All I want for Xmas is PIP decisions

Really Santa it’s getting silly now. My clients are suffering. I’m sure they’ve all been good this year.

did you see the ‘highlights’ from last week’s work and pensions committee mtg with Mike Penning et al -

- approx 30k PIP decisions made thus far from c.200k claims made (Approx 15k claims successful)

- of the 15k successful PIP claims, approx half of awards have been made to terminally ill people

- PIP claims taking longer as claimants failing telephone security; and delaying returning claim form ... (oh, and assessment delays)

- DWP still expects 55% of existing DLA recipients to be refused PIP or be awarded a lower amount

- they’re ‘nowhere near’ the number of appeals and reconsiderations the govt expected

http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/WrittenEvidence.svc/EvidenceHtml/4382

Thanks shawn. I’m sure they will start to increase the number of decisions soon.
There seems to be alot of points that a PIP claim can fail or be delayed though.

Where in the country are all these decisions based then?

We appear to still be waiting here….......the waiting for the actual assessment is significant and then it just seems to disappear off somewhere else.

How is everyone else faring?

Starting to trickle in here…some awards and some disallowances so some MR’s in…one MR back today with decision unchanged so appeal being submitted.

2 decisions (both successful) back in October, none since. One client just called for assessment (the other side of Manchester because of ATOS’ ineptitude), although application submitted in May.

Seems to be par for the course!

We’ve had a few here, all successful.  However, apart from one, a special rules case a colleague had, I don’t trust them.  An ESA client of mine filled his own form in.  ERDL and EM awarded.  Generous in my view.  Another client of mine, we lost both of her ESA and DLA appeals in short succession.  Physical problems walking only ever really in issue.  Marginal care needs, washing and dressing, and LR care for DLA would have been generous.  Claims PIP, I complete the form.  Blow me, gets SRDL and no Mob’.  Very strange.

2 decisions here only (both negative). Most of our clients have not recieved assessment dates yet. We have many outstanding claims from June & July.

A few colleagues have had decisions… not many but the ones that have been made appear relatively generous. I’ve not seen one yet despite having assisted clients with PIP2s in the summer and who attended assessments over 2 mths ago… DWP and ATOS operators on the phones have no useful info in front of them and no escalation procedures in place. Complaints in writing going unanswered…

Atos advisd my client that they were prioritising the medical reports that would give an award of PIP,
as there will be a PIP report published in January that will make it look like a fanatastic new benefit where everyone is awarded.

Be prepared for negative decisions after that !!

Apparently they are expending all their efforts on getting the decision right first time!! Mike Penning tells the Works and Pensions Committee last week :)

http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/WrittenEvidence.svc/EvidenceHtml/4382

Atos advisd my client that they were prioritising the medical reports that would give an award of PIP,
as there will be a PIP report published in January that will make it look like a fanatastic new benefit where everyone is awarded.

Be prepared for negative decisions after that !!

We haven’t seen any non-special rules decisions yet.

Not one here either. And only one of the applications that we helped with since July has even had a medical.

Only one non-special rules decision (no medical) and only one client been invited to a medical (miles away). Majority of our clients our still waiting for their medical!

1 none DS1500 decision here (negative). Claim was submitted mid-June, F-F assessment done in July, decision received early December. They denied her SRM on the basis that she was observed to walk about 50m from reception to the assessment room with a walking stick! (Not sure what would have happened if she had been unable to walk this distance - maybe they would have said that she failed to attend the assessment and disallowed her claim?) Actually, she fell on her way to the assessment room and had to be helped up off the ground by the assessor. Funnily enough, this was left out of the medical report. Good old ATOS…
DS1500s taking over a month