PIP for Anxiety

[IntelligenceIsFree]

AIBU to clear things up?

The current nasty rhetoric around disabled people at the moment is astounding. Society needs to be reminded that we are ALL one illness or accident away from disability.

Everyone knows someone who is gaming the system, yet the PIP fraud rate is extremely low. The public demonising, does not match the reality.

The hot topic is “anxiety” and how people with “anxiety” are gaming the system, getting “free” cars and robbing tax payers; this is being constantly fed through media, news articles and so on.

This is simply not true. The people spouting this nonsense clearly have no idea how PIP works. Nobody gets PIP without strong medical evidence. Nobody.

Before anyone posts “my neighbour got PIP just by telling lies”. No, they did not. That’s not how it works.

People need to be educated properly on how benefits work, how they are awarded and what the criteria for mobility cars actually is; the cars are not in fact free.

People need to be educated on the fact that there is anxiety, which every human suffers from at some point, and then there are anxiety DISORDERS which are entirely different and can be life changing and debilitating. Hence, the need and entitlement for PIP.

Brenda down the road who feels too anxious to go to Bingo on a Friday night is NOT getting PIP ❌

Mary up the lane who has such severe OCD that she cannot leave her own home for fear that she will die, IS getting PIP .✅

There’s a huge difference.

The current turning on disabled people is shameful and we are living in a country full of hate because Bob (and his Uncle) are annoyed that they are paying tax to “support all of these scroungers”.

Bob (and his Uncle), needs to hope that they never get cancer, or suffer life changing trauma or have an unfortunate accident to avoid being served a huge scrounged humble pie.

I do not suffer from anxiety but as a human, I am pleased we have a system in society to support the most vulnerable people who need it. Life can happen to anyone.

Who said they're posting about themselves and how do you know none of them work when PIP isn't an out of work benefit.

DWP is hiring thousands of fraud investigators
Who mainly focus on the housing element of UC. Much easier to prove and a higher financial reward.

What you think most people with mild to moderate anxiety under primary care get pip

You seemed to suggest that you need to have a referral to a MH team to succeed in a PIP application. I take it you agree that this isn't true, then?

No i said you would have to have severe anxiety which if you have severe anxiety disorder such as ocd, ptsd, selective mutism, agoraphobia you will be referred to cmht

Right, so you agree people can be awarded PIP based on a diagnosis of anxiety from a GP. Finally got there!

I would be very surprised if anyone got pip for mild to moderate anxiety disorder alone. If you are referred to the cmht then thats secondary care which is what happens with severe anxiety disorders

I've seen it happen on several occasions. Anyway, I'm going to have to leave you to it as I have a friend coming round.

Sure you have

How have they? They’d have zero evidence.

But you could argue any car can be adapted so why should anyone get a motability car. There is no reason to play disability top trumps, the scheme exists to help disabled people who qualify.

I provided my referral to the incontinence team. That was it. I never actually got a feedback letter from the incontinence team to prove I am incontinent and at the time of my assessment I hadn't even been seen by them, simply referred.

I did have to go into graphic details about the level of flooding I experience with incontinence and how restrictive this is though in my phone assessment.

Soooo I can see both sides here. I've gone from having a great career in science, to being unable to work, as I had a brain tumour and then developed an awful, chronic condition and am now disabled. Massive shock to the system, as I've worked full time since I left school, and obtained a degree via the Open Uni along the way.

I am going to apply for PIP and I'm really dreading it. I've not heard good things about the application process and quite frankly, it scares me!

However a close friend of my best friend is on PIP. For anxiety.

She claims she is so anxious that she cannot leave the house on her own. She has to be accompanied everywhere. That she very rarely leaves the house at all in fact, because of her overwhelming anxiety.

