21 June 2019

Sight tests scrapped for blind PIP claimants in Scotland

People who suffer from blindness will no longer be asked to read letters from an eye chart to get Personal Independence Payment (PIP) in Scotland.

This comes after The Sunday Post revealed the concerns of sight loss charity, Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and Scottish National Party (SNP) MP, Chris Stephens, that assessors appear to have no understanding of the impact of sight loss or reduction of someone’s visual fields.

For the last three years, this has resulted in around 40% of blind and visually impaired people in Scotland being buy levitra now refused a PIP after the initial assessment – of these 16% where overturned on appeal.

The Post revealed in January that staff carrying out the assessments at the Independent Assessment Service (IAS), asked people to undertake a crude vision test (reading letters from a wall chart, make eye contact and walk around a room).

Despite the fact that many of the people being tested have already provided a Certificate of Visual Impairment signed by an ophthalmologist, which confirms the level of their functional vision.

Read the full Sunday Post story here.