Awen Gravell
Host Organisation: The Speakeasy Law Centre
Awen joined the Speakeasy Law Centre in February 2020. She originally studied Medical Sciences and Humanities at Swansea University. Having completed modules in Medical Law as part of her undergraduate course she decided to deviate from the Medical world and complete the GDL, also at Swansea University.
She then went on to study the LPC as part of a Masters in Legal Practice and Advanced Drafting at Swansea University. She completed her Masters project on Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards in Clinical and Community settings, having previously studied similar topics at undergraduate. This led to her interest in Social Welfare Law.
Project
Following on from her undergraduate and masters studies with a focus on mental health issues, she has decided to focus her project around this area. Combining that with her Welfare Benefits work at the Speakeasy Law Centre, she will be looking at the issues with the medical assessments used for certain benefits, and particularly the issues with mental health and mental disability assessments.
There are currently issues with medical assessment of non-physical disabilities for benefits such as PIP. The aim of the project would be to bridge the gap between the medical and legal aspects of such assessments. The end goal would be to increase access to justice for individuals with such difficulties, and reducing the number of claims that go to appeal as a result of issues with the original medical assessment.
