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Originally Posted by paulyoung666
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Hi Paul
I would make sure that you keep copies of everything the DWP send to you and everything that you send to them.
It is worth doing a Google search on DLA and looking at some of the very helpful sites. One such site is
http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/ but that is down today. That site is for workers in the advice field and is a real eye openerregarding problems in dealing with the DWP.
No doubt you will receive a visit from a DWP doctor who will assess you. He will fill in the first part of a form with answers you give to various questions and ask you to sign that it is correct having first let you read it or having read it back to you. I would recommend that you insist on reading it for yourself as if he reads it back to you he may not read back exactly what he has put and an odd word added or taken away can really alter its meaning. The second part is filled in by him after he has examined you and you do not get to read it. I would write to the DWP after the visit and request a copy of the completed form which they are obliged to give you and can be a real eye opener.
On one of thse forms the doctor had wrote that I had a normal gait but with an occasional limp in the left leg. I always thought that a normal gait would mean that I didn't have a limp! He came to this conclusion after observing me walk once across my kitchen (maximum seven feet), that being all the walking he had seen me do. He also stated that I could walk two hundred metres in three to four minutes before stopping suffering extreme discomfort but the figures he entered had been altered several times and possibly could originally have been 100 metres in 5 minutes. Reading through his report would have been a real laugh if it wasn't so important.
The DWP always give you strict time limits regarding sending forms, etc back but don't ever seem to stick to any timetable in replying to you. You will probably get letters saying things like "if you do not hear anything from us within eleven weeks then feel free to contact us". They have a set of guidelines that they work to which you can find on the DWP website and the person who looks at your claim, not being medically trained, relies heavily on a publication called "The Disability Handbook". This handbook covers major disabilities in a couple of paragraphs and in no way covers how your disability affects you. The whole process is a laugh.