Disability Benefit Applications Editing and Proofreading Services

Someone with a fluctuating condition fills in a disability benefit form describing what they can do. Asked whether they can prepare a meal, they tick yes, because on a good day they can. The assessor records that they can cook. Nothing on the form asked how often the good days come, how long the task takes, what it costs them for the rest of the day, or whether they could do it repeatedly and safely — and because the form never asked, the applicant never said, and the decision is made on a version of their life that only exists a few days a month.

We edit what people write when applying for disability support — benefit application forms and their free-text sections, functional capacity and daily living descriptions, personal statements and impact narratives, symptom and activity diaries prepared as evidence, letters to accompany medical evidence, requests for reconsideration and mandatory reviews, appeal submissions to tribunals, and correspondence with case managers and assessors. Our editors work on the answer box that decides how an assessor pictures your day.

The free-text answer describing what you can do is where a form either captures your actual life or a flattering fragment of it, and its failure is a yes given honestly for a good day and read as a description of every day. We work through these so an ability is described with the frequency it is actually available — how many days in a typical fortnight, and what happens on the others — since a task you can do occasionally and one you can do reliably are recorded identically without it; so what the task costs you afterwards is stated in the same answer, given that an assessor scoring whether you can do something has no way to know that doing it removes the rest of your day unless the answer says so; so the manner in which you complete a task is described — seated, with aids, with someone present, over three attempts, with pain at a stated level — because the difference between doing something and doing it in a way that is safe and repeatable is exactly what these assessments turn on; so a worst day and a typical day are both described and labelled as such, since an applicant who describes only their worst day risks being disbelieved and one who describes only their best is assessed on it; and so each claim is tied to something checkable — a specific incident with a date, a diary entry, a named person who witnessed it — given that an assessor comparing your account to your medical records is looking for the points where they meet. Answers written this way describe the life you actually have.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including medical information, personal circumstances and application materials. We are editors rather than benefits advisers, advocates or medical professionals, and we offer no view on your eligibility, your condition or what you should claim. What we can do is make sure your answer describes what you actually meant.