Appealing on cardiovascular indication instead

Mine took four months and three letters and was eventually granted, and I nearly gave up after the first one.

What I would say is do not accept a phone refusal. Ask for it in writing, always, and the tone often changes when you do.

The escalation route was buried and existed, and I only found it because somebody in this circle told me what it was called.

My employer's HR had a route I did not know existed and it went through in eleven days after four months of getting nowhere myself.

Something that helped was a template somebody here shared, which I rewrote in my own words and which gave me the structure I was missing.

The thing nobody tells you is that a refusal is often about missing information rather than a judgement, and supplying it is the whole job.

You have said something a lot of us have not managed to. Thank you.

Coming back to say mine was granted on the third attempt, sixteen weeks after the first refusal, and the letter that worked was the shortest one.

That is a very clear way of putting something I have never been able to put clearly.

What I got wrong was appealing emotionally. The letter that worked was boring, numbered and entirely factual.

I kept a log of every call with the date and the name and it was the reason my complaint was taken seriously at the third stage.

The deadline for appealing is often short and buried. Mine was twenty-eight days and I found that out on day twenty-three.

Something I would flag: ask whether there is an independent review stage, because there usually is and it is rarely advertised.

I would say get everything you have already been told in writing before you start, because verbal assurances evaporate.

No wisdom, just: I am sorry. That sounds genuinely hard.