financial help through pip

kinhellmick. Hi Mick and welcome to the group. I've no experience of pip. Hopefully someone can help. In the meantime, could I suggest you call the free Mac helpline on 0808 808 0000 (8-8pm). They have experts on hand who can talk you through what you may be entitled to. You could also try posting in the Ask a Financial Guide  section. Best wishes.

Hi Mick,It is definitely worth appealing.My partner John has a rare muscle disease in addition to other health problems.He did get a lower amount of PIP but needed the higher anount in order to keep his motobility car.He was turned down but I persuaded him to appeal.He won and was awarded the top rate needed to keep his car.It is best to get some professional help to appeal.Macmillan,citizens advice or any medical professional should be able to help.When John appealed he wrote a letter explaining how losing the car would affect him mentally and physically and his family and mine also wrote letters to support his claim.A lot of people who are turned down do win on appeal so it is worth trying.John didn’t even have to go to court.We sent all the paperwork in and after several weeks he had a letter back from the appeal judge with the good news.Good luck.Best wishes for the New Year.Love Jane 

Hi, Kinhellmick,

Are you self employed?

I went through the same process after my operation. I had someone around from Macmillan filling the relevant information out on the forms and a few weeks later I was in for an assessment, a few weeks after that, lo and behold not enough points to be eligible so as you can imagine I was not amused.

Eight Months passed after my operation and I developed a right side inguinal hernia, this was confirmed by the Doctor and I was assessed at hospital and I was told that this would require open surgery due to having my previous operation. I decided to leave the hernia operation for another seven Month due to the fact of having my major operation not too long back, this turned out to be a good move. The hernia surgery left me with a seven inch scar and I was in and out of hospital in one day, however this was extremely painful and after two week I had to go to my Doctors to have my staples removed. The Nurse who should have been removing the staples said that she could not do this due to infection so I was put on antibiotics and told to go back in two weeks. I was off work for a total of six week.

Mick, I am sorry, but not surprised, to read about your PIP experience.

I am here because of my wife's experience of bladder cancer (just finished three years of BCG, without a single recurrence and no damage to her bladder from that treatment).  However, I have, for many years supported my brother who has both physical and mental health issues.  That support has included obtaining appropriate benefits for hi, including Personal Independence Payments.

I cannot recommend the 'Benefits and Work' highly enough, here is the link www.benefitsandwork.co.uk

It has many guides and worked examples of how to claim PIP and you will see how carefully worded the questions asked of claimants are and, how precise you need to be in your responses.  It was of enormous help to me and you will see that there are also guides to making and dealing with the appeals process; I hope these will help you too.

Best wishes and lets hope that 2022 finds us all in a better place.

Paul

Hi Mick, may I say everything Buggrit says about Benefits and Work is no exaggeration. Also if you are unsure or stuck filling in the forms there is a members' forum with trained volunteer moderators who will point you in the right direction too. A particularly good piece of evidence you can compile yourself is a diary of day today life. In this you can show how much you can or can not do the descriptor tasks 

*safely

*reliably

*to an adequate standard

* as often as reasonably required

All this is detailed in the Members' Guides which they update frequently as necessary. Other useful sites may be pipinfo.net

and Kester Disability Rights - helping people across the UK

Please be cautious about CAB as some people have had excellent help but others have lost out due to ignorance and or poor practice by their volunteers.

Hoping you eventually get the help you need - incidentally PIP is not an 'income substitute' as it is not means tested, does not count for tax etc. It is purely to help with the extra costs of disability. Eg our daughter uses a lot of ready meals as problems with her hands and with standing mean she cannot do food prep from cheaper basic ingredients, and taxis to get places because it is too tiring to walk to the bus stop and stand waiting..

Best wishes, 

Denby