just had the PIP health assessment report back, confused
TeddyTooly
Online Community Member Posts: 12 Listener
the assessor said I could do everything unaided even though I looked at the descriptors before and made sure that I explained why I couldn’t do these things. the reason she gave these decisions was because my assessment was inconsistent with my PIP 2. What does this even mean?
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Hello @TeddyTooly - & welcome to the community. It means, that altho you feel you explained about the difficulties you faced in your initial claim pack (PIP2 form), the assessor's opinion is different based on the assessment you had. I'm sorry, but this can happen, as the assessor's form their own opinion which may be correct/incorrect. The decision maker will look at all the evidence including your PIP2 form & the assessor's report, so you'll have to wait to see what your decision letter says.
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Welcome to the community @TeddyTooly Has chiarieds' comment above helped you to understand a little more about what that means?0
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Tori_Scope said:Welcome to the community @TeddyTooly Has chiarieds' comment above helped you to understand a little more about what that means?1
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Hey teddytooly, mind telling me what your health condition is so I could try make sense as to why the assessor may have disagreed with your claim? It’s awful when assessors who have no idea what it’s like living with condition x disagree with your problems.0
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Hi @Sam01 - just to mention that a health condition, altho you list any in a PIP claim pack, is largely irrelevant, it's how that condition impacts on certain activities of daily living, &/mobility, i.e. literally 'How your disability affects you.'
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Sam01 said:Hey teddytooly, mind telling me what your health condition is so I could try make sense as to why the assessor may have disagreed with your claim? It’s awful when assessors who have no idea what it’s like living with condition x disagree with your problems.0
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Username_removed said:Why would you expect a MH professional? They’re not assessing your conditions. They’re assessing the consequences as you describe them. The need for expertise is limited. Which specific expert would you have wanted if you also had a sensory or physical condition? One of each maybe?0
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PIP never has been about a diagnosis, it's how those conditions affect your ability to carry out daily activities based on the PIP descriptors. We are all affected differently by these conditions, therefore they don't need to have any knowledge of any conditions.
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@TeddyTooly, I have to fully agree with @mickhughescq, PIP is award not on a disability or diagnosis or the amount of prescription medications your taking. PIP is solely award on your inability to manage, cope preform the PIP descriptors in a safe and repeatable and timely manner. When you applied you stated in your application form the reasons that effect your ability to preform or manage the descriptors/ activities and at your assessment the information submitted and the answers you gave did not justify a PIP award that you assumed you where entitled too. The HPs are not there to diagnose, offer advice but to access your inabilities from the answers submitted in your application and answers you gave at the assessment . They the HPs are not qualified in every health conditions but have access to all the possibilities that can and do impact people lives in relation to the PIP descriptors.0
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wilko said:@TeddyTooly, I have to fully agree with @mickhughescq, PIP is award not on a disability or diagnosis or the amount of prescription medications your taking. PIP is solely award on your inability to manage, cope preform the PIP descriptors in a safe and repeatable and timely manner. When you applied you stated in your application form the reasons that effect your ability to preform or manage the descriptors/ activities and at your assessment the information submitted and the answers you gave did not justify a PIP award that you assumed you where entitled too. The HPs are not there to diagnose, offer advice but to access your inabilities from the answers submitted in your application and answers you gave at the assessment . They the HPs are not qualified in every health conditions but have access to all the possibilities that can and do impact people lives in relation to the PIP descriptors.Their justification for not giving me points was that “there is no diagnosis of agoraphobia in medical history”.0
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Nope, you don't need any diagnosis to claim PIP. When my daughter first claimed in 2017 she didn't have any diagnosis and was awarded Enhanced for both parts.
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wilko said:@TeddyTooly, I have to fully agree with @mickhughescq, PIP is award not on a disability or diagnosis or the amount of prescription medications your taking. PIP is solely award on your inability to manage, cope preform the PIP descriptors in a safe and repeatable and timely manner. When you applied you stated in your application form the reasons that effect your ability to preform or manage the descriptors/ activities and at your assessment the information submitted and the answers you gave did not justify a PIP award that you assumed you where entitled too. The HPs are not there to diagnose, offer advice but to access your inabilities from the answers submitted in your application and answers you gave at the assessment . They the HPs are not qualified in every health conditions but have access to all the possibilities that can and do impact people lives in relation to the PIP descriptors.I had an easier time claiming on DLA which I had for 3 years before I claimed for PIP which I also got for 7 years until early last year when they stopped my payment after a review even when my condition hasn’t changed at all and has only gotten worse. the experience may not be the same for everybody but from the 10 years I have had disability benefits for my condition I have always had an easier time after being assessed by someone who has a background in the mental health field or by someone who has a close relationship with someone who also has my condition which I have been told a few times.I believe that it is important for assessors to have a good understanding of mental health illnesses and not just basic understanding. mental health conditions can present in many different ways and is often hard to verbally communicate, if you don’t have a broad understanding of this I don’t think you can accurately assess and form and opinion.I think there is a big room for improvement in the way that assessments are carried out for mental health conditions. there are many many stories on the internet about how these assessments fail those suffering. there needs to be big changes for welfare and employment support that would greatly improve the lives of those with mental health problems.it is also important to note that assessors who are trained in mental health will also know how to approach the assessment in a better way and how to put forward questions in a way that would get a better response from the claimant. it’s not enough to say that the claimant looked “well groomed” or “contained eye contact” or “stayed focused.” as I said mental health issues present in many different ways, to a untrained eye these are difficult to stop. they are extremely complex and those who are not trained should not be allowed to form an opinion that is so critical in people’s lives.0
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While agree with most comments so far both for and against the assessors report and the report submitted ( PIP 2 ) ( or any other form Submitted for access to benefits ) the charter or contract is with the DWP not you, since it is the DWP that are paying for the report as the Decision Maker has no medical background, otherwise he could use the same program to assess you as they do. Its called LiMA, Logic Intergrated Medical Access, and they are 5 possible answers to each descriptor derived at by Doctors, Nurses and others qualified in other fields of medicine covering all the other descriptors.
