wrong descriptor chosen by Assessor

braca

Had PIP review decision Dec 2018 and failed to get an award where previously had Standard for both Daily living and Mobility, MR now sent and hopeful of correct award.

On the PA4 report Activity 6 Dressing and undressing Assessor has chosen descriptor A but on their justification has wrote Needs aids to dress due to tremor in hands which I think should be awarded descriptor B Now case manager who is supposed to look over report before making decision has failed to pick up on this error and has caused myself to drop 2 points, I have highlighted this error to case manager in my MR .

Can I add another personal issue on report that I thought was insensitive and had huge impact on my mental health, at review I told Assessor my Sister and my Niece had both died within months of each other April and August 2018 due to Renal failure same illness as myself. on report under Variability Assessor wrote has been to a couple of funerals recently, I found that to be shocking and so inconsiderate coming from a Professional who is supposed to show compassion and empathy.

poppy123456

Hi,

I'm sorry to hear that. If you have any complaints about the report and what was said then you need to make your complaint to the health assessment providers and not DWP. DWP won't be interested in any of that.

Although you think it was unprofessional, they are there to get the whole picture/story about how your conditions affect you. If you mentioned your sister and niece then that will be the reason why it was added to the report.

cathie

Who are you poppy are you a worker for d w p. Sorry if mistaken

braca

Hello Poppy123456 Yes I did mention about my sister and niece dying and how it impacted on my mental health but it was the fact that there was no mention of them in report and only comment made by Assessor has been to couple of funerals recently, my opinion is that it was to downplay the effect of my Anxiety/Depression as in 6 other Activities their justification for descriptor choice all include CH confirms he has a diagnosed mental health condition he is prescribed first level medication, I myself refuse to take stronger medication as do not want to become reliant on Anti-depressants.

poppy123456

cathie said:

Who are you poppy are you a worker for d w p. Sorry if mistaken

No, i'm most certainly not. I'm a community champion here on scope and i claim ESA and PIP myself.

cathie

OK  well I was unclear hench the question.

pixie61

Afte being on DLA enhanced rate mobility & care. I was transferred to pip & git nothing for mobility & standard for care. Assessors report was full of lies & inaccuricies! I have put in an MR & got my local l MP involved. Waiting for result at the moment. Why don’t you involve your local MP?  The injustice towards disabled people needs to be highlighted. Bombard our local MPs!!

Yadnad

pixie61 said:

Afte being on DLA enhanced rate mobility & care. I was transferred to pip & git nothing for mobility & standard for care. Assessors report was full of lies & inaccuricies! I have put in an MR & got my local l MP involved. Waiting for result at the moment. Why don’t you involve your local MP?  The injustice towards disabled people needs to be highlighted. Bombard our local MPs!!

What reason do you think that an MP can change anything?
What you received on DLA has absolutely no bearing on a PIP claim. The DWP will review the original decision and decide again on it.
An MP cannot involve himself/herself on any of this 
I was on DLA for many years - High Care & Mobility indefinitely - whereas for the past 5 years and 3 PIP face to face reassessments I was awarded 0 points for all three. 

braca

Did not get answer to my last post regarding HCP commenting he has a diagnosed mental health condition he is prescribed first level medication, I myself did not want to take higher dose medication and find counselling is more helpful, This was highlighted in report from one of my consultants and not taken into consideration, Same thing with pain medication HCP mentions taking low level pain relief again I do not wish to take higher dose as having sessions with pain management Psychologist and learning techniques to combat pain and letter from consultant explains this and again not taken into consideration.

Medication for anxiety-depression = Sertraline 100mg

Medication for pain relief = Paracetamol, Codiene Phosphate 30mg Lidocaine 700mg medicated plaster and Tens machine.


Evidence considered alongside consultation findings

PIP assessment report 31/05/2o16  AR1 questionnaire 16/07/2018

Other N/A

I believe if consultants letters were looked at  HCP would have had a better understanding of how my anxiety-depression and Nerve pain impact on myself to carry out daily living and mobility activities.

I also have Gout and Osteoarthritis on both knees

poppy123456

Unless the letter from your Consultant states how your conditions affect you against the PIP descriptors then it will have been of very little use, which is most likely why they didn't use it as evidence.

