Anurag’s Story

Anurag is 57 and suffered a massive heart attack 2 years ago. Since then he has really struggled with many aspects of his life due to feeling dizzy, muscle weakness and getting out of breath easily.

Anurag Story

Why advocacy support?

Anurag had been advised that he could claim PIP but having worked all his life had no idea how to navigate the benefit system. Anurag found ICANN’s details from a Google search and made contact straight away.

How did we help?

Our experienced advocate guided Anurag through his PIP form with which details to include and which could be left out, focusing on what stops him from doing things like his breathlessness and pain rather than the overall heart attack.  Having an advocate help fill in his PIP form enabled to understand the process more.

Once Anurag received the date for his heath assessment, he reached out to his advocate for support. On the morning of his PIP health assessment, Anurag and his advocate went over all the questions likely to be asked, all the details he needed to add in and was given lots or reassurance that it is ok to need support or benefits. Anurag was able to complete his health assessment with very little input from the advocate. He knew what information was needed and was prepared for all the questions and had examples ready.

After the assessment the advocate called Anurag to debrief, go over the next stages and to discuss how the assessment went.

A few weeks later Anurag heard that is application had been successful.

“I felt like I understood the process and therefore able to do it on my own.” – Anurag

Our perspective

As an advocacy organisation, we ensure that we place people at the heart of what we do. Everybody is different and we adapt our approach to meet clients’ individual needs.

Our advocate was able to give Anurag the information he needed to feel confident and empowered, with advocacy support, to be able to complete the PIP application form and attend the telephone assessment which resulted in a successful outcome for Anurag.

“It is always good to support people to the point that they no longer need you.” – ICANN independent Advocate

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