You have to also remember as stated the assessor is only giving an opinion to the Decision Maker, and if there are things that you think that they did not take into consideration when writing their report, it may be that you needed more or did not send in supporting information.
No problem though just ask for either a statement of reason or a Mandatory Reconsideration, which will explain how they arrived at their decision.
Hope this helps.0 -
onebigvoice said:
No problem though just ask for either a statement of reason or a Mandatory Reconsideration, which will explain how they arrived at their decision.
Nope that's not quite correct, sorry. You can only ask for a statement of reasons after a Tribunal. A Mandatory Reconsideration is asking DWP to look at the decision again...
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Hi @onebigvoice - I thought that LiMA was used for ESA WCAs, not PIP. I believe that the PIP HCPs use PIPAT. Unfortunately, as we know, some 'cut & paste' answers can still be used, but at the discretion of the HCP, who can record their own opinion too.It would be helpful if you would give current links to your comments, thank you. As Poppy has mentioned, & it's always worthwhile to read the post you're commenting on, the OP will just be considering a Mandatory Reconsideration at this stage should they wish to take things further; they haven't had a tribunal.
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Username_removed said:onebigvoice said:No problem though just ask for either a statement of reason or a Mandatory Reconsideration, which will explain how they arrived at their decision.
Hope this helps.TeddyTooly said:I believe that it is important for assessors to have a good understanding of mental health illnesses and not just basic understanding. mental health conditions can present in many different ways and is often hard to verbally communicate, if you don’t have a broad understanding of this I don’t think you can accurately assess and form and opinion.I think there is a big room for improvement in the way that assessments are carried out for mental health conditions. there are many many stories on the internet about how these assessments fail those suffering. there needs to be big changes for welfare and employment support that would greatly improve the lives of those with mental health problems.it is also important to note that assessors who are trained in mental health will also know how to approach the assessment in a better way and how to put forward questions in a way that would get a better response from the claimant. it’s not enough to say that the claimant looked “well groomed” or “contained eye contact” or “stayed focused.” as I said mental health issues present in many different ways, to a untrained eye these are difficult to stop. they are extremely complex and those who are not trained should not be allowed to form an opinion that is so critical in people’s lives.
1 - what explicitly might the difference between a good understanding and a basic understanding? Every HCP is already aware that all conditions present in different ways not just MH. It’s insulting to them to suggest otherwise. A broad understanding is exactly what they do have. The issue is often the software and the time available rather than knowledge. Some people may have difficulty verbalising but the conditions themselves are not difficult to verbalise. That’s not the same thing and recognising that is one of the reasons a PIP decision is based on all the evidence not just the HCP assessment. If you can’t verbalise it then it shouldn’t matter because you’ll have already written it down. If you can’t do either then you need an and I ate or a representative.
2 - HCPs have varied life experiences and limited training as a HCP but it does explicitly cover questioning styles and that’s reflected in their publicly available guidance. I’m not sure his questioning styles relates to observations like “well-groomed” as those are things noted through observation and involve no questioning. HCPs are allowed to observe and trained to do so. However, the ones who draw stupid inferences as you describe will not cease to do that through better training or by being replaced by experts or specialists. The reality is that between 1992 and 2013 exactly those experts you crave made exactly the same sorts of comments repeatedly. The issue is not the level of expertise it’s partly the extent they’re allowed to draw an inaccurate inference through a poorly completed PIP 2 and the extent to which you accurately direct complaints.3 - I profoundly disagree that mental health has some kind of monopoly on complexity or that there is any complexity at all. On the one hand people like to present as being complex. Most MH issues present within a range of well documented behaviours and where they don’t it’s not hard to evidence that anecdotally. Same as with any other health conditions. Expertise is not needed to decipher that.0 -
Mike I would say they did work but unfortunately people voted Conservatives in and then they decided that they wanted to save money and even scope said that at the time in 2013 when disability living allowance was replaced by PIP
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22058059
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Now I remember being on incapacity benefit years ago and the doctor person seemed to have a greater understanding of what I was going through now I don’t think they do as much although the person that did my reports recently did seem to but I’ve got to wait for the decision maker0
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Who is waiting pip.dession just let you now money goes in bank first than letter comes last as today pip put payments in my bank account week 7 from f2f call as dwp said within 8 weeks good luck to people1
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Good to hear you've got your award.0
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