Can I just vent for a second and say - DWP, DLA claims aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[BlueSmarties]

That's better.

Thought there might be a few people here who would feel the same.

Spent hours and hours and hours filling out forms in Feb whilst carrying for ds2 who at the time was very poorly - still waiting for decision. Had letter today with thre lines saying 'sorry we haven't made a decison yet. What happens next: we are still looking at your claim.' aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh

Sympathy. You can phone and ask what they are waiting for, I think.

i don't trust myself right now.

Part of the delay is because they had been putting all correspondence in my maiden name and sending it to old address despite me checking several times they had all right details. Then they turned me down coz they totally misunderstood the application and turned it down without looking at any of the supporting evidence i sent in.

So they are reassessing and have been for a good 10 weeks now. By the time they decide he will have grown up and left home.

Same letter arrived with me last week. I am in for a reassessment, cos it took them so long to do the initial one things had drastically changed for the worse while we were waiting, but I got told it would be quicker to get something then have a reassessment. I phoned and asked what the hold-up was and was told it was nothing. Just that they had so many!

My dd now actually improving. Wonder how long it will take them to reduce the money when we tell them she is able to care for herself more now?????? Or will they keep paying, then demand it all back?
Nice to get a lump sum though. We got a small car with the last lot. It had taken them so long to sort it we were owed loads!

The longer it goes on the less hopeful I am we'll get it. Its difficult coz ds health varies so much. He's 2 and has been ill on and off since he was born- averaging one really poorly week out of 4 and one hospital dash every 2 months - in the winter it was really awful, i gave up my job and felt totally entitled to claim - then was turned down. Now its the summer he's doing loads better, I love being at home and feel really guilty for applying. Hope it lasts and we wouldn't really need DLA but experience has taught me that there's more trouble round the corner. I hate talking to them on the phone so just keep putting it off.

BlueSmarties, did you get any advice about filling in the form? The crucial thing is that you demonstrate that your DS needs more care than the average 2 year old. So even if he is only really poorly 1 in 4 weeks, do you need to take care of him differently in the other 3 weeks, etc?

Yes i did thanks from the welfare officer at a charity supporting immuno deficiencies. She seemed to think we had a good case. It's just complicated as ds2 seems to have a number of relatively minor long term health problems that add up to one big nightmare and coz he's only 2 we're still at the 'wait and see' stage medically which the dwp definitely don't like - they want labels, all i can give them is a very long narrative of what life is like for us. Have kinda given up on this claim as ds is having some tests this summer which will either show he's fine and we don't need dla which would be great, or will provide sad but useful evidence that we do need it.