PIP assessment after State Pension age

Apologies if this question has been posted before.

Posting on behalf of Mum. She reached State Pension age last year and has been in receipt of DLA and then PIP for approx 24 years previously. She had a brain tumour removed and has a brain injury as a result.

From what I can see online it looks like provisions are in place for PIP claimants after State Pension age to be put on an indefinite aware and have a light touch review. Mum had a PIP "update" form sent out earlier this year which I filled in on her behalf as usual. She then had a telephone assessment (first time with this method), the result of which was that she has now been told that her condition has improved and she is no longer entitled to PIP (0 points for everything). Her condition has not improved! I was not able to attend the telephone assessment and Mum can't remember what she was asked and what she said, only that she was very stressed and explained to the assessor multiple times they needed to speak to me (I had contacted PIP several times prior to explain the situation - I was overseas).

My questions are: 1) should the assessment have even taken place over State Pension age (Mum got a letter previously saying award extended until 13 March 2024 then had assessment prior and award removed from 29 Feb 2024)? And 2) the telephone assessment process seemed wholly inappropriate given the brain injury implications and inabilty for Mum to describe things she struggles with and recall information - has anyone any advice/experience about this?

The mandatory reconsideration was unsucessful, and the responses given by the assessor to this strongly indicate the questions were not asked in a sufficent way to gain accurate understanding, and the information we provided has been disregarded, which is concerning. We have now put in an appeal.

Sorry for the long post/explanation, and thank you.

Hi BIS, thank you for your reply!

No we haven't asked for a copy of the report. The whole process has been pretty distressing for her/me, previous to the appointment she was bombarded with "reminder" texts, and the first telephone call had to be ceased as they couldn't get the call to connect to me, and Mum was told she must attend the re-arranged phone consultation. Mum says the call was a "couple of minutes", but I have to take this with a pinch of salt as it's likely she can't accurately recall.

Previously she had 2 points for preparing food, 1 point for managing treatments, 4 points for mixing with other people, 2 points for making budgeting decisons - total of 9 for daily living. She had 10 points for planning and following a journey - total 10 points for mobility. And has now gone to 0 for everything over the phone call.

She definitely didn't get any phone calls about her assessment results, just a letter saying she wasn't entitled to PIP any more and then after the MR application several letters over the 6 month wait period saying they had all the information they needed, then the outcome that MR was the same result of 0 points. Mum is in Northern Ireland so think it is Dept. for Communities I need to go through to enquire? To be honest we are so apprehensive after the previous attempts I made to contact them.

I was informed by one person I managed to get through to who was helpful that I can't be appointee as I was out of the country (still am due to various reasons) and they need to do that process face-to-face - fair enough. I did think they would have taken the PIP form information into consideration however, and I basically manage everything for Mum remotely apart from her taking herself for food shopping and medical appointments, otherwise she is always with her friend. I read and explain all her paperwork, sort out bills/correspondence/appointments, have daily contact etc. I will be coming back for any tribunal however as Mum will need me to be there to speak on her behalf - hoping against hope someone gets to look at the form and reviews the decison before it gets to that stage as I am worried about the stress it will put on her, she's already got issues with this which PIP didn't take into account (a lot of trouble sleeping, anxiety, stress-related skin condition - ironically enough triggered by the previous PIP assessment 5 years ago...).

Again sorry for long post. I feel a bit scared any separate complaint might affect the appeal review as the appeal intially goes to the office who made the original decison - or am I worrying unnecessarily?

can I just say I am so sorry to hear this. I also from N.l and over pension age (69).I dread a letter coming from DWP re pip. Some of our MPs offices are very good t helping with forms. & maybe they could ring DWP at this stage. All depends what part of the country you are in. I am no expert, but if you had a consultant/ Dr letter would that help. Best wishes

Sorry about what has happened. Very little to add other than, can you get into your mum's call log? Whilst it won't give you the conversation between your mum and the DWP, it will at least tell you the durtation of the call, that would at least give you some idea of how much info could have been gleened from the conversation. Given that they've given her 0 a phone call of a few minutes for example really wouldn't be sufficicent for anyone to have made that assumption and you could use this.
Good luck and please keep us updated.