Telephone recorded assesment

Quinty

I have an ESA telephone assesment. Due to covid  my original form is nearly 2 years old! A lot has happened, I had eye surgery twice and very poor mental health due to bereavment as well as other issues. I dont have a copy of my old form I just sent it  off. Ive noticed they focus on the physical and not mental health which is my illness. They have no up to date records from my Doctor consultants etc how on earth can they asses me? One question I will ask is are you a qualified Doctor in psychiatry or indeed a Doctor  at all. Any advice will be apreciated.

woodbine

Assessors come from many backgrounds, rarely qualified doctors or physciatory doctors as jatos capita etc won't pay enough, they will often be physio's ambulance etc, but all they are doing is reading from a script asking the same questions you have already answered but in a different way.

Quinty

My form is old, my health has changed, yet they have no up to date records. I dont trust them they are not qualified I think its very wrong.

janer1967

Hi 

There is no need for them to be qualified it isnt a medical it's an assessment 

Also the assessment is based on your condition at the time you sent off your form so they may not take any worsening condition into account 

They will have copy of your form so will no doubt lead to confusion if you are talking about things not in your form 

All you can do is answer honestly 

Quinty

 But are they honesg in their  synopsis? Very rarely  if at all. I will speak about my current conditions and surgery they must take that into account and update their  records. I find it insulting they have not done so for so many. What they should have done is sent new forms off! 

janer1967

You obviously have a bad impression on the assessors and that may be done to your own experience 

Just bear in mind what they put is their opinion of how you are affected from what you have said or done 

We do hear of many saying it is full of lies but again it is their opinion 

I wish you luck 

Quinty

I find  them very patrionising. 

mikehughescq

I’m afraid threads like this continue to produce a knee jerk reaction from me.

HCPs are assessing functional loss. You don’t need to be a medical expert to do that and indeed it would be impossible for that to be the case. You have a sight issue and a mental health issue. Do you think the assessment should be done by two specialists? That would plainly be idiotic. Which one would you then choose and why? DLA existed from 1992 to 2013 for adults and used medical professionals. It didn’t work any better than this does. It’s very rarely that my eye specialists are up to speed on the specifics of my functional loss. Indeed most of the time I’m educating them so the idea that somehow a specialist in your condition would magically come to all the right conclusions is just tosh to be honest.

They’re not there to make a decision so they have no need of “records”. It can help paint a picture pre assessment but that’s all and frankly if you need to rely on that then your PIP 2 is really the problem as that’s what sets the scene for them. The rest is up to you, Do a great PIP 2 and the HCP report will largely be irrelevant as they will be hamstrung. However, the role of the HCP is to do no more than form a view and make a recommendation. It is the decision maker who will form a view based on all the evidence not the HCP.

Your starting point is that you don’t trust them; find them insulting and patronising. The Work and Pensions committee did this to death. There are issues with a significant minority but the majority are absolutely fine. You just won’t read about them on a forum as those people don’t tend to have a need to say anything on forums,

Your focus on negative aspects of the assessment before its even happened means you’re making the common mistake of assuming that if only they had a bunch of medical reports etc, then all would magically be well and the questions would be less rigorous; you’d be given a much easier time and the outcome would be a forgone conclusion. As a result you have completely taken your eye off the main task at hand which would be to prepare multiple examples per points scoring activity and understanding what to say and what not to say. In one sense the outcome becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. You become so concerned about what it’s going to be like that you go in completely unprepared on the basics. The outcome is then inevitable.

Quinty

I have terrible anxiety  I worry about everything. A very harsh attitude, indeed. Im a human being.