I was made to pay £10 to prove I didn’t have a hand

I stared at my computer screen in confusion at two little words: ‘Supporting evidence’. 

It was 2017 and I was almost done filling out the paperwork for my first Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessment when I hit this roadblock. 

Did ‘supporting evidence’ of my disability mean I had to take a photo of it? Or would they already know about it from the years my mum claimed Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for me as a child?  

I decided to phone the helpline to ask them, and after 20 minutes of listening to the tinny holding jingle on the phone, I was put through to an operator. 

She started off by asking me, ‘What is your disability?’ I told her I was born without a left hand. 

‘Is it a congenital condition?’ I responded yes. 

‘Have you made a claim with us before?’ I hadn’t. 

The questioning felt strange. After years of being stared at by strangers and ostracised for my very obvious physical disability, I now felt I had to prove it. She said that the correct evidence to support my claim would have to come in the form of a doctor’s note, not a photograph.   

When I hung up the phone, I was frustrated. I’d never had to fight so hard to be seen as disabled before. 

In fact, it was always the opposite. I fought to be invisible, to walk down the street and not have a person shoot me a confused look, or ask ‘what’s happened to your arm?’ 

It wasn’t until filling out this form – aged 23 – that I truly realised the reality of the UK’s benefits system, where even lifelong, visible disabilities are subject to bureaucratic hoops.  

My mum told me she has memories of filling in countless forms for DLA on multiple occasions when I was a child. She made yearly applications as the allowance would only be awarded for a set amount of time and then would have to re-apply – but she doesn’t recall needing to provide a doctor’s note.

My disability meant that I’ve always utilised adaptations. I remember the various gadgets I grew up with; a one-handed fork we called my ‘Knork’, elastic laces in my shoes, Velcro, and poppers instead of zips. At school, I had a non-slip mat on my desk to keep my workbooks still as I wrote, and a slanted board that I used to help with my writing posture.

To me, these things were normal. They were things I didn’t think about the cost of, or how much longer it’d take me to do them, because I always had a family, and a community, willing to support me and go at my pace. 

It wasn’t until I spent significant time away from home – in work, house sharing, and learning to drive – that I began to notice the extra help I truly needed. 

After years of adults rushing to my side to support my different needs with things such as carrying my shopping bags, opening stiff tins and chopping garlic for me, I wanted to be able to do these things more independently. 

An electric one-handed tin opener cost three times that of a manual one, and I knew things such as the price of buying peeled and cut veg every week, or clothes with poppers instead of zips, would begin to add up. 

So I finally decided to apply for PIP – a payment to help with extra living costs. That’s when I came up against the brick wall of proving I had no hand. 

Filling out the assessment form, I couldn’t understand having to declare my disability. I’d never needed to prove it before – people could just see the different ways I needed help.

Nevertheless, I phoned my local surgery and asked for a phone appointment with the doctor, then later made my request for the note. 

He said I would have to pay £10 for an official letter. By this point, I was past feeling bemused. I was tired. 

I didn’t want to pay – not because of the amount, but because it represented not being believed for something I had to live with every single day.

Still, I paid the tenner and sent off the form. Weeks later, I received a letter awarding me PIP. I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy, but I was relieved.  

PIP helped to cover practical things, like a heated brush that lets me style my hair without the awkward switching from hair dryer to brush and back, a vegetable food slicer, and a wireless control and steering aid for my car (which cost over a grand!). 

As well as the aids and pre-sliced food, it also gave me permission to ask for help. I no longer had to struggle, instead I could simply do things my way, and embrace an alternative way of living. 

Yet, I know my claim for PIP could have gone another way.

PIP statistics from November 2019 to October 2024 indicate that 43% of new claims received an award, implying that more than half of claims were not awarded. The recent announcement of changes to the UK’s benefits system includes plans to tighten eligibility for PIP, which means that even more people in need will not get help.  

It’s widely acknowledged that the stress and uncertainty of claiming benefits can affect a person’s mental wellbeing. 

I can relate. Initially I was worried I had forgotten to include vital information, knowing that the fate of my future was now placed in a form that took approximately 45 minutes to fill out. 

But ultimately, it came down to the way I started to view myself; was I disabled enough? And why was I being subject to a box-ticking exercise to be granted the same standard of life non-disabled people have? 

The mental toll of not only being different, but having to audition for fair treatment began to weigh on me. 

Thankfully, people with permanent disabilities – according to the current update – won’t need to have their claim reassessed. I’m pretty sure my hand isn’t going to magically sprout from my arm any time soon, so this isn’t something I’m not too concerned about. But I don’t trust that things won’t suddenly change.  

In my opinion, this stress could be rectified with a more competent system. 

In an ever-increasingly connected society, why can’t we curate a system where the NHS information is available to the DWP? Surely both of these government-run services have the capability to communicate with each other?   

Just like when my insurance company asks for a code to access my driving license records. If there was an option for this component of my medical data – my physical disability – to be shared with other services that may need access to this, I’d tick the box saying yes straight away.  

Alternatively we could, you know, just believe the lived experience of disabled people. 

It shouldn’t be that I am responsible for funding the proof of my own lifelong visible difference from anything other than the way I look and my own lived experience. 

People with disabilities are already subject to obstacles and barriers, from access to public transport to workplace discrimination. Therefore, a system like PIP – which is designed to help us – shouldn’t create the same problems.

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