Guide to Submitting a Claim for PIP

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Loopy-Lou
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Re: Guide to Submitting a Claim for PIP

Postby Loopy-Lou » Sun 28 Apr 2013 1:21 pm

oneeyedraz wrote:
5. Can I apply for any benefit if I decide to work on a part-time basis due to vison problems?

Here’s another example – part-time working is different now if Working Tax Credits are required [as not many part-time jobs pay enough to completely live on with no top-ups]. WTC can only be applied for if working 24 [or possibly 30] hrs a week for a single person, and there are plans for Jobcentres to apply pressure on those in receipt to acquire more hours or better pay.
If a part-timer also applies for some housing benefit again, the rules have changed i.e. cap and bedroom tax.
Applying for PIP to enable part-time working would require medical evidence – so we’re back to recognition of impairment and registration issues.
RNIB, AforB, and CAB cannot offer that medical evidence, and as for general form filling, yes they can do that, but certainly the latter for certain is massively overwhelmed because of cuts to their funding, and some areas don’t even have a local branch. I know that means going further afield to locate the next nearest but not exactly easy if struggling visually.

There have been a number of members asking if they can apply for anything and the above applies every single time – you need evidence, form filling isn’t enough.

munster
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Re: Guide to Submitting a Claim for PIP

Postby munster » Sun 28 Apr 2013 2:08 pm

@Loopy-lou:

Surely the evidence is there in your massive medical file at the hospital treating you for KC.

I guess its coming down to getting the consultants treating you to recognise that it is a visual disability. Then getting a letter from the consultant to start that, and giving permission to your medical files.

Loopy-Lou
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Re: Guide to Submitting a Claim for PIP

Postby Loopy-Lou » Sun 28 Apr 2013 3:16 pm

therein lies the problem munster - any letters would have to come from the practitioners who know the least about their patients day to day functioning - ophthalmologists which isn't only about in-work and out of work benefits.
How often does any ophthalmologist/optometrist enquire about these details? It's not a criticism it's an observation. So optom asks how many hours you wear your lens for and you tell them X hrs [typically the max amount of time] but don't say what happens on the bad eye days and just what that means in terms of living, child care, working.
Impairment and blindness is a kind of 'failure' for eye professionals and saying everything is upbeat terms is how they tend to operate only once has any doctor ever been honest with me and said yep in those circumstances you would be blind and you know what I really appreciated that rather than the more typical fudging.
So, how would most people get a letter from a consultant they've maybe seen little of, and in the required timescale, who would only report corrected visual acuity when that may not relay the full picture? The answer is not many.

munster
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Re: Guide to Submitting a Claim for PIP

Postby munster » Sun 28 Apr 2013 4:31 pm

I would say to start is, phone the consultants secretary and explain the situation.

You require a letter from the consultant, stating the problems, visually and mentally that KC causes. Its needed for your medical evidence of your condition, for relevant government bodies.

I might press my local MP about all this, and ask what the situation is.

Loopy-Lou
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Re: Guide to Submitting a Claim for PIP

Postby Loopy-Lou » Sun 28 Apr 2013 7:27 pm

Munster it really isn't as simple as that, you wouldn't even get a secretary to take that kind of call let alone actually deliver a letter in the required timescale. The ophthalmologist wouldn't be aware of the living, working, let alone mental problems KC causes for most of their patients without a consultation and consultants simply don't have the time to deal with extra appts.
In specialties where the patient's day to day difficulties are gone into greater depth and there's been more regular contact with the consultant it's a little easier to acquire but still not easy. Some GP surgeries have even put up notices saying they will only provide letters for appeals. Medics are overloaded.
If you receive a negative decision because of a lack of medical evidence here's how it works - you have to apply for mandatory 'reconsideration', this period is unlimited [weeks or months] and during this time there is NO payment of any money [which is never reimbursed]. If reconsideration still produces a negative result only then can you appeal, at which point you get a basic rate of pay [lower/same/ slightly more than JSA level which is £71 pw]. It takes on average 12 months for an appeal to go to tribunal. A successful tribunal requires proper representation from CAB to be successful.

I can tell you what the situation is regarding ESA/DLA/PIP, it's dire, and MP's on ALL sides voted for it [few exceptions such as Michael Meacher, his blog clearly outlines what is happening, google it]. The 'reforms' have nothing to do with economics, and that's been proven because billions are being wasted on a face-to-face computer assessment consisting of questions such as can you push a button, lift an empty box, set an alarm clock. These assessments make the companies doing them millions whilst taxpayers money is wasted on the tribunals to reverse their decisions. People with degenerative and even terminal conditions are being found 'fit for work' and there is now a list being collated of the suicides.

