Glos Guy – My boys tell me I am being silly as (in their opinion), there is no way I could be turned down at review but all it takes is someone having a bad day or not understanding my conditions and it could all go wrong. I currently still have approx 19 months until end of award but with the delays in vehicles, it would be getting close to that year if I did order another one now.
My last award was given via a purely paper based one (this was well before the pandemic so not under any special measures), the first application it was decided from a home visit face to face. I’d actually put off putting a claim in for several years (I’d been a wheelchair user for over 5 years when I finally claimed) as I was in complete denial and kept believing I would wake up one morning and everything would work again.
Re the claim forms, I think I am similar to you in the care taken. The only difference is that they get the equivalent of a War and Peace novel in that I explain exactly how things impact me on a day to day basis alongside a health daily log – good days, middling days, bad days, very bad days, the lot so that a true picture can be established. Sadly my good days now are rare and are equivalent to what my very bad days were like on first application, oh well, at least they can see the progression of my main condition and its further impact and development of others ones caused by it.
I am ‘lucky’ in that two of my children had the requirement to have DLA forms done for them from a very young age, so the forms don’t scare me, exhaust me yes but not scare me and as part of that, I sat with someone very knowledgeable for the first claims and she advised me on how to fill them in. Youngest is still in receipt of PIP after moving from DLA when he was 16 (now 23) and has just had a lengthy award (and an upgrade in his mobility element to enhanced from standard so that he now has enhanced for both elements) given to him at his recent summer review, the first since his age 16 move over to PIP – no face to face and only a very quick telephone call confirming details, the whole process from sending the form (and associated documents) to new award took two weeks. His first award was at age 2, he’ll be in his 30’s when he next comes up for review.
Middle son doesn’t have an award anymore, he still has issues (he has Aspergers and a milder form of my main condition) but he has decided not to pursue it in adulthood at the moment. He was first awarded at around age 3 but I unfortunately dropped the ball when he was 11 as I was experiencing a breakdown and didn’t follow up on an appeal after a failed review (long story but it involved a new school who wrote a very positive letter which didn’t help at all, apparently they didn’t like putting negative things in and only wanted to focus on the positives). He then had a very settled period of time in his high school and early university years which we decided a claim was not needed for.
Eldest is now the worry, he is a whisker away from needing a wheelchair now and has already passed the age when they said he would need one (said it would be by the age of 25 and he is now 28 – he also has the condition, albeit diagnosed when he was in his last year of high school and has developed associated ones similar to mine) and his life is really becoming restricted but he has no plans to claim….too much like his mother really for his own good!
Frustratingly, I will have to get someone else to actually write my forms next time as I can no longer hold a pen or write legibly, a loss I feel really badly especially when my speech goes!
Blimey, think I am in waffle mode this morning, sorry for that.