Medical report received for MR

Hello all

As many of you know my son was given 0 points across the board in his assessment/decision for PIP. The assessor had clearly written much of the report prior to the brief telephone interview and completely disregarded (or had not read) any of the information that we sent to accompany the application, including the psychologists report.

She heavily relied on one sentence in a letter from his ADHD clinic to the GP in relation to shared care arrangements. She mistakenly stated that this was a discharge letter. The sentence read that his ADHD symptoms "were now below the threshold for diagnosis" (I think this was a typo and should have read not, rather than now). She repeated this sentence throughout her assessment and did not record any of the examples we had given. She also did not query that this sentence was completely at odds with the rest of the letter, which explained that my son's symptoms scored highly on their scaling assessment, had increased not reduced, and it was clear that the clinic continued to support him.

We asked for a MR and have been awaiting the medical letter. Well, it was worth the wait!! I am mildly (not highly or even moderately) hopeful that this may swing it for him. The letter states that the one sentence that the assessor (and the decision letter) repeated over and over was incorrect and highlighted how his scaling was at odds with the sentence.

The letter is FIFTEEN pages of support for how his symptoms impact on his ability to undertake basic daily tasks. They have backed up all of my evidence (that I have submitted following the guidelines here) and thrown in lots of medical terminology to back this all up!

So...now I have to guide my son through the process of printing it and posting it as a matter of urgency. Fingers' crossed that this has the desired impact. If the MR is not successful, then this letter will be really useful for a tribunal. Anyway...I will let you know the outcome.

Anji

Anji,

Keeping everything crossed for you and your son x

Thank you. That was my thought too, they would look ridiculous. The letter goes through all the activities in the PIP assessment and explains in detail how his ADHD impacts on his ability to undertake them. She has also added some evidence that is new (for example in the 'managing medications' she has explained that he has rung them up before because he has been worried he's accidentally taken two doses).

Anyway...fingers' crossed 🤞

I wonder how many other medical reports have typos that don’t flag up as spelling or grammatical errors and yet change the whole meaning of what is being said. And in the medical world it could quite literally be a life or death matter.

Good luck with the new explanatory letter.

Blueberry Owl, that’s a good point. I mean for us, the assessor quoted that sentence throughout the report and it clearly trumped anything else we provided or anything we said. I think she saw that sentence and didn’t bother looking at anything else. I’m so pleased we went back to the clinic and asked them to clarify- in the new letter it states that this sentence was an error and was incorrect. Given that this was their main reason for giving 0 points throughout I hope 🤞🤞🤞🤞 that they will agree they were wrong.