PIP Telephone Appointment ended early?

cjenkinson2210

Hi,

I had my phone assessment today and after an hour the assessor abruptly ended my assessment saying she was having trouble getting the information she needed from me. I was really confused because I was trying my best to answer her but a lot of the questions she was asking me were hard to give an exact answer to such as

Her: 'How often do you experience dizzy spells?'

Me: 'Whenever i move or change position, especially when walking'

Her: 'How long do they last?'

Me: 'Really hard to say as it varies but it can be anywhere between 30secs to a minute up to 5 minutes'

Her: 'How many times do you experience them where it lasts 5 minutes?'

At that point i had to pause to think because my symptoms are very erratic and i don't really keep track of it like that, i tend to just try to push through whenever i'm experiencing something.

After a few back and forths like that she just ended the assessment whilst i was about to reply with an answer. We didn't even get to the bit about how it effects my daily live, this was just from discussing what symptoms i have and the conditions i have.

Is this a common thing to happen? Any idea how this may effect my claim? I'm really worried it's going to reflect poorly on me.

OverlyAnxious

An hour is already quite a long time for an assessment. I would think they got a lot of information over that hour.

The PIP descriptors don't really allow for 'it varies' or 'occasionally'. The assessors are trying to work out whether something affects you for more than 50% of the time. Or if it less than 50% of the time, how much danger it could put you in. (For example, coming over dizzy while crossing a road)

It is often recommended to make a diary over a week or so before the assessment, to help you explain to an assessor how often things happen and how they affect you exactly.

I appreciate it is a bit late for that now. They may contact you again for more information. Or that assessor may just try to do a paper based assessment instead, and then send the report to the decision maker. All you can do for now is wait until you hear something else from them.

Amaya_Ringo

I remember a lot of questions like that in my original assessment, which were impossible for me to quantify and I actually ended up telling the assessor that I didn't understand the question well enough to respond correctly. The assessor resolved that by inserting answers of her choice instead.

The fact your assessment was around an hour before it got to that point means you probably gave her a lot of information to work with, maybe she'll go back to the paperwork you submitted and work from there. I had my assessment in 2017, before they changed a lot of the rules around non-visible disabilities and non-physical distress. It sounds like they really were trying to get the details which is a good sign. I would try not to worry about it at this stage.

Unfortunately the assessments aren't equipped with useful questions, just things to tick boxes. They haven't fully grasped yet that disability doesn't work that way.

Crossing my fingers for you.

cjenkinson2210

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/930493#Comment_930493

Thank you for the reply. I'm really confused about the assessment to be honest. I didn't mention my mental health in my claim form and the majority of the hour was spent discussing that since she asked me about it. I claimed PIP for Crohn's disease and Spondyloarthropathy - it was only when we started to talk about rests needed when getting up and down the stairs that she cut me off and ended the assessment. I'm not sure how she would have gotten adequate information with regards to my mobility issues since she wouldn't allow me to mention anything in regards to my ability to shower or move about to do things for myself. An hour is a long time but it didn't feel like the 'how it effects your daily life' part was sufficiently assessed but I may be wrong.

Amaya_Ringo

I also had the unnatural focus on mental health but on my report, not in my assessment. I also don't claim for any mental health capacity, but my original assessment was written up as a mental health claim which was then rejected on grounds I didn't have mental health support. But this was in 2017, before they closed the loophole whereby they could deny mental health claims, so in your case it seems more likely they were just trying to cross all areas of the assessment to make sure they didn't miss anything. If they didn't ask you about the conditions you claimed for, it may be they have enough information about this already from your paper submissions.

I'm sure someone with more long term experience of assisting with these things will be able to advise you better, but I wouldn't take the phone call as any indication of good or bad at this point. I had a horrible tribunal experience but still got awarded points, and we had an odd phone call for my reassessment but in the end they awarded everything without issue. It's really difficult to tell as they don't explain their working out.