Ben referred himself to our service after finding out about us through his local doctors’ surgery. He needed help with a new PIP claim after being rejected earlier on last year with very few points. He didn’t have any support from anyone with his previous claim and thought using us would give him a better chance. Ben has a condition that affects his diet, his mobility and leaves him in an incredible amount of pain. This means he struggles in his day-to-day life and sadly doesn’t have a support system to help him manage this.
Ben needed advocacy support because he has had a previous bad experience of being rejected for PIP for not meeting the threshold. He did also admit to me that pride had taken over in the previous assessment and he hadn’t been as truthful through the last one as he should have been. He wanted our support and knowledge to be prepared for another assessment.
Our professional advocate spoke to Ben and arranged a pre-meet in the initial phone call when they introduced themselves and gave an insight into what the whole process involved. He seemed very knowledgeable about his condition and happy to proceed with our pre-meet the next week.
The pre-meet was carried out over telephone the day before the telephone assessment. He was very open and honest about his health and his daily living struggles. ICANN advocates do a pre-meet to get to know their client, their health conditions/disabilities, their personal circumstances and how they struggle day to day. It is beneficial for the client to discuss potential questions that may be asked at the assessment are discussed and it got Ben thinking about how long things took him to do and whether he was able to complete daily tasks safely, in a reasonable time, to an acceptable standard, timings and examples of his struggles.
The assessor was a trained nurse with a knowledge of Ben’s health condition. Throughout, Ben was very open and honest with the assessor and didn’t need a lot of prompting from the advocate. The assessment seemed very thorough, asking lots of relevant questions. The only thing our advocate needed to add was about his condition worsening and that his sleeping was affected which in turn affects his daily living.
After the assessment, our advocate had a short follow up phone call in which they reassured Ben that he had done all that he could have done when answering the assessor’s questions. Ben was still sceptical about the whole assessment due to previous experience. As part of the debrief, our experienced advocate told Ben that he needed to request the assessor’s report in about two weeks’ time. This would be useful if Ben was not happy with the outcome of his PIP assessment and then wanted to go on and challenge it.
“After my previous bad experience with PIP, I really appreciated the knowledge and support that you have passed onto me” – Ben
Our role in the assessment was to help reduce any stress and anxiety Amanda was feeling. Our advocate prompted and reminded Amanda when she forgot to mention to the assessor.
Having an advocate made Ben feel more confident and listened to during the assessment as there had been discussions during the pre-meet, and he had thought about how he would communicate his struggles.
As Ben doesn’t have a support network to help him day to day an advocate can provide that much needed emotional support which made him feel more at ease whilst in a highly stressful situation.
After the assessment, Ben was thankful for all the support he had given him. He was happy with how he had come across and for the time spent to preparing him for the assessment. If the claim is successful, Ben would be able to able to pay for the additional costs associated with long term health conditions help, such as taxis, aids in his house, preprepared foods, extra heating costs etc.
“After Ben’s previous experience, it was nice to hear that I had made him feel more confident and listened to throughout the whole process” – ICANN independent Advocate
Howick House, Howick Park Avenue, Penwortham, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 0LS
Tel: 01772 746 061
Email: admin@i-cann.org.uk
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