my sister worked all her life up until she got too ill to do it anymore, she has two chronic illnesses, one in particular is horrendous and I don't remember one day since 2018 that I haven't seen her in pain or struggling. A year ago she also went completely deaf in one ear and has to wear an hearing aid after an infection in her inner ear and she let the dwp know about it thinking she had to let them know of any new medical conditions (see end of post to see why this is relevent..)
she has been on pip since her illness got so bad she could no longer cope, she got her review and this time around she scored zero in every single discriptor and her pip was instantly stopped, so basically she went from high rate on both to no longer being entitled to anything at all. she has been waiting to hear back from a mandatory reconsideration for five months (I have phoned twice on her behalf and all they say is it's being looked at)
I now know after she broke down tonight that she does not have anywhere close to enough money to get through a month, one of her illnesses is now even worse because stress is one thing that brings out her symptoms more, she won't engage with anyone at all, is sleeping all day, is forgetting to pick up her medications, forgot to transfer the rent payment last month, in a nutshell she is saying she feels like cancelling her entire claim because she can't cope with the process of it all (i'm not on beneifts and this is my first experience with the dwp and i have to say i don't blame her)
in relation to the title of the thread of how do they get away with this.. in EVERY discriptor the assesor mentioned the fact she wears an hearing aid as a way to try to say she isn't entitled to pip anymore. such as can you plan the route of a journey the answer from the assesor was 'she wears an hearing aid and shows no signs of anxierty' do you need help using the toilet? 'she wears and hearing aid and shows no signs of anxiety' the exact same thing was copy and pasted for every single one of them even when wearing an hearing aid wasn't relevent to the question asked. actually ignoring what is actually wrong with her.
she isn't claiming because she is deaf, and she isn't caliming to have anxiery yet this was copy and pasted on every discriptor in order to give her 0 points on everything, nothing about her actual ilnesses were mentioned at all. they also said her painkillers took away her pain then in the next sentence said her painkillers do not take away her pain, it can't be both!
the entire process is not fit for purpose if people are getting turned down with copy paste answers and i think its just a way for the dwp to get people to give up on their claims.
its obvious the MR won't be sucessful going off the figures of sucess and she will then have to wait for an appeal date so by the time this is over its will be over a year without money, yet her illnesses are still affecting her every single day.
anyone saying this is easy clearly has never been through it at all, its stressing me out and its not even my claim!