Kindest regards
http://www.healthmedicinelab.com/over-the-counter-antibiotics/

You have looked at the fate of all those who will lose their Mobility payments under the new PIP regime – reducing the numbers of those receiving this benefit is an explicit purpose of these reforms. There is, however, a knock-on effect for those who do keep the benefit, but have to go to appeal. Those numbers are not going to go down either, especially as increasing the frequency of testing is part of The Plan – again, explicitly. Every extra re-assessment increases the chances of refusal and appeal.

Most of what follows does not apply to those whose mobility problems are so severe that not even ATOS could fail to give them HR Mobility every time. It does apply to all those who know that the tag “could if they really wanted to” might be applied by ATOS, the DWP and certain newspapers.

In recent years Motability have tightened their policies on those of their customers who are part way through a lease period when they have to go through re-assessment. If you have a car and do not get Higher Rate on the original Decision, then that car goes back to Motability within a month. If you have paid a deposit, then you get none of it back. If you win your appeal, then you do not get the car (or the deposit) back.

Let us suppose that you do go to appeal and win. What has happened in the meanwhile? It might have taken 12 months (on current form) from the time of the original decision, when the car was taken away, to the time when you hear that your mobility benefit has been reinstated. Of course, you do not know in advance how long you will have to wait nor what the result will be.

What, then are your choices in that interval? You can wait for however many months it is, managing without a car and then try for another Motability contract, hoping that this one will not be terminated before the 3 years is up. You can give up and decided to manage without a car and hope the cuts have not taken away the accessible public transport. You can get a car privately and hope that the benefit will be restored so that you can pay for it.

What you can’t do is to get another car on a short-term basis (say 6 months) and hope. Leasing cars over that short a period is too expensive. Buying a car and then selling it when you get your Motability car is similarly expensive. And getting insurance is going to be very difficult. And suppose the whole thing starts again in 12 months’ time?

The ON/OFF option with Motability is surely untenable.

So categorise yourself, are you:
on a short review schedule (anything less than 2 years)? AND
in any serious doubt that you will be given the Higher rate immediately?

If both of these conditions apply to you, then you will have to abandon Motability and buy or lease a car privately. That or go without a car. How many people will this affect? I haven’t the numbers to crunch, and I suspect we don’t know exactly how PIP will run in practice, but if it is anything like the ESA farce then this uncertainty is going to touch, at a rough guess, between 20% and 50% of those who eventually get the HR Mobility component of PIP.

The days of the 3-year Motability lease are numbered. In fact there is a good chance that Motability itself could be reduced to dealing with specialist vehicles and a few 3-door hatchbacks to people who can get their folding wheelchairs into the back, and don’t need space for the kids.

Paranoid speculation: Quite a lot of people will find that eventuality very politically acceptable.

Cast-iron certainty: It will be bad news for the British car industry and for another large tranche of disabled people who do get the Mobility benefit, for the present. You may get it, but you can no longer rely on it – this is what is meant by “the end of the entitlement culture”.

The current scheme, administered by Motability Finance (a charity patron HM QE2) leases cars that are purchased by them and then let back to DLA claimants at x £ per month.

The car manufacturers sell lots of cars this way.

When PIP comes in and DLA ends for many then many will lose their cars.

That does not bother car manufacturers because those particular cars are up to 3 years old and they already had the money for them, so no tears there.

So, fast forward to 2013. Why are the car manufacturers not saying much about (potential) lost sales?

One answer is that there may be a “PFI” type initiative that has been negotiated in secret between government, finance, insurance and motor industry to lease cars to disabled people outwith the PIP/Motability schemes that are proposed.

Evidence is strong for this as to date major car manufactures like Ford Renault etc have refused to comment on this and also the car manufacturers associations like http://www.acea.be/ have no comment on this. Combine this with the government’s refusal to publish details of the discussions between DWP ministers and Motability Finance http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/motability_and_pip#comment-28947 and it does not take long to conclude that some deal must be going on behind closed doors. A deal that would see vast profits for private companies banks and car manufacturers.

u cannot rely on the buses in London it is utter chaos and I live in a rural area we do not have a regular service because of cut backs and when the weather is poor there can be no service at all.

I am surprised that motability and the car companies have not challenged this government over the PIP being introduced.

This government is hell bent on squeezing every last penny out of the poor & disabled, anyone`s situation can alter and anyone in society more so now than at any other time can end up on welfare, it`s a drightening prospect. This government despise people on welfare which is apparent with their constant chipping away at benefits. I suppose if all else fails they can always bring back the work houses