Using alarms as prompts

Hi Everyone,

I have my PIP tribunal soon (I have autism, anxiety and depression). For questions 1-4 (preparing food, taking nutrition, managing therapy or monitoring a health condition and washing and bathing) I use a series of alarms to prompt me to do these things. There is no-one who can prompt me in person. I still manage to miss or be late for at least one of these things per day, but it just about enables me to keep my head above water and prevents me from sinking any deeper.

If I am awarded PIP I hope to employ a carer to help.

Will the tribunal accept my use of alarms as "prompting"? Of course, I would prefer the prompting to be from another person but I have no family who can do that, and I can't afford a carer unless I am awarded PIP.


Many thanks in advance

Hi Greeny

When applying for PIP for my son, who has ADHD anxiety and depression, we used the alarms he sets as evidence that he needs prompting. What we said was that he needs prompting but that this wasn't always available to him so he used alarms, which were not very successful. This means he isn't getting the prompting he needs every day and means he struggles to manage his medication, appointments etc.

We said that due to my son’s poor working memory, he often forgets things like taking his medication. Using an
alarm isn't really effective as he often gets distracted once the alarm has gone off. He has often worried that
he might have taken two doses. So he really needs someone to prompt him every day for this, for appointments etc. I do what I can remotely by calling, texting and ringing but am not living with him so he doesn't always have access to this support and this makes it difficult for him to effectively engage with his healthcare.

I think the fact that you are not being effectively prompted and therefore not managing, but would if you could afford a carer, would be a reasonable argument that prompting is needed.

I hope you get what you need, and good luck! Keep us up to date on how it goes
Anji

Thanks for the replies Guys

The post was by my wife (I am on benefits myself due to a spinal cord injury & associated mental health problems)
she was only diagnosed last year in her early 40s and was encouraged to apply for pip sadly the tribunal didn't go her way and they only awarded her 4 points
she was using a company that would have taken 17.5% of her back pay and quite frankly they were useless (she couldn't find a charity to help autistic people unlike the spinal injuries one that helped me and so panicked despite me trying to talk her out of it and find some kind of charity to help) lack of response or very slow to emails, phone calls etc so it was all very slap-dash.
Plus I've used up about 2 weeks of energy going to support her on what was a wasted journey.

thanks again