Mental Health Claims

PiP is not awarded purely for mental health but for the way that your mental health condition affects the level of help you need to complete specific activities, which are categorised as two components – a daily living component and a mobility component. One of the misconceptions about PiP is that it is only awarded for visible conditions, this is incorrect, it includes what is known as “hidden conditions”, these cover mental health issues.

A mental health condition is considered a disability if it lasts, or is likely to last, 12 months and restricts your normal daily activities, for instance, you may claim that your:-

• Agoraphobia may be making you scared of open spaces or travelling on public transport.
• Social Anxiety may restrict your ability to interact with people socially
• Eating Disorders such as anorexia nervosa may restrict your ability to mix socially and
  feel isolated

There 7 main mental health disorders

• mood disorders (such as depression or bipolar disorder)
• anxiety disorders.
• personality disorders.
• psychotic disorders (such as schizophrenia)
• eating disorders.
• trauma-related disorders (such as post-traumatic stress disorder)
• substance abuse disorders.

Many initial PiP claims are dismissed, mental health claims are potentially more susceptible to this than most because of three reasons.

1. The form is complicated, so how can someone who struggles to complete it be likely to meet the complex criteria for an award?
2. The DWP realise that people with mental health issues are more likely to accept a decision without questioning it, and
3. They can be expensive, this is because mental health issues are usually long term and hence the claim may last many years, or life.

Example – getting the highest rate of “Daily Living” for life (let us call life 30 years – 1500 weeks), plus receiving carers allowance for a partner would bring you in:-

This sum does not include other benefits such as disabled parking, disabled railcards, reduction of costs for coming down a council tax band and so on (figures correct as of June 2021).

Lestons would ask the reader to consider whether the potential loss of the sum above should create an attitude akin to “muddling through” or “having a go” at the form or whether it would be wiser to appoint ourselves to arrange a professional medical opinion and complete the form on your behalf. There is, of course, no guarantee of an award, as such your appointment of ourselves carries some risk. We politely inform the claimant that if they “have a go” at a claim which then fails it may well mean that our staff would either have to:-

• Refuse to help – this is because you may have started things in the original form that we simply could not get around, or
• Our staff would first have to address your errors in the original form, explaining that you were not mentally aware of your answers and request a new claim be started before effectively starting over again, this would start a dialogue with DWP staff who may be difficult – one thing is certain – it would take far longer to remedy a situation than to get it right from the outset.

Filling in the form without assistance – a classic “Catch 22”
You may, of course, fill in the form yourself, many people do this and have received an award of some kind, in this regard we would offer one simple suggestion – Beware of contradictions – It can be very easy to state 2-3 days on one part of the form and 3-4 on a very similar part. Lestons are not stating that these questions are set to snare claimants but the chance to contradict oneself is always there.

The classic “Catch 22” here is obvious – how can someone who has a mental illness have the mental capacity to fill in a complex claim form – just by filling in the form shows that you are mentally able to do it – hence the “Catch 22”, the way around this is to get the form filled in by someone else.

In any case, we would strongly suggest that you get as much medical evidence as you can to back up your claim and keep a photocopy or digital scan of the form and read through it several times before sending it off, this will also prove invaluable if requested to attend a medical assessment, again there would be a great risk of contradiction when questioned on elements of the form.

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