My amputee friend was told the stop limit was over 60 but he had not made enough national insurance contributions because he had been out of the country, not something covered by the . gov websites. Apolagies for the confused state and if I got it wrong
But as you say Jo no harm in attempting a claim anyway, if successful and they decide only to give you a miniscule awared or no award you can always appeal within six weeks in writing send it in special delivery then they can't say they havent recieved it. They are always loosing documents.
I had to attend five appeal tribunals before their doctors examined me and agreed my condition was worse than they had orriginally thought, ten years of stressful claimming it will take around eight hours to fill out the forms and they have to be signed by someone that knows you well and preferably a GP, some good advice is don't rely on hospital consultants for filling out parts of the form they take a very long time (months) in my experience because they recieve no pay for form filling wheras your GP can claim for it. and should take about a week.
if the Hospital consultant contridicts the GP you can argue that your GP knows you better because you are likely to see the GP more often than your consultant (ie once a year).
For some it is simple and straight forward for others it is a long road.
a good friend of mine had a life award he was advised to claim again to increase the care componant by his GP he tried and they reduced his life award to two years.
the general opinion is that they must find ways to cut costs sometimes.
he succeded in his appeal and his life award was reinstated with a higher award of the care componant.
if you think you should get DLA or care componant of DLA and they say no dont give up on the first attempt appeal and do it quickly digging up all the medical evidence you can.
Ask DLA for a full print out of your claim papers there may be unabstantiated evidence against you that they are hiding not everyone that makes a report always gets everything correct there may be mistakes, you have right to a copy insist you get one, besides like me you might wish to speak for yourself at a tribunal and give your own evidence for your case, instead of employing a carrer or social assistant to speak for you. I printed out ten coppies of my case notes and handed them out to everyone at the tribunal and insisted they took time to read them before making any judgments, and they did at the start of the Tribunal.
I'm not saying it should be so rough for anyone but expect a fight if they say no first time and as your condition progresses dont be afraid to claim again when the initial award runs out, you should be claimming again three months before your claim runs out, if the papers don't arrive automatically (in fact dont leave this to chance) phone them up and ask for new claim forms.
they tend to award in one two or three year increments, a life award may take time after several claims, or it may be given straight away according to an individuals circumstances,
I wish you the very best of Luck. :wink:
regards Nigel.