The TRUTH is she's never IN the house. She has lip fillers, botox, gets her nails done at the local nail salon, gets her hair done, her eyebrows, she has eyelash extensions. These are all salon based appointments (not home based) and NOBODY accompanies her. She also goes to the sunbed shop about 3 times a week, goes clothes shopping for her kids (they don't live with her, so she doesn't do school runs or anything but goes shopping to get them tracksuits etc).

Her and her (new) boyfriend are always out for drinks and meals.

She is absolutely and unequivocally lying.

She lies to the doctors, so that she can provide "evidence" from the doctors in order to claim these benefits (LCWRA with UC, and PIP).

So. As I said, I see both sides of this argument.

And the person I described above is EXACTLY the reason why all of the GENUINE people get tarred with the same brush.

Edited to add: she never even has to have reviews with PIP. They just automatically renew it every 3 years or something

Sorry i meant PIP my son is 16 mext month sp my mind is still filled wirh DLA
So i will re phrase
Im glad yoyr daughrer gets the higheat rates of PIP clearly ahe deaervea them

Not true, I got points on the basis that my parents had activated power of attorney. I hadn't been assessed to get this as it happened many years before I applied.

So how do you stay close friends with someone like this? Why would you stay friends with a liar and a cheat?

Its the fact she believes a word her friends says after knowing she's a Billy bullshiter

I've never met this woman. She is my best friends close friend, as I clearly wrote in the comment

Did you read the comment properly? I've never even met her!! She's a friend of MY friend

Ex assessor. The assessment process is massively flawed, if it was robust then so many claims wouldn’t be awarded at MR and after the lengthy appeals process. The system is easy to cheat, especially for mental health conditions as there is essentially no concrete diagnostic test for mental health. It’s not to say all those claiming for mental health are fraudulent or that I don’t think PIP should be awarded for anxiety because I’ve awarded for anxiety and depression many times and it’s fully deserved. However there’s system can be easily cheated and the percentage quoted for fraudulent claims did not reflect those that I assessed.

During training I asked how we would know that what is being claimed is genuine when there is no medical evidence provided, I was told we cannot know for sure. So so many claims were awarded without any evidence from GP or consultant, they were awarded on the word of the claimants alone.

I must add that I struggled with the job for these reasons and also that many claimants did not get awards as they didn’t meet the PIP criteria despite clearly struggling daily. Utterly soul destroying.

I think the whole criteria are flawed and arbitrary to be honest.

But how do people get round the big things that are routinely used to deny people enough points to qualify - things like being able to drive, being able to work, having kids that social services haven't taken off you etc? You could lie about these things but surely they can check things like whether you have kids and whether you're paying taxes? I appreciate that people who don't have kids and can't drive etc have it easier but from posts on the disability forums a great many people don't qualify for these reasons and I can't see they'd be easy to lie about - reducing the numbers of people who'd be able to play the system?

Completely agree with this and people need to realise this is why at some point reform will fucking get into power - I hate reform but people will get so sick of the disability benefits lobby claiming 'there's zero fraud!!!' etc that they'll vote reform and the gravy train will end pretty quick.

I'm sick of this narrative that there can't be any people in the UK taking the piss of course there fucking are.

Fact is a certain percentage of human beings are lazy and would prefer not to work and are willing to go to quite extreme lengths to avoid it. There's also plenty of people who are decent enough actors to be able to fake anxiety.

It undermines people's credibility when they try and go all indignant at the suggestion there's a contingent claiming who shouldn't be. Nobody has ever suggested there aren't plenty claiming pip/dla who absolutely should be getting it but don't be daft trying to claim there's no piss takers.

Nice to know you think I’m ‘getting around things’ by working.

I work from home and drive a Motability adapted automatic car. My kids are grown up so I don’t think social services would be knocking the door any time soon. It’s disgusting that you think that social services should be removing children where there is a parent in receipt of PIP.

There are reviews, ever since we have had benefits there have been people claiming them that have lied to do so, if this bothers you it is quite easy to report your friend to DWP anonymously- putting it on here you are just encouraging others to game the system.