First P.I.P claim.

[Monic1511]

Hi Guys

I am not saying that online claims are a good thing just that the government wants it to happen, once universal credit comes in if you need to make changes online you would be best to involve a support group and register your complaints with the MP.

I think its an excuse by the government to sack more DWP staff after all if its online they think no one needs to check it they way the staff do with paper claims  >headbang<

Even phone calls are hellish for some people - my client had only one functioning hand so couldn't hold the phone for the 30 minutes it took to make the claim, the DWP operator was patient with us - he was a geordie accent, mine is glaswegian & I had to repeat everything he said to the client & then give him the answer - on the works mobile  >steam<

As for recording of calls - how do you play them if your software isn't the same as the DWP's  - we got a CD from the dwp but the work has disabled media player on all work machines more  >steam<

Oh the joys of so called progress
Monic

[JLRRAC]

"I think its an excuse by the government to sack more DWP staff after all if its online they think no one needs to check it they way the staff do with paper claims"

Exactly Monic.

Err might I ask as a fellow Glasgow lad where abouts you're from (no not the street)  :-) in Glasgow I was born in Bridgeton brought up in Dennistoun and then disaster of disasters the family moved to Castlemilk.

[devine63]

Hi Fiz

I am sorry this will inevitably make me appear overly pedantic - I promise I am not trying to "get at you" - just taking an  opportunity to educate people about a common error.

You said: "They are lumped together though health wise, mental health hospitals (long term, now largely closed down) had a lot of residents with learning difficulties rather than main stream mental health."

It is true that many of the old psychiatric hospitals had many residents who had neurological conditions (e.g. I can remember meeting several men with enormously distended heads - caused by hydrocephalus before medics learned how to insert a shunt) and there were also many people with Learning Disabilities (what used to be called Mental Handicaps such as Down Syndrome) in addition to people with the mainstream psychiatric conditions. 
However to my knowledge these hospitals never had patients with learning difficulties - because specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia and dyspraxia generally don't have a global impact on the person and so they were unlikely to have needed to be hospitalised.

this confusion of learning disability and learning difficulty is very common ...

regards, Deb

[SteveWSW]

this confusion of learning disability and learning difficulty is very common ...

regards, Deb

It is! It's the word "learning" that is the problem, I think.

I was never happy with the "new" terms as either term implies a lack of capacity to "learn" which is not always the case and which leads to a lack of capacity (willingness?) of others to understand what the person with the "learning" issue is actually communicating.

"Does he understand?" gets right up my nose! Yes, he understands everything!

Steve