CockneyRebel

cathie said:

Who are you poppy are you a worker for d w p. Sorry if mistaken

poppy is one of the most knowledgeable champions on this forum, giving great advice from personal experiance. ( You don't need me defending you honour poppy but I will gladly do so )

poppy123456

Thank you @CockneyRebel

braca

Poppy123456

poppy123456 said:

Unless the letter from your Consultant states how your conditions affect you against the PIP descriptors then it will have been of very little use, which is most likely why they didn't use it as evidence.
  Extract from Consultant letter His pain is exacerbated by walking and most activities...He is suffering from significant mood swings, During the consultation, he seemed very anxious regarding his and life in general...My impression is that this gentleman is suffering from ongoing pain He also has a degree of neuropathic post-operative pain.
In my own opinion HCP was only trying to get her report in order so that it did not fail audit and as I said in my first post made an error on pip descriptor dressing/undressing choice by recommending choice B but marked down A, and what makes it worse that DWP Case Manager did not pick up on this which makes me wonder that the system is as a whole is flawed, I do acknowledge that the HCP is under time constraint and will make mistakes, it is just unfortunate people have to take there case to appeal which I will certainly be doing if MR is refused.

Yadnad

braca said:

Evidence considered alongside consultation findings

PIP assessment report 31/05/2o16  AR1 questionnaire 16/07/2018

Have you got that right? The evidence used amongst other things was the assessors report from 2016?
On the assumption that that report was wrong and you rectified it at either MR stage or appeal, all that is happening is that they will reiterate what was said in 2016 and probably not mention that it was found to be inaccurate at best?

That answers a question that has had me foxed for years. I had an assessment in 2013 and another in 2015 and if you put the two reports together they are almost identical - now I know why.
There was no mention for the 2015 one that the 2013 report was rubbished and the DWP up lifted the original 0 points to Enhanced Care & Mobility.

braca

Yadnad

PIP assessment report from 2016 was awarded Standard Daily and Standard Mobility
at F2F PIP review in 2018 some of my circumstances had changed and was mentioned in AR1 form like increased medication along with side effects one of which was Tremor in both hands, anxiety-depression, mood swings that isolate me from some family and friends, nerve pain from surgical wound along with existing Gout and osteoarthritis, I also had MRI Scan early on this year that showed up that I had very large Polycystic Kidneys which are causing me pain, now in April 2018 my older sister died after having large Polycystic kidney removed, now having discussed this with Renal consultant I mentioned that I would be reluctant to have this surgery done and he agreed with this and will monitor situation, In the PA4 report HCP mentions that I have refused to have operation to remove large Polycystic kidneys and relieve me of pain, now were did she Pluck that info from ? 

All of the above conditions and side effects are mentioned in various Consultant letters that I have sent in as evidence to DWP. Maybe the HCP thought the hospital consultants were writing Jackanory stories and dismissed them...:'(

Yadnad

braca said:

Yadnad
I mentioned that I would be reluctant to have this surgery done and he agreed with this and will monitor situation, In the PA4 report HCP mentions that I have refused to have operation to remove large Polycystic kidneys and relieve me of pain, now were did she Pluck that info from ? 

Well in part you have refused surgery, for whatever reason the assessor doesn't really care as it is not relevant to PIP.
Obviously because of that refusal (for good reason) you will continue to be in pain. Thus with the surgery you could be said to be pain free. Thus it appears to the assessor that you are not taking action to remove the need for suffering the pain and consequently are intentionally doing so to claim PIP. 

That is how I would expect the assessor to think. - wrong of course but they see everything as black and while with no emotion and no interest as to why you have refused. They will probably view your actions as intentionally refusing medical treatment in order to claim a benefit.

I have had the same. in the past. My surgeon suggested that I consider having my spleen and pancreas removed, and in doing so rebuild the arteries that supply the body and the Aorta.
This came with a warning - it is a 12/14 hour op and the chances of survival either during the op or within 24 hours was 25%. - 75% chance of dying.
OR continue as I am in pain week to week, unable to eat without drugs taken first, run the risk of the collaterals bursting in my stomach wall (aneurism) and the real chance of pancreatic cancer.
 
I refused surgery preferring to have years now. The assessment report noted that I had also refused surgery that could remove/reduce the pain that I was in.

braca

Sorry folks it was how your disability affects you from that was used  for F2F in 2016
AR1 review in 2018 had a few change of circumstances and was looking to be awarded Enhanced for daily living and mobility activities... in PA4 report from this assessment HCP said in justification for dressing/undressing descriptor B should apply but marked down descriptor A, why was this not picked up  and surely this should cast doubt on rest of report ?

Thank you for previous replies Yadnad and Ilovecats.

Yadnad

ilovecats said:

The reason the original report is referenced is because that is how they know what you were recommended the first time. It also gives the assessor a jump start with your medical history rather than having to pick over the evidence that it sent it. When they are preparing to see you, knowing what descriptors were applied the first time gives them an idea of how unwell you may be. Assessors should not be copying the report however, they should be assessing you as if you were 'fresh in'. Assessors also are not able to copy and paste from old reports but the system won't allow it due to the way the documents are scanned and saved. 

