UC phone claims

Hi,

Yes we’ve had similar problems. It appears that DWP are extremely reluctant to do any claims over the phone with some even outright rejecting them over the phone.

We have either had to complete them online for the client or have rang the Helpline a couple of times to speak to a different adviser

Yes I’ve had difficulty with this.  ‘We’ll take the details and phone them back’ - and then they don’t and there’s no record of the initial call.  Except there usually is a record, you’ve just got to push for it.

I’ve got a couple of mandatory reconsideration requests in asking for telephone claims to be backdated to the date that I assisted with the initial telephone calls as fortunately I have a record of the calls (and in the second case I noted the times of the calls as well as the dates).

See attached DWP guidance (I know I know I know), in case you haven’t seen it…........

I’ve a client in this position, they’ve no other income besides PIP and I’ve called 5 or so times now to explain that as we’re corporate appointee use of the journal is out of the question at any point and we therefore need to make a phone claim.  Each time I’ve been told we’d get a call back from a Case Manager in 24 hours but no call back has been received, thus delaying the start of the claim and the assessment period.  I’ve today been explicit on that last point, and can only hope it’s enough to prompt them to action this (though as colleagues are having similar issues I’m not entirely hopeful)