PIP phone assessment yesterday

Westy088

Hello everyone,

I had my telephone assessment yesterday for pip so thought I’d share my experience and application process upto now in the hope it might help someone else whom is applying.
I suffer from Major mixed anxiety & Depressive disorder and have bad panic attacks and anxiety attacks. Currently I’m on 40mg of fluoxetine and some antihistamines which make me sleep. 

I’m also getting therapy via silver cloud and my GP is really good with support.

I applied for PIP in November last year and with Royal Mail postal strikes I got told I probably wouldn’t hear about an assessment until after Xmas, which is what happened. 

I had originally had a phone assessment booked in for two weeks ago but after waiting 30 mins and the assessors eventually calling me, they informed me there was no medical professional to take the assessment so I had to rearrange.

this set my anxiety off because I don’t cope well with change at all, so had to wait two weeks, again worrying, until I had my assessment yesterday via phone call.
after reading loads of horror stories about horrible people who do them I was quite scared what I was about to encounter, BUT, I need not of worried because I got a lovely young chap who was very very understanding and he was really easy to talk too and kept apologising having to get me to talk about my disorder.
the call itself lasted just over an hour and I had made notes about things like how long I’ve had this disorder for and my meds but my husband was sat next to me as well so he was allowed to discuss some things.

this morning I got a text from DWP saying they had received my report and to wait upto 8 weeks, I think this is the usual message everyone gets. I was shocked however that it got sent so quick but I was thankful because the waiting will be the worst part.

im glad the actual assessment is over as I really did struggle with the call.

chiarieds

Hi @Westy088 - & welcome to the community. Good for you in getting through your assessment after a further agonizing wait. It's also good to read of having such a pleasant assessor,

You're correct in that the text you received is just standard. However, altho it says it may take 8 weeks before you get your decision letter, it can actually take anything up to 12 weeks. Here's hoping you don't have to wait too long.