Girlfriend had face to face assessment today

We want to hear from you: please tell us about your experience of the online community.

PIPnewbie

The assessor seemed very stern, abrupt, but moderately friendly.  

Strangely though, when typing away after my girlfriend answered questions, he huffed and puffed a lot, and rubbed his face, like somebody stressed out.  I’ve read all sorts of accounts of assessors but nothing like this.  This put my girlfriend really on edge as she feared he wasn’t liking her answers.

I feel he did rush through questions even though the interview was 1 hour 15 mins (from sitting to getting up to leave).

We didn’t get any repeat questions as I have read accounts of, no silencing me on the very few times I spoke for her, no contradicting her, or trying to put words in her mouth, etc.

But I don’t know, given how it seems everyone is awarded 0 points, and nobody gets awarded through the consultation, I just don’t feel confident she is going to get an award.

My own unbiased (as best can be) observation is that due to it being one of her moderately flared days, she was as stiff as a board and needed to sit on the bench over the road from the assessment after walking 50 yards from the car park, she was moving at a snail pace as well as her arm movements, etc.  She was visibly exhausted and fell asleep in the waiting room for 15 minutes.

I did secretly record it all, which came out perfectly clearly, after hearing all the crazy stories of them lying on reports.

I guess we will find out.

poppy123456

Hi,

Your thoughts that everyone is awarded 0 points and nobody gets awarded through the consultation is not exactly true. It's true to the fact that a HCP doesn't make the decisions, they only make a recommendation to the DWP decision maker by writing a report, so no one is awarded anything after the assessment. The report is then sent to the DWP where a decision maker makes a decision based on the report.

Plenty of people are awarded PIP first time without any problems at all. The only problem is, is that we rarely hear the good stories because if someone's had an award they're happy with we don't hear their story because they have no questions to ask. Myself and my daughter were both successful first time.

I think secretly recording the assessment was very risky and you're lucky you didn't get caught, if you had then the assessment would have been stopped, the file returned to DWP and most likely your partner would have been refused PIP. I have no idea if you'll be able to use that at a Tribunal, if the worst happens.

Approximately 1 week from now your partner can ring DWP and ask for a copy of the assessment report, this will give her some idea what the decision will be as they mostly go with the report. Good luck.