PIP Review - DL reduced from enhanced to standard. Is telephone MR a no-go?

Hi

I recently had a telephone PIP assessment for my review. Today I received my Decision Notice and whilst I have retained the standard mobility (previous MRs and tribunal appeals have been for the mobility but no problem this time) my daily living component has been dropped from enhanced to standard. This is solely due to losing the 4 points from descriptor 2, Eating and Drinking.

I obtained the PA4 after the assessment and have been terrified that the decision maker would blindly follow that which turned out to be the case. In the SOH section of the report the assessor states that I can forget when to eat and that I tend to eat one meal a day when reminded by my parents. However in the choice of descriptor she selected 2a and stated I have no upper limb restriction, dietician input, no aid prescribed and that I have good cognition, intellect and memory. My difficulties are not physical and are a result of difficulties stemming from autism and as with most of the daily living activities it is prompting that is required. That is acknowledged by the assessor for all other descriptors and she states "SOH is consistent with regular support and prompting from his parents to complete daily tasks".

In light of her acknowledging the need for prompting earlier in the report it seems like the scoring for activity 2 is a mistake or oversight which the DWP decision maker has followed. I think I have seen posts on here of people having minor adjustments made by telephone instead of going through the whole written process but I see the guide advises a written MR request. I just wondered if in the circumstances there is any likelihood of being able to get the points restored for that one descriptor without another lengthy written MR and potentially appeal process or whether attempting to deal with it via phone would be a mistake. My physical anxiety symptoms have been in overdrive since I opened the letter earlier today and the prospect of another long period of this hanging over my head is almost unbearable and I would love nothing more than to try to get it sorted as soon as possible.

As mentioned above I have been through MR and tribunal appeals before but in those cases it was trying to get the mobility component awarded as opposed to having had a reduction in my current award. So this seems much worse as the loss of the enhanced rate will likely impact my ESA and possibly HB/CTS and I no longer have a MIND support worker who assisted me with those processes. Those took so long that the tribunal decision for a previous award came through shortly after the MR decision for the award I had until now.

Sorry for the long post. My body is in full on panic mode right now and I am trying to organise my thoughts as I type this.