Dear B&W,
the person I care for has successfully transitioned to PIP, enhanced rate for both elements, scheduled review 2027,.
I want to thank you so much for your invaluable Advice Guides and the wonderful guidance from your dedicated Forum Moderators. I don't think the outcome would have been as good without your help.
To have knowledge of the underlying workings of the ESA and PIP tests is essential to getting to first base, before braving the vagaries of uncooperative evidence providers, grumpy assessors and jaded cynical Decision Makers!
Anyway the award letter arrived today after a F2F on the 7th March - pretty quick.
We were lucky that the assessor was a young occupational therapist who was very professional and attentive, devoting 100 minutes to the F2F including some physical exam.
I understand some of them can be quite nasty, from what I have read on the Forum.
I was a bit perturbed looking at the individual question scores. Most were about as expected but the cooking food question scored just 4 when I expected 8, whilst the communicating question scored higher than I expected.
Still can't fathom why the system allows just 1 point for needing someone else to give you medicines throughout every day.
I was relieved with the mobility distance question - they accepted 20-50 metres, which meshes precisely with the ESA answer I gave in 2014 and will firm up that assertion for the ESA renewal later this year.
Elapsed time from receipt of Invitation Letter duplicate (first one never arrived) to receipt of Award Letter was 15 weeks 3 days, no extensions requested but including time for info requests to doctors to go unanswered, which scuppered an effort to do a paper-only assessment.
Good luck and good wishes to all our fellow Forum dwellers.
W.
