'Once more into the valley of death........'
Posted , 7 users are following.
OK Iv'e had it from my wife, my GP and my MP. This evening I have relented for the very last time and down loaded (fill in on the screen) form AA! (another Attendance Allowance claim form). I am convinced that the earliest I could re-apply is after 12 months but the opinion of all is that I can do it anytime.
?So in the morning off we go again.
?Letters and cheques to be sent to the 6 hospitals that I am under + the GP and the Mental Health Unit.for updated evidence.
Hopefully it will be ready this time next week - wish me luck!!!
0 likes, 40 replies
les59996
Posted
Just arrived back from a meeting at a disability information centre. More depressed....!
?I had a 10 min chat to check if I am working along the right lines in filling out the AA1 from. Seems that I am but was advised not to mention anything positive - make the form stand out as negative as possible. I don't agree with that and explained that doing it that way would be giving the entirely wrong picture to the DWP.
?Anyhow that was that.
?Whilst there he asked about why I was claiming AA when I had been on DLA up until earlier this year. Briefly explained about the DWP losing the two letters. He then assumed that I had appealed against the stopping of the DLA and the refusal to allow the PIP claim to go ahead.
?When I said that I hadn't and gave the reason that I had had enough and couldn't cope any longer he went into one saying that I should have appealed as the DWP were in the wrong and that I had a responsibility not only to my family but to other claimants. If I don't complain or appeal then nothing will change and others may be put in the same position.Unfortunately my actual reply cannot be printed on here!! How the 'bl**dy h**l' dare he make those comments!!
?I went in for a 10 min chat just to confirm a few things with how I am filing a form in and came out spitting fire and totally p****d of*.
mike09523 les59996
Posted
Hi les,
That just about sums up our (fellow sufferers) predicament.
We are ill,mentally and/or physically.
We have to try to claim for as many benefits as we can, the first time ever for some of us.
We are led down the garden path by dwp,councils et al, and are treat as criminals by each of them. They wear us down and soak up our energy.
They all have our details, and share them with each other.
But we are supposed to keep records and photocopies of everything. We are ill, not fully in control. We look to the powers that be to protect us, help us and make our lives easy to manage.
That's the contract we have with Government Authorities.
Yes, you should have appealed,but you didn't. You made a mistake, hardly surprising considering your medical background which you have shared with us.
BUT: why are there no safeguards in place. Alarm bells should ring. Someone in a dwp department sees that benefits paid for years, suddenly stops for no good reason.
There should be failsafe for everyone claiming benefits, in this day and age it would only be a small programme added to a computer.
Mike.
les59996 mike09523
Posted
They find that allowing those that are vulnerable to be given special status gives the claimant an easier ride. They tried it for ESA after the exposure of the suicides - they changed it back again this year to remove the option.
?The only part left of their instructions to staff and assessors is there not to protect those people but to protect the DWP from criticism.
They simply don't care.
les59996
Posted
les59996 mike09523
Posted
A further comment on your post is that when I applied for attendance Allowance a few months back and was then told I wasn't entitled to it, I sent in a wad of medical evidence backing up everything that I put on the claim form. In that wad of papers was a report from the Neuro-psychologist to my GP dated August 2015. I will paste a part of it:
Mr ******** suffers from lack of attention, short-term memory tasks, planning, and motivation. It also limits his ability to select sensory information.
??Now if that doesn't give them the idea that I might just be vulnerable and in need of help I don't know what will. No appeal was lodged against that decision and as you say someone somewhere should have picked it up and maybe sent one of their Visiting Officers out.
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way.
mike09523 les59996
Posted
Hi les,
When I first started down this path, October 2011, I was surprised to be referred to as "a customer".
I knew I was a patient, I thought I may be a client, but a customer.
I have served customers, I have also dealt with many clients. I cannot think I would have had much repeat business if I had treat either of them as we are treat by dwp.
I could see us at captives, trophies even, certainly not prisoners, they have far more rights and representations.
I know, I was struggling to think of a word to describe us, hostages, hostages of the state, but never customers.
Mike.
les59996 mike09523
Posted
Yes, that was in fact government policy for many years.
?My last posting for the government was to the Insolvency Service.
?There, when interviewing bankrupts and directors of insolvent companies where serious fraud had taken place, it was instructed to refer to them as 'customers'!!
?Even further down that road, after each interview I was required to hand out a 'pre paid satisfaction survey card' on how they thought they were treated, that their rights were fully explained, did I offer tea/coffee, etc etc etc.
?Those in Whitehall should have been sat next to me when one particular bankrupt was explaining why he had fraudalently obtained funds from a bank and used the proceeds to pay for his 'illness' of producing, preparing, downloading, and sharing on at least 7 websites, photographs of young children being abused both sexually and physically. I had to smile at his comments - but underneath I could have knocked him from one wall to another! Oh yes he was a customer I forgot.
les59996
Posted
OK, I am more or less at the final stage in completing the AA1 form.
?I was checking a well known and respected website that deals with Mental Health to make sure that I had everything covered. I came across this paragraph which to my way of thinking comes very close to inciting someone to carry out benefit fraud.
Don’t overestimate your ability to do things
Make sure you are honest about how these activities would feel on a bad day, rather than a good day. Sounding positive about your condition is really useful in general life, but will not help to get you the financial support you may need.
??Follow that and you are trying to convince the DWP that every day is a bad day. Yes some people will never have a day any better than their worst day. Surely life is a balance and that even in the depths of dispair there has to be something positive about your life even if you do have severe disabilities and difficulties.
I know I do. It would be wrong of me to lead the DWP up the garden path in trying to convince them that I never have a day that is better than my worst day.
? I value the positive sides of my life, thinking how lucky I am as there are a lot of people who suffer more than I do. When I have found a way round doing something that I had thought was impossible is a positive - it makes up for the negative aspect of my life.
les59996
Posted
Right, that's it - the claim form and supporting evidence is in an envelope ready to be posted on Monday morning. I couldn't wait for all of the evidence to turn up so when it arrives I will send it on.
Don't hold out much hope to be honest but hey, it makes my wife happy to see that I have done it for her.
?She sounds so confident telling me that I should get the award - I don't want to tell her that she is living in cloud cuckoo land.
sukes les59996
Posted
Oh Les, cuckoo's can fly x
les59996 sukes
Posted
Yeah, but try as my old bird at home does she can't get off the ground - can't seem to get enough thrust out of the tired engines - maybe we need a longer runway?
les59996
Posted
Just waiting now for the letter to tell me that they want to do another home assessment.
?I can't see it happening this side of Christmas there are not going to be many days that I will be available and I suppose the same goes with the DWP/assessors taking time off.
mike09523 les59996
Posted
Well, best of luck with that. I hope you get a better assessment this time around.
Mike.
les59996 mike09523
Posted
I do as well. I don't think I could cope with what happened then happening again.
?I just need someone that I think I can trust so that I will open up. Otherwise I will be back to square one again.
sukes les59996
Posted
les59996 sukes
Posted
Still I am not worrying or stressing about it. What will be will be.To be honest I have gone past caring whether I get a good result or not.