Pensioner, 77, who struggles to walk loses Blue Badge after 'confusing' phone call

Beverley Jerrard's Blue Badge exertion was rejected aft an appraisal [FILE PIC] (Image: Getty)

A 77-year-old pensioner who struggles to locomotion and describes herself arsenic “falling apart" claims she has been stripped of her disability bluish badge aft a “confusing” telephone interview.

Beverley Jerrard, from Whetstone successful north-west London, has for much than 3 decades qualified for a Blue Badge owed to her inability to locomotion 30 metres without stopping.

A missive of enactment from her GP outlines Ms Jerrard's chronic ankle symptom from an aged fracture, positive multilevel degenerative disc disease, and breathlessness caused by an elevated hemidiaphragm.

Nevertheless, Barnet Council turned down her Blue Badge renewal aft a telephone assessment, with a distant examiner deeming her walking difficulties insufficient to conscionable the indispensable criteria.

Ms Jerrard’s wellness issues started successful 1997, erstwhile she fell implicit her daughter’s shoes, fracturing her ft and limb successful aggregate places. She was successful plaster for six months and has suffered from symptom and constricted mobility ever since.

Speaking to the Telegraph, she said: “I person had a Blue Badge for 30 years; I tin guarantee you I person not had a miraculous recovery.

“It is ne'er going to get immoderate better. I americium falling apart. I americium rather shocked.”

She added: “The strategy had supported maine until now, but it has fto maine down.

"The interaction connected my beingness has been enormous. It’s not casual to permission the house.”

Up to now, Ms Jerrard’s renewal process has consisted of filling successful a signifier which automatically renewed her badge arsenic agelong arsenic she had a “permanent and important disablement causing an inability to locomotion oregon sizeable trouble walking.”

However, this year, she was told she did not suffice for automatic renewal and was referred to a backstage contractor, Dependability, for a telephone appraisal successful August.

In a missive dated September 2, 2024, Barnet Council’s Assisted Travel Team told Ms Jerrard Dependability had concluded her information did not represent “significant” restrictions.

The missive stated: “The level of walking trouble discussed connected the telephone does not conscionable the explanation arsenic defined by the Department for Transport and truthful you are not eligible for a Blue Badge astatine this time.”

Under Department for Transport criteria, eligibility necessitates either being incapable to walk, experiencing “very sizeable trouble whilst walking” - which whitethorn see “psychological distress” - oregon being “at hazard of superior harm erstwhile walking”.

A fortnight later, Ms Jerrard’s GP wrote a missive asking the assembly to reconsider, explaining that she suffers from “significant intelligence distress and anxiety” owed to her information and feared breathlessness oregon illness if she was incapable to parkland adjacent her destination.

The missive elaborate her chronic lumbar and thoracic spinal symptom caused by degenerative disc disease, adding: “Since her Blue Badge expired, she has hardly been capable to permission her home, having relied connected disabled spaces for implicit 30 years.”

In an entreaty to the Assisted Travel Team, Ms Jerrard, who included some video and photographic evidence, said her distress implicit losing the Blue Badge was exacerbated by age-related declines successful mobility.

Ms Jerrard wrote that she had recovered the telephone appraisal difficult, with the assessor’s questions seeming “confusing and unclear.” She explained: “I struggled to recognize precisely what helium was asking and to respond coherently.”

The questions had made her consciousness "pressurised, rather anxious, and flustered”, she added.

Dependability’s study cited her deficiency of painkiller medicine and the information that she did not trust connected societal services enactment arsenic reasons to reason she did not person important difficulties with walking.

After her appeal, Ms Jerrard attended an in-person assignment with Barnet Council and is hoping for a determination successful the adjacent fewer weeks.

Express.co.uk has approached Barnet Council for comment.