Tell Scope about attending a remote benefit assessment or looking for work during lockdown

Tori_Scope

We would like to hear from disabled people who have had a remote benefit assessment, or who have been looking for work during the coronavirus lockdown.

In March, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) suspended face-to-face benefits assessments in response to the lockdown. Since then, the DWP has carried out remote assessments, including over the phone.

We particularly want to understand disabled people’s experiences of telephone-based assessments.

We also want to understand disabled people’s experiences of looking for work during the pandemic.

If either of these apply to you, and you would like to share your experience with Scope, you can do so by completing this survey. 

Please note, you do not need to have attended a remote benefit assessment and looked for work during lockdown to complete the survey. Questions will be different depending on which situation applies to you.

We will use this survey to help inform Scope’s influencing and campaigning on benefits and employment over the autumn.

Survey responses are anonymous. You do not need to share your personal details unless you wish to do so.

BrettW

I had an assessment recently over the phone (12th October). This was a follow up to an assessment questionaire I had been sent out at the end of July

I spoke to the lady on the phone for nearly an hour and I have to say she was very polite and understanding. She asked me questions about how my illness affected my everyday life and told me I could take my time and didn't need to rush.

The following day I received a message in my journal stating that I had been assessed as LCWRA. I have to be honest when I found out what this meant it did set me on a bit of a downer as at no point in the process was I informed this process was being done to decide this outcome. All I had been told when the process was initially started was that this was being done because I'd been on the sick for over three months and it was to access whether I would need to attend the jobcentre to sign on. It has come as a complete shock to learn that I am now entitled to other benefits due to my condition.