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Confused about PIP award
Ask the DWP for copies of the letters it refers to and see what comes back; presumably they will be in the appeal papers anyway if they exist.
On a general note, stating that she has not got a record of a contact or communication is not quite the same thing as not having had it!
It would be odd though if 3 different medical professionals say the same thing and it turns out not be true - unless, of course, they all work for Atos :-)
Your client definitely didn’t send a physio letter in with the PIP2 form?
I did not fill in the form and the service which did, did not see a letter from the physio as this was not sent until the 28/8/14 to the client. The same with the specialist nurse and the same from the consultant who at the time of claim was waiting for an appointment. This arrived in Jan 14 and this was copied and sent to ATOS and the DWP. A copy of the results were sent to their doctor and no one else. Since then they have had injections and other things all documented and sent to the DWP and ATOS.
However the DWP letter says
‘the information provided by the letter provided from your ...’
None of them Provided any letter whatsoever.
And they are prepared to put this in writing.
Are there grounds for a procedural JR?
Or am I barking up the wrong tree. Obviously I’ve complained got the MP involved, spoken to ATOS etc. But it will be a while before I get any replies in the meantime clt suffers through no fault of there own. I despair at this behaviour.
There is the possibility that the client took some letters with them to the medical assessment. Even appointment letters etc could have been recorded on the system by the HCP.
Reading the decision the explanation does not make any reference to the letters from the professionals, it just refers to the findings of the medical assessment (the usual spiel of you told us this, the medical assessment was not consistent with this, therefore you score no points).
If the medical professionals are supportive of claim, get them to do some letters to send in with the MR request and hopefully you will get a sympathetic DM who is willing to give them greater weight than the HCP report. This seems unlikely based on my experience and so you’ll be off to appeal - as Billy says above the appeal papers should shed some light on what was going on.
I certainly don’t think there is grounds for JR - the only situation where it could be appropriate I guess would be where the MR Decision Maker states that they are relying on the letters mentioned in the initial decision but refuses to give further detail of what the letters actually say/details to enable client to double check with their professionals. Even then as devils advocate I’d argue that client already has a remedy available to them in proceeding to Tribunal.
I did not fill in the form and the service which did, did not see a letter from the physio as this was not sent until the 28/8/14 to the client. The same with the specialist nurse and the same from the consultant who at the time of claim was waiting for an appointment. This arrived in Jan 14 and this was copied and sent to ATOS and the DWP. A copy of the results were sent to their doctor and no one else. Since then they have had injections and other things all documented and sent to the DWP and ATOS.
I agree that the letter from DWP could be worded and presented better but if the client has at various points provided letters from consultant and ‘specialist nurse’ then referencing these on the decision notice seems sensible, in order to show that evidence has been received and considered (however useful/useless the evidence is or how well it may have been considered!)
In my experience, many clients will take all sorts of documents in to the assessments or send along with the PIP2 form, even if they’re just appointment confirmations, holding letters saying someone is on the waiting list etc. If the client has ‘had injections and other things all documented and sent to DWP’ is it not possible they’ve sent something from a physio office (even if not a ‘medical report’ so to speak).
Just playing devil’s advocate. Definitely worth requesting copies of all evidence if you think the decision notice is disingenous. I’ve seen some absolutely shocking decision notices recently and have lodged complaints in all cases.
‘the information provided by the letter from your…’
The HP’s did not ‘provide’ any letter whatsoever. It implies that that the Health Professional provided information/evidence to the DWP/ATOS which the DM then used to draw a conclusion from. The HP’s did not do this. Ergo they ‘provided’ nothing to the DWP or ATOS. So how could the DM draw a conclusion from information ‘provided’ when none was provided?
The DM has drawn a conclusion from information gathered at the assessment and evidence sent in by the Clt but not from information ‘provided’ by the HP, so this is very disingenuous to say the least.
Allow me to be blunt, and I feel like being blunt the DWP & ATOS are stating things which do not hold true when put under scrutiny. HP’s do not normally wish to intervene in matters such as these but all three have chosen to do so as they too believe the words written by the DWP are a fabrication of the facts. I for one agree with them.
I’ve considered all the evidence .. as identified in ... the information provided by the letter from your consultant ...
Sorry, I don’t see it. The decision is not saying that the consultant has provided a letter to the DWP. It’s saying that there exists in their possesion a consultant’s letter [which may have been addressed to the claimant, or whoever], and that this letter contains information. It’s a clumsy stock phrase to cover whatever copies of varied correspondence might be: handed in to ATOS at the medical, posted in seperately by the claimant, sent with the PIP2, etc.
Who has the information come from? Who has provided the information?
Most likely the client took in letters to his medical assessment. So he/she provided them. The letters might have been substantive letters that had been written out to the client (and so not recorded by the professionals as having been sent out to an external agency). Or from what you are saying about the course of events it may well be that the client took in the appointment or referral letters.
Either way it sounds like it is unlikely that any letter from a professional will have been unfavourable to the client. This and the fact that the actual explanation to the description does not mention any letters being considered suggests to me that the information on the first page of the DWP is computer generated and in error and that your real quarrel needs to be with the ATOS/Capita medical assessment.
I find people often have appointment letters, which they provide at the assessments. Usually, because these are the ones people keep with them - in a handbag or stuffed in a diary - and may well be listed as a letter from so-and-so. I suppose you’ll never know until to get sight of the document in question.