A welfare rights advisor says that at least 30 clients with terminal cancer have had their PIP claims rejected in the last year, reports the Disability News Service.
All the decisions were later overturned by an appeal tribunal with awards of the highest rate of PIP being made.
Duncan Walker works as a welfare rights advisor for the disabled people’s organisation Disability Solutions West Midlands and voluntarily for Unite Community.
In one case, a man with stage four lung cancer was assessed in his own home, and was awarded no points (a claimant needs at least eight just to qualify for the standard rate of PIP).
Walker had attended the assessment as a Unite Community volunteer, and witnessed the claimant using an oxygen supply and having to stop and breathe it in every few minutes.
But the assessor reported seeing “no signs of breathlessness”, marked “not applicable” in the respiratory section of the report, and said there was no need for a review of his case for at least another two years, even though he had three months to live.
The appeal tribunal took just five minutes to overturn the decision, and he was awarded the two enhanced rates of PIP. He died several weeks later.
In another case, a woman with a spinal tumour had to be brought to her appeal tribunal by the ambulance service, with paramedics wheeling her into the hearing.
Again, the tribunal took just five minutes to award her enhanced PIP rates for mobility and daily living.
Walker persuaded Stoke-on-Trent City Council late last year to hold an inquiry into the PIP assessment system. He had been trying to raise concerns about the dishonesty he was witnessing, but he said no-one had been paying any attention to what he was saying.
The council’s review concluded last month that the PIP assessment process was “distressing, inconsistent and not fit for purpose”.
Walker told DNS:
“I am ashamed of my own government treating the sick and terminally-ill in this way and using my money to do it, and private companies making a profit out of the terminally-ill and producing fictitious reports.
Report after report is a work of fiction. It is 100 per cent dishonesty.”
Disability News Service says that it has so far heard from more than 250 PIP claimants who say that healthcare professionals from government contractors Atos and Capita wrote dishonest reports for DWP after carrying out face-to-face assessments of their eligibility.
For further information see Advisor says 30 local claimants with terminal cancer had PIP rejections overturned available at www.disabilitynewsservice.com