Dear fellow forum members and moderators,
Just a quick message to hopefully help someone by listing what I believe helped me get Enhanced Mobility Rate from standard rate at my Personal Independence Payment Mandatory Reconsideration.
First of all apart from the B&W’s members guides, which I followed to the letter, I had very valuable advice from fellow forum members and moderators and for me anyway, the B&W guideS are excellent, but I strongly feel that if I had not joined this forum I might not have been as successful.
If I can help someone, here is what I ‘think’ helped me.
- First of all I had to think carefully whether it was worth doing a PIP MR. What are the risks? In my personal case I had 2 standard rates, I believed it was extremely unlikely they would stop my PIP because of all the medical evidence backing me up. So I took the risk as there is always a risk. For daily living I was remained on standard rate and the assessor that did the MR, seemed to think in the same way as the first assessor, so in the future in my case, suppose I had enhanced mobility and standard daily living, I know now I would not appeal to try and get enhanced daily living and take the risk of having my enhanced mobility rate lowered to standard.
Even if I disagree with both assessors they both seemed to think that unless one suffered upper limbs restrictions they could not get higher than 2 points for cooking, bathing, dressing/undressing etc.
- I followed B&W’s advice and sent in my MR letter (i could have chosen the form but I preferred the letter) but made sure in case it had to go to appeal that it had full name, dob, national insurance number, date of PIP MR, my contact number, my signature as I read that if some of that information is missing it could jeopardize my changes of appeal. And ‘they’ know that.
I also stated at the end that if I wanted to withdraw this MR request I would only do so in writing and that if I were to speak to them on the phone, nothing I said should be taken as a withdrawal of my PIP MR.
That way it gives the ‘picture’ in the assessor’s mind that you mean business and are ready to go to appeal if needs be.
- “ I did the job” of the assessor.
I explained why I believed I should have been given points descriptors for mobility and when I referred to medical evidence or friend’s testimonies as evidence enclosed I took the time to list between “...” all the relevant sentences that confirmed the higher mobility descriptor I believed I should have been given.
I told them to refer to medical and other evidence but I helped the assessor, and myself, by listing between inverted comas the most relevant written statements that confirmed I belonged to the higher descriptor of mobility, and I kept listing, not all, as there were so many, but the most important statements from different medical practitioners and people not from the medical profession between inverted comas “....” that kept confirming the higher descriptor of mobility I felt I should have been given.
I also believe that if it were to go to appeal, my MR, would be a summary of many pages of the grounds I felt I belonged to the higher mobility descriptors, but all the information is there, without needing to refer to all the evidence previously sent.
- also here is a list of all free medical evidence that I used:
- I asked my GP surgery for a copy of all my medical records inclusive of medical practitioners letters, internal messages of physiotherapists (that I did not know about as I never got letters from MSK, but they write comments about your mobility problems etc ) and summary patient records which I printed out from my online account and I used that as evidence (I only used what was relevant to the Higher mobility descriptor and not detrimental to me in any way) along with as recommended by B&W evidence of people who are not in the medical profession, ie friend, neighbour etc. On this forum, that is why I love this forum, I found out that even a spouse wrote a letter of evidence and that was accepted and if I recall the person in question had a successful assessment.
- Also I sensed ‘sympathy’ from the assessor, coming from the words used, something in the lines like the assessor could not give me a higher descriptor because he could not because....
I believe the assessor was wrong in assessing my daily living needs (despite sensing sympathy) but I did not think it was worth the risk appealing and losing my enhanced rate.
While with the first assessor I did not feel sympathy at all, quite the opposite. I suppose it is also a question of whom you get also.
Kind wishes to you all.
