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.

A friend of a friend told me that the moon is made of cheese, so it must be true, right?

I don’t think it’s as straight forward as it’s true or not true the real problem is the assessment process and I believe that it not being done in person has created an issue for people not getting what they need and the scammers being able to get the higher rate and that is often from claiming to have severe anxiety

I support people through the PIP process (work in MH) it’s no secret what can be written on the forms (often told HRT Queen please add that I can not go out and can not use public transport as it gives me a panic attack - no I do not lie on a form). Medical teams will be contacted, but what can a GP write yes I prescribed them medication as they informed me that felt very anxious, let’s face it it is not hard to claim or go along with therapy.

it’s far more concerning that so many have had their PIP reduced because they do not present to have high needs every single day. The back log for mandatory reconsiderations is ridiculous as is the PIP application process

it needs more money pur into the system to make it work better

https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/agoraphobia/treatment/

If your symptoms do not respond to self-help techniques and lifestyle changes, your GP may suggest trying a talking therapy.

Funny that.

Why does a person with agoraphobia need PIP? what extra costs are there? I'd imagine it's home delivery which is a £1-3 per week. They don't spend on commute, on going out, travel. What needs to be compensated there?
If this cost of therapy, then surely it's better to offer this on NHS then direct cash payments?

no, the system can't get any more money. MR should be banned.

Absolutely. People sometime getting £750 every four weeks for what. the system is a joke.

If thats the only condition they are reporting, and the only symptom is they cannot leave their home at all, and they meet the criteria for overwhelming psychological distress, they would get standard mobility only. Which is around £30 a week. There would score 4 points in daily activities for support engaging with other people, which isnt enough for a award in daily.

However, its unlikely thats all they would report, most mental health conditions also report for prompting (supervision if self harm) with cooking, medications, washing, dressing, and managing finances.

The fact that this ‘friend’ has said they never have to have reviews tells you everything you need to know about the truth of what’s being said here.

Everybody on PIP is reviewed. Everybody. Even those on open ended awards because of severe disability are reviewed every ten years via ‘light touch’ enquiries to GP’s or other HCP’s involved with the claimant, to make sure nothing has changed. The rest of the claimants have a fixed term award and as they approach the end of it they are sent review forms to complete, to update their circumstances and make sure there are no changes that should have been reported.

It’s fairly simple. If you don’t complete the forms within the timescale given, your clam stops. It’s utter nonsense to suggest that this can be sidestepped or that any claimant is given a free pass. Yes, we know some people swing the lead. The point is that it’s not as prevalent as government would have you believe. There are many reasons PIP claims have increased but as usual MN feeds on government rhetoric with no critical thinking applied.

Yes i always find it strange that people divulge to anyone and everyone that they are claiming benefits they are not entitled too surely you would keep quiet about it?

It has to get more money to work efficiently and until then No MR should not be banned the assessments need to improve as do the level of the assessors

my friends son recently had his four year assessment, when he has respite care he needs 2-1 that tells you the level of support needed. His high rate was taken away. The forms were completed correctly the assessment was incorrect knows and rightly so it was reinstated but after months of stress

this is happening over and over again it’s absolutely not fair on so many families who’s lives are difficult enough

Agoraphobia usually presents as just one component part making up complex mental health conditions, which would have significant impact on daily life and mobility. £750 every four weeks represents the enhanced rate for both mobility and daily living components.

These awards are only made to those with the most severe conditions. Claims for stand alone mental health conditions would have to meet a very high bar to qualify for enhanced help and the award would depend on very much more than the claimants’ own say so.

If you don’t want to take my word for it, the eligibility criteria and rules for scoring of activities assessed are all freely available to view online, along with the kind of medical evidence needed to secure a claim. Which is what many of the posters on benefit threads should be doing to educate themselves as to just how difficult PIP awards are to secure, before coming online solely to spew ignorant bile at disabled people.

It’s a viewpoint I’ve only ever seen on MN and l take it with a pinch of salt. IRL not only is fraud far less common than posters would have you believe, but IME even genuine claimants wouldn’t disclose what benefits they are on, simply because of the fearful atmosphere created around claiming benefits and the notion that if someone in the street with absolutely no medical knowledge and no clue about the nature of your claim can’t immediately see an obvious disability then you must be a fraudster. It’s claptrap.

Threads like these inevitably descend in into benefit bashing and at that point people will say anything to support their narrative.

Exactly. The false narrative spewed out surely just encourages time wasters which puts more pressure and cost on the system .

