just say exactly the same as the previous ADM and PIP assessment guide, with the addition of a flowchart and a undefined concept of a ‘light touch’ review?

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Is this case something you could raise through PIP stakeholders which we heard about from one of our local advisers? This seems like a nonsensical timescale and to me, flies in the face of their own guidance about award lengths.

Client with a PIP review form in March 2018. PIP award (enhanced rate daily living component and standard rate mobility component) due to end in March 2019 and had been a 3 year award from 2016-2019. Sent the review form a year early.  Form submitted by the deadline (initially April 2018 extended to May 2018) with supporting medical evidence and the client had face to face assessment in June 2018.

Received decision letter dated 25 August 2018 awarding enhanced rate of both daily living and mobility components from March 2018 to March 2019. However, because this was only a one year award, it is due to end in 6 months’ time and therefore,  also received a PIP review form dated 25 August 2018 on the same day. The client came to office to see me as assumed this was a mistake. Had to explain it is just because of one year award and DWP always send the review form out early to give them plenty of time to reach a decision on award before the payments stop.

The client understands the reasoning however thinks it is crazy that has to complete another form, may have to have another face to face assessment in the next few months and then wait months again for a decision when has only just finished this process. I have confirmed that if form not completed by the deadline (25th Sept) then they will stop payments. I called the DWP whilst the client was with me and they confirmed that what I had explained was correct.

The client has severe rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia and depression and detailed medical evidence so I am confident in the strength of the claim.

ClairemHodgson
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Paul_Treloar_AgeUK - 25 September 2018 04:32 PM


The client has severe rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia and depression and detailed medical evidence so I am confident in the strength of the claim.

and he’ll never recover from those - quite probably will only get worse - so should be on a very very long award….

maybe the DWP think they are assessing Lazarus?

Chrissum
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I’m afraid that the HCPs, and subsequent DMs, still believe that fibromyalgia is one of those conditions that “goes away” or has little impact upon a sufferer’s daily living. We get a lot of appeal work from clients who mention the “f” word as when they attend the assessment they can come across as appearing fit and well so they inevitably have receive no award or any award made is severely time limited. Normally the doctor on the subsequent appeal panel knows exactly what fibromyalgia is and the devastating impact it can have on someone’s life.

Mike Hughes
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Fibro is an interesting one. It’s not decided. Like ME/CGF it splits the medical profession between it being a discrete condition and it being a syndrome i.e. the point where differential diagnosis has run out of options/explanations and in my experience tribunals struggle with it just as much as HCPs do.

None of this is helped by Fibro Fog. I must admit a prejudice here as I have no problem with mental confusion or poor memory etc. but fibro fog seems, to me, to produce more than its fair share of claimants for whom it explains wholly contradictory evidence. “I can walk 20m” versus “I’ve not walked 20m in 10 years”. That kind of thing.