Thank you! Enhanced PIP awarded

I want to thank B&W for the excellent guides to completing the PIP claim form. I completed the form on behalf of my husband. There were a lot of suggestions in the guides to include things that we wouldn't have normally considered including, and I think this helped to "flesh out" the situation, so to speak.

We spent a whole day going through the questions, and I typed out a copy of the form and the answers, just entering "see attached sheet" on the form itself. This not only gave me more room to expand on our answers but made it much clearer for the assessor to read, rather than having to decipher poor handwriting. We could also take our time to review the questions and answers, and make any changes which might occur on earlier questions as we went through the later questions, and thought of something else to add. The guides suggested including information which wouldn't necessarily be considered by the assessor, but would help to provide a more accurate picture of daily activities.

We were hopeful that we would be successful with the claim, as we had totaled up the points we thought would be awarded, but we were expecting to be called in for an interview. Today we received the dreaded brown envelope to find that the claim has been successful, with 36 points awarded for daily living, and 24 points for mobility. My husband has been awarded the enhanced PIP until December 2028. The awarded points were more than we had calculated, with 2 points for some activities that we thought would be awarded 0.

We were surprised at how the points had been awarded. For example, due to a brain injury, my husband is totally blind, has balance problems and no feeling and limited grip in his fingers. This means that he can't prepare any food or drink by himself at all. We expected to get the maximum points for this, but only got 4. Conversely, he can manage toileting by himself, apart from needing help to find the bathroom at night when he wakes up a bit befuddled. We didn't expect any points for this, but got 2 for "needing help to manage incontinence" (not the exact wording, but you get the drift). Other questions we thought would attract 0 points also got 2, but areas where we thought he should get maximum points only scored half of what we expected. Nevertheless, however the points were worked out, we are delighted that we no longer have to worry about PIP until 2028, by which time they will have probably changed the system again.

I would strongly recommend that other applicants use the Guides on here to help with their forms, and also take time to type out their answers so that they can be revised as they go through them. Later questions may prompt additional information on the earlier questions, which you hadn't considered when you completed them.

Thank you again for all you do to help applicants with these time consuming and very difficult benefits. It made everything so much easier for us this time around, and we haven't had to appeal as we did when starting DLA.