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Whether you’re filling in your own forms or doing them with someone else,
allow plenty of time - gathering the information to complete an entire set of
forms can often take a couple of hours, sometimes more. If you’re doing them for
yourself, try to arrange to do something more cheerful afterwards!
If you find yourself getting distressed whilst trying to go through the form, or
if time is short, it’s worth remembering that it’s only the very factual
‘section one’ part that dates your claim. You can send this off separately and
then make another attempt at the rest of the form - or consider getting help to
do so - without losing money.
If you have more than one ‘problem’ - e.g. arthritis, falls, depression, high
blood pressure - it can be useful to take a few moments to list ALL your
problems on a scrap of paper and keep it in front of you whilst you’re working,
to make sure you think about each problem as it relates to every page.
SECTION ONE
This simply asks lots of factual questions - date of birth, nationality, GP,
Hospital doctor etc.
It’s probably best to ignore the box that asks for your telephone number - if
the DWP need more information they can write for it.
When filling in the box that invites you to nominate a person the DWP can
approach for further information, remember that predictable hierarchical and
medicalised ideas prevail when it comes to how the DWP will ‘value’ supporting
evidence from others! Therefore a very supportive friend will carry less ‘clout’
in their eyes than for example a fairly supportive CPN or Drop In worker. The
CPN would also carry more weight in the DWP’s eyes than the Drop in worker
because they have a medical tag.
As previously explained, the DWP are increasingly writing to people’s GPs for
very dry ‘factual reports’ once an application for benefit is made.This causes
particular problems in the world of mental health where GPs are often not very
involved and people’s continuing contact tends to be with CPNs, Social Workers,
Support Workers, Drop-in staff, Psychologists, Counsellors or Psychiatrists.
If your relationship with your GP is very limited - or bad - then consider not
offering their name and address where asked for and instead writing in ‘I see my
.............. about my mental health, not my GP’. The worst the DWP can do is
write back asking specifically for that information, but they may well not
bother...
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