The best activists in this field are those with physical health issues and disability. The big charities on the whole have been ineffectual for a number of reasons - gagging clauses in contracts, government funding, keeping own positions, profiting from 'workfare' where sick people on ESA/DLA stripped of their benefits by these assessments are forced to do mandatory work placements [like shelf stacking in supermarkets] or be threatened with sanctions where they lose all income for weeks/months.

However KC's, and any visual group can't rely on the physical disability activists to get things improved for eye patients, those groups don't know the specifics of eye conditions. Eye patient groups have to push for change or it won't happen [ideally with the big eye charities].This means short term getting info to the practitioners on how vital it is they write those letters and advice on how best to help [stating visual acuity isn't enough].
Longer term, it would be better if a broader range of eye practitioners could write reports i.e. optoms and nurses.
Lastly changing visual registration to make applications mean better evidence is offered, and for those who don't need any welfare assistance it would help with employers in seeking adjustments and not getting sacked for taking time off. Making it a disability issue will protect people's living and working rights better. I know some people don't wish to be viewed as disabled but we can't have it both ways - needing adjustments and time off but not wanting to be seen as disabled.

You can google; The Spartacus Report [highly respected, written by disabled people, but ministers refused to meet with the authors].
There are various groups fighting the cuts to welfare, the waste of billions on ineffective assessments and tribunals, and sheer propaganda which has been put out over the last couple of years resulting in increased hate crimes against disabled people, there's a clear correlation.

Here are 3 documentaries exposing what is happening [there are even worse examples than they highlight:


http://www.channel4.com/programmes/disp ... /episode-1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... Faking_It/

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/disp ... /episode-1

Loopy-Lou
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Re: Guide to Submitting a Claim for PIP

Postby Loopy-Lou » Thu 02 May 2013 1:48 pm


munster
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Re: Guide to Submitting a Claim for PIP

Postby munster » Thu 02 May 2013 6:01 pm

Its a shame that the UK Government is persecuting the people with proper disabilities.

It looks like we have to put ourselves at risk to do jobs unsuited for our vision. Just to keep some money coming in to live off :(

If they stopped giving the immigrants, foreign aid, and Europe money, we might save enough to look after the disabled and OAPs.

Loopy-Lou
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Re: Guide to Submitting a Claim for PIP

Postby Loopy-Lou » Thu 02 May 2013 6:11 pm

even simpler to collect evaded taxes and stop bailing banks

Loopy-Lou
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Re: Guide to Submitting a Claim for PIP

Postby Loopy-Lou » Mon 20 May 2013 1:06 pm

http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2013/05 ... p-love-in/

Scope, RNIB, Leonard Cheshire Disability and MIND are just some of the charities who, along with Mencap, are paid by the welfare-to-work sector to manage Work Programme sub-contracts.

For anyone who doesn't know, the 'Work Programme' means forcing people to stack shelves in Tesco for JSA levels of income £70 including people who are very sick and the Programme has pretty much a zero success rate of even getting anyone into employment.

Dion_Ultear
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Re: Guide to Submitting a Claim for PIP

Postby Dion_Ultear » Fri 02 Aug 2013 10:07 am

Lynn White wrote:The best way to do this is imagine an optometrist has taken away your lenses for 2 months due to corneal health issues. How would your home and work life be affected?

Could you drive. cook, work like that?

Lynn


Lynn your post was really interesting to read - especially from a professionals point of view.

In answer to your example however, that prospect quite honestly scares me; my home life would only suffer in regards to the fact I would require someone to be with me at all times when outside of the house as my eyesight without an aid (glasses or contacts) is abysmal at best. I would have to take the two months off work however because I work with special needs children and, in a couple of the cases I work with, would be incredibly dangerous for them should I not catch their epileptic seizures the instant they go into them, which, I can assure you, without my visual aids I most certainly wouldn't.

I'd never really considered this topic on whole; however I have found it frustrating that when I looked at registering myself as partially sighted, my KC didn't actually fit the criteria. The benefits that would have come with it are completely irrelevant, I'm not after the extra money; but just having the "partially sighted" registration would make things a whole lot easier. With my current job, when I declared my KC, I spent a good half an hour explaining what KC actually is. Being registered as partially sighted would have negated that, as realistically that's all an employer needs to know.


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