I cannot take those sorts of posts seriously. It is always the same script, the person is forever getting Botox, fake ducky lips, nails, blah blah blah, and proclaiming loudly to anybody within a five mile radius that they are blagging the PIP system. Tedious as anything.

This.

I diagnosed adult ADHD for several years. The overwhelming number of people were diagnosed and with a lot of evidence.

A small number of people were diagnosed with zero evidence other than what they said. But they had clearly schooled themselves on what to say during an assessment, were very prepared, very articulate and very forceful.

So it came down to whether or not you were willing to call them a liar, which of course you can't. So they'd get a diagnosis.

And this was an NHS clinic with MDT where it's much more difficult to get a diagnosis than those 1 hr ADHD private diagnoses which are endemic and problematic.

And the medical evidence we provided for PIP claims was a genetic letter saying Mr Jones has been diagnosed with X type of Adult ADHD which can cause difficulties in these areas..

Whatever they said on their PIP forms or during assessment wasn't known to us.

The number of people who immediately asked 'can I claim PIP?' were in the minority but enough to raise an eyebrow, especially when it was someone functioning highly.

I know some people with adult ADHD who are really very disabled by it and can see why paying a PA for example would be really needed but I was shocked when I actually looked up the number of claimants for PIP with adult ADHD.

Gel Nails! Its always nails 😂

But it doesnt go off diagnois or common traits
It goes off how that Diagnosis impacts a person.

So disabled people should now be prevented from appealing unfair decisions and just be grateful for what they are given - or in this case, not ? Do you even know what an MR is ? It’s a hoop that disabled people have to jump through before their claim can go to appeal. MR - mandatory reconsideration, or in other words asking DWP to reconsider their decision, rarely results in any change to the award. But it’s necessary before the claimant can go to appeal - which is where fully 60% of DWP decisions resulting in denial or reduction of benefits are overturned.

Think about that figure for a moment. What it means is that for claimants who actually go to appeal, the DWP is found to have made a wrong decision in more than half the cases. That’s because at appeal cases are considered by actual experts in all aspects of disability and case law, instead of the piss poor standards afforded disabled people in the first instance - the actual assessment.

Do you not think we should be focused on overhauling the system so that properly considered and scrutinised decisions are made, before we deny disabled people the right to challenge them ?

She's a higher rate taxpayer, on over 51k a year. PIP is a few hundred a month. Stop being goady and obtuse

An award of PIP isn’t made on a diagnosis of any disability or health condition. It’s how that disability impacts their daily life and mobility, and the balance of probability that what the claimant says is reasonable and backed up by medical data and any supporting evidence. Without knowing the details of the claim and the result of any assessment you can’t possibly know if a claimant is genuine.

l’ve been a disability outreach worker for over two decades. I’ve worked within both the DLA and PIP systems and the accounts given by many posters on this and similar threads simply doesn’t reflect my (considerable) experience with disability across the board. I really fear for disabled people if MN is in any way representative of the opinions of the wider public.

more at tribunals as they are a diferent criterea to assessors when it comes to awarding points.

This isn’t correct. The FTT looks to see if the DWP decision is lawful. Both should be applying the same criteria and law. The problem is too many assessors have poor training and DWP want to (incorrectly) apply a different law.

It’s utter nonsense isn’t it ? I’m finding it very difficult to swallow the ‘credentials’ in this case. There is no mention of the ‘balance of probability’. Where there is little or no medical evidence to go on, assessors don’t simply take the word of the claimant. They have to weigh what the claimant is reporting against current medical and other data to decide whether the reported symptoms and impact are consistent with the condition, and could be considered reasonable.

If the assessor is doing their job properly the medical justification for the points awarded - whether that supports a successful claim or not - should be reflective of that. It’s my experience through supporting claimants through the PIP process, that rather than allowing claims with little to no supporting medical evidence, the majority are rejected on the balance of probability factor and for other inconsistencies in their accounts of the impact on daily life.

Yes. My point is all the people saying 'you can't get PIP without medical evidence'.

Which as PP have pointed out isn't always true and my point is that often the 'medical evidence' is just 'this person has this condition' not 'this person has the condition and I agree it effects them in the ways they have described on their PIP application'.

Well it does reflect my extensive experience of working with people with different conditions.

It's a flawed system because many people who should be getting it aren't, many people who shouldn't have to fight for it have to, but I also know for many it really isn't hard to get and many are receiving it who shouldn't be.

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

Straight from op