The DWP have announced that they are reviewing all awards of PIP to claimants with haemarthropathy, a severe type of arthritis caused by bleeding into the joints due to haemophilia, because of a failure to give high enough awards.
According to the DWP, an audit was carried out of awards of PIP to people with haemophilia after concerns were expressed by the All Parliamentary Party Group on Haemophilia and Contaminated Blood
The DWP say that a systematic problem was identified with how the functional needs of claimants with haemarthropathy had been assessed for PIP.
As a result the DWP are reviewing all PIP cases where the main disabling condition is haemophilia to identify and review claimants with haemarthropathy. The DWP believe that there are approximately 410 such cases and they will review each one.
No claimant will have their award of PIP stopped or reduced as a result of the review and none will have to attend a face-to-face assessment.
The DWP started reviewing cases on 25 June 2018 and expect the process to take 4-6 weeks to complete.
Anyone with haemarthropathy who believes their case should be reviewed and has not received a letter by 23rd July 2018 should phone the dedicated phone line for this exercise (0800 121 4296) as soon as possible after that date.
This telephone line will only answer queries relating to this exercise within usual business hours (Monday to Friday 9am – 5pm).
Thanks to Neil Bateman for alerting us to this issue.
