Lies at PIP assessment - what now?

vera13867

i was on esa,had an assessment in january and had my money stopped in february. appealed decision and went to tribunal, lost appeal.  was told to  apply for pip. i have depression and anxiety. had an assessment on 7th november and have now been told am not getting pip. i dont go out and am very jumpy at slightest thing, i dont go into town as i dont like crowds of people and get very anxious. lady at assessment said in report that i was not nervous at assessment. i had a fidget cube with me and my mother in law and was a bag of nerves, how can they get away with saying these lies. i am teriffied that i am going to be forced to go back to work as i dont feel confident enough.

CockneyRebel

Hello Vera and welcome

Unfortunately yours is not an uncommon tale

With regard to PIP, it is important to understand the points system, descriptors and the criteria for an award. A good starting place is the B&W self test

http://www.mybenefitsandwork.co.uk/pip/indexxx.php

When you have taken the test it is then necessary to ask for a mandatory reconsideration within a month of the date of your decision letter

There is lots of info on this site so please have a look round and come back with your questions or help you need

CR

Lucas83

You are entitled to have someone who knows about your condition doing the assessment and if they don’t, you can appeal on that basis alone

mikehughescq

@Lucas83 sadly that is not the case. Each health care professional can come from numerous fields. Nurse, OT, physio, paramedic and so on. Provided they have received their training from the provider and are currently registered then you get who you get. Indeed there has already been case law on whether such people can fork views on mental ill health and the conclusion was that yes they can.

Much like you would not expect your GP to know everything about every condition it’s sadly not realistic to expect a HCP to do so. 

Lucas83

Someone I know had their PIP assessment meeting rescheduled because they requested someone who had knowledge of their condition and it was accepted at the time it would have been grounds for appeal if the meeting had gone ahead. If your GP didn’t know about your condition, you would go and see a specialist who did, you wouldn’t just rely and their very limited knowledge 

mikehughescq

That would have had to be a very rare condition.

You’ll have to forgive my scepticism but our service sees hundreds of such cases each year and I’m in contact with similar across the UK. Not heard of a case like that at all and it seems unlikely as it’s the consequences of the condition rather than the thing itself which matter so it’s hard to see what the benefit of such a person would be. 

Lucas83

I’m not here to convince you, I can only speak from my own experience.

Pippa_Alumni

Hi @vera13867, and welcome to the community!

As CR says, it might be beneficial to consider a mandatory reconsideration. If you do decide to go ahead with this and need some advice, just come back to us with any questions you have. It may seem daunting, but we have plenty of friendly community members and advisors who are here to support you.

vera13867

Thank you all so much for your advice. I have decided to go for a mandatory reconsideration.