Sometimes, if the original report was too lenient, the new one will say something alongs the lines of  . . . "Although the AR1 indicates no change, this is inconsistent with the previous PA4 . . . because this time XYZ . . . ". The reports nowadays are of higher quality (some here may disagree) and subject to stricter auditing so what may have been over awarded last time, now has to be corrected and that is a job no assessor likes doing. You know as you write it that you are taking money away and you have to do it anyway because the previous assessor didn't do their job well!

I understand all of that but if they look back at a report, in fact two reports (2013, 2015) and see that it was so damning that no points at all were awarded what would they do with the next report? In fact the 2017 report whilst slightly different in format again was damning and suggested no points once again. 

However for both the 2013 and 2015 reports at MR stage the DWP changed their previous NIL awards to Enhanced Care & Mobility. Presumably therefore and assuming that they can see those two revisions they should have been in a quandary with the previous report and suggested points as it bears no relationship to what I was eventually awarded. 
It's not my place to point this out to the assessor or even send in copies of the new decisions - so how would the assessor deal with a situation like that?

Having said that I received 0 points again for the 2017 assessment I have submitted an appeal against it recently - just inside the 13 months allowed - the DWP/assessing company then decided a few weeks ago to send me for another face to face assessment with the excuse that the 2017 assessment was flawed even though I have not had a PIP award since the end of 2017 and have not re-applied for PIP as I am far too old. How can a re-assessment be carried out now that should relate to how I was back in late 2017 - nearly 17 months ago?
 
No doubt there will have to be contact with a dodgy mystic who might just help them out.

Yadnad

ilovecats said:

Yadnad said:

That answers a question that has had me foxed for years. I had an assessment in 2013 and another in 2015 and if you put the two reports together they are almost identical - now I know why.
There was no mention for the 2015 one that the 2013 report was rubbished and the DWP up lifted the original 0 points to Enhanced Care & Mobility.

Your reports were written when PIP was relatively new which might be why the quality was shoddy or they appeared the same. 

In which case if some poor unsuspecting claimant had the same issues and didn't appeal both the assessor and the DWP would have got clean away with issuing a poor decision based on an accepted poor quality and shoddy assessment report. You just can't make this up.

poppy123456

You said yourself many times Yadnad that you filled out the forms badly. You've also mentioned quite a lot on here that there were some conditions you didn't mention because you thought they wouldn't have counted. Why would you leave out information? That's only going to make it worse for yourself because you won't have a true assessment by doing that. Then you moan because you scored zero points.

Yadnad

poppy123456 said:

You said yourself many times Yadnad that you filled out the forms badly. You've also mentioned quite a lot on here that there were some conditions you didn't mention because you thought they wouldn't have counted. Why would you leave out information? That's only going to make it worse for yourself because you won't have a true assessment by doing that. Then you moan because you scored zero points.

I was actually more concerned about the system and not my own case. It is now apparent, thanks to ilovecats that in the past it is more than possible that assessments in general were shoddy and of poor quality. My point there was that if a claimant did not want to appeal for whatever reason, and that seems to happen quite a lot, the failure to get an award or the correct award was not down to the claimant but down to the assessor.

The next point I am concerned about is that the assessor reviews the previous report to get a flavour of the claim. If that report said 0 points but that it was changed to enhanced Care & Mobility either at MR stage or Tribunal, the assessor wouldn't know what the end result was. There is the worry that in these cases it would be an endless cycle of 0 points assessment primarily based on what was written two years before, as in my case,  and for the claimant to continually have to appeal.

Back to my own situation, yes in hindsight my claim forms were poorly completed simply because I didn't and still don't, really understand the PIP processes. Yes I am amazed that the example given in another thread that someone with Sciatica would or should be awarded a 3 year award. In my case that issue, when compared to the bigger picture of all of my issues together is minor and insignificant. Put it another way, if that was my only issue then I would be a very happy individual. As it is the DWP considering the whole of my difficulties gave out the same award period (3 years) as someone would/should get just for Sciatica - again the processes just don't make any sense to me.
  
I doubt very much that even if I had have included it, the assessment report would have been any truer as it seems that one bad one carries on to the next one because the previous one was bad.

Yes I have moaned about consistently getting 0 points. In a way I accept that award knowing that it is wrong as proven by the first two claims (2013 & 2015) being changed by the DWP when they were required to look at all of the evidence submitted with the form at MR stage. Personally I don't expect much from an assessment in any event.