Published on 12, July, 2020
At the start of this year I decided to take the step to apply for PIP, my research kept telling me there's a slim chance of success first time around so I'm mentally preparing myself for rejection and appeal anyway. Regardless, I still want to give myself the best possible shot by being clear, honest and hopefully not miscommunicating myself too much as being able to do things I cannot. This is the one thing I'm having a lot of trouble preparing for both mentally and practically, the assessment. Citizens Advice have been helping me with the application and the phone call I had with them to go through the form was difficult and draining enough and that's with someone who was doing their best to try and help me and gave me helpfully leading questions to get important information out of my which I likely wouldn't have thought to (or had the confidence to) mention without those leading questions. I actually feel some guilt over being so stressed because thinking back the guy who went through the form with me was really kind and helpful. The thing is, I can easily fall into leading questions and I do worry that the assessor who, unlike CAB, is not rearly there to help or guide me and is likely trying to trip me up and try and make me say enough wrong to where I don't appear to score a single point. I guess I'm just looking to understand what exactly I'm to expect, what common traps they may lay I should be aware of, any common trick questions that I can/should refuse etc. because I feel like I'll answer anything, and I might not be willing to add additional information beyond a 'yes' to one of their trap questions.
PIP kicked me off because I was referred to the gym for my mental health. But ESA kept me on for having mental health issues. Go figure.
TBH, the ESA assessors, was looking at my medical records and all he wanted to know was if I'd tried to kill myself and when i said yes, that was it, signed off indefinitely. PIP, couldn't care less if I did or didn't. in case people are wondering i'm not that bad currently, a lot of that happened throughout the lockdown.
So the first time I went for assessment my doctor told me to not sleep for as many days as possible before the assessment. So I stayed awake for two days pretty much then went for assessment. They asked me all the usual questions, asked me to do things which I obviously couldn't do (and I couldn't do them anyway regardless of my state at the time). I got barely enough points to get the bottom level, but did manage to get it for two years. When i was in hospital one christmas I was shocked at the number of people getting top tier PIP and in better states than I was. So the system is probably broken as well.
Next assessment was last year. I got 0 points. i did appeal it and that got me 8 points, but still not close to what I needed and the stress was enough for me to not take it any further. It was useful to me to have it and it paid for a lot of parking charges for hospital visits, fuel for my car to get to them and some other health costs.
You should expect to have to appeal it. I got told that a late very few people get it now. Most have to take it to the second level of appeal where a judge looks at it. Although someone I know went to that level and put the appeal in and was immediately given PIP, so maybe the gov is trying to avoid swamping the courts with appeals. It seems if you make a big thing out of it and become a real pain in the posterior for them, that you have a higher chance of getting it. The ones that give up probably drop the numbers enough for their pseudo stats.