Pips telephone assessments

brianwoods

Has anybody who has recently had a telephone assessment for pips recently and had a nil score on everything ???
I have and got my copy of the assessors report "pa4" it actually says that my assessor is a "Nurse" and all of my answers don't bear much relation to what I actually said.
Don't **** about writing to the p.m or the chancellor as it was them that gave the ok for this to happen and it gives them more time to find a wriggle out clause.
Contact your local law centre who will help you with the appeal process.

MarkM88

Firstly, a “nurse” as you put it is a qualified healthcare professional and therefore is capable of carrying out a PIP assessment. 

Secondly, they are not there to write down what you say word for word, they are there to use what you say, alongside all the evidence, to form their own opinion, so the report would not be what you told her and nor should it. 

chiarieds

Hi @brianwoods - I'm sorry the assessor's report wasn't as you expected. It sounds like you still have to wait for your decision letter, & the decision maker will look at all the info you have sent.

As far as PIP goes, it's not about any diagnosis, but rather how your disability affects certain activities of daily living &/mobility. Have a look at the activities/descriptors that are looked at with PIP: 

https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/asset-library/Personal-Independence-Payment-Descriptors-and-Scores-April-2021.pdf

If unhappy with your decision letter, you can ask another decision maker to look at this again, a Mandatory Reconsideration, which should be in writing. Give a couple of recent, detailed examples as to the difficulty you face for each applicable descriptor, i.e. when did it happen, where, what happened, did anyone see this, & were there any consequences to attempting/doing an activity?

Say if you can't do an activity 'reliably,' i.e. safely, to an acceptable standard, repeat as often as one would reasonably expect, or if it takes you much longer than someone without a disability. See this mentioned at the end of the link above.

Get a free Certificate of Posting from your Post Office when sending your letter off.

To add to what Mark has said, legal advice is not necessary. If you need help, look for advice here: https://advicelocal.uk/

brianwoods

Thank you for all the helpful responses to my post
Might I add that it would be difficult to assess disability because of mental health issues difficult via a telephone call rather than a face to face as I previously had,how can you describe your level of mental discomfort adequately to somebody who is not specifically mental health trained .
Manchester Mind put me in touch with the Greater Manchester Law Centre who are taking on cases like mine and will be assisting with the appeal process.
The Belfast telegraph reported Nov 2021 reported that Stormont had received so many complaints about the telephone interview process that the Northern Ireland version of our DWP had to review 2000+ cases.
Interestingly capita / independent assessment agency used to be atos were the assessors ! What a coincidence.

poppy123456

The AP does not need to be medically trained in any specific conditions because PIP isn't awarded based on any diagnosis.

brianwoods

Hi poppy123456 I'm aware of that that fact ,I had my original assessment at home with an assessor and was awarded pips on that basis.
And took away based on a telephone interview like thousands of other people have.
So unless you yourself have mental health problems like mine please do not comment any further as you appear to have the same level of understanding as my assessor 

poppy123456

I do suffer mental health but don't claim PIP for this. I live with my daughter who does suffer mental health and also claims PIP for this. I totally understand all about mental health! but thank you anyway!!

MarkM88

@brianwoods

You were not awarded PIP the time you had a home assessment on that basis, having an assessment in your own home is not justification to make you an award. 

The assessor does not in fact have to have a major understanding of any MH condition because they are assessing your functional ability to carry out activities in the descriptors. 

Therefore they do not have to be medically trained in specific conditions. 

The way to an award is for you to provide two examples per descriptor that apply to you and explain what happened to you the last time you attempted this activity and not just say you cannot do this. 

Poppy is a very knowledgeable  individual in regards to PIP and you have no need to speak to her like that in that tone. 

poppy123456

May i ask when you filled out your form for the review did you treat it as a new claim? or did you you just put "no change" if your conditions hadn't changed.

chiarieds

It is highly unlikely that your PIP award was 'taken away' by having a telephone assessment (tho you don't say if you've actually had a decision letter yet). What can occur is that people don't complete a review form with as much detail as an initial claim form; the assessment is, after all, only part of a claim.

When you have a moment, please have a look at our 'Community house rules:' https://www.scope.org.uk/community-house-rules/   which say, 'Please make sure your messages respect others’ views and suggestions, even if you do not agree with them.'

Thank you.

brianwoods

Poppy123456 you have my Sincerest apology

brianwoods

@poppy123456 in answer to your question my partner was asking me the questions and helping to fill the form in so was treated as new.

poppy123456

brianwoods said:

Poppy123456 you have my Sincerest apology

No worries. Apology accepted. Most of the time i totally deny i have mental health issues. Just my way of dealing with my conditions...forget about them and put others before myself.

brianwoods

having read the house rules all I am going to say instead of going on about .gov cost cutting and using the covid crisis as an underhanded way of saving money is for anybody who has had a recent telephone interview and had any benefits stopped as a result and thinks this is an "unfair" way of doing it to please contact their law centre for guidance.

brianwoods

@MarkM88
I can assure you that the documentation was presented correctly.
What I did though was to take my own notes during the interview and when I got the pa4 noticed that most of my apparent answers bore little or no resemblance to what I had actually said.
So yes I am quite happy to take this case to a tribunal and let the law decide.
Hopefully other people will also 
Kind regards

poppy123456

The assessment process isn't there for them to write what you said verbatim, if it was there would be no point in having these assessments. It's there for them to gather more evidence to support your claim. The AP then writes the report based on their opinion of everything you sent and what you said during the assessment.

brianwoods

@poppy123456
What was on the pa4 bore little or no resemblance to what I had actually given in answer.
And the letter from the DWP stated that they  cannot pay pips based purely on mental health grounds ??
I'm quite happy to wait for the result on the mandatory reconsideration and see what happens 
Kind regards 

brianwoods

And unfortunately due to all of this my mental health has suffered yet again and now I've actually been referred for some real counselling due to having unresolved trauma and ptsd locked up in my head for 40+ years and there's me thinking that due to the assessors report I had nothing wrong with me 🙂🥲

brianwoods

@Username_removed Took me a bit of time to get through all of that but thank you.
It's a good job I've got physical evidence from my mental health councillor to back up my claim now
I would agree on most everything you have said ,I do take issue regarding note taking etc.
I used to work as a trainer for Virgin media on customer accounts and it was impressed on me from day one that any notes should be a fair representation of what was actually said.
I'm not expecting the assessor to write notes exactly word for word "verbatim"
What I do expect though is for the notes taken to approximate what  I have said and not be that different that I would think I had got somebody else's assessment,I would  say it was a complete fabrication but I'm expecting for somebody to say that I am not being fair on the assessors.
I presume you might have seen the very negative reviews regarding these telephone style interviews ??
And maybe ex employee reviews from capita/independent assessment services??
These suggest that the success rate for new claims or re assessment is not as high as claimed by .Gov.
Kind regards 

brianwoods

@Username_removed  
I thank you for the advice , for people with mental health problems it is sometimes difficult to deal with this kind of thing so I'm going to take all the help I can get.
Many thanks 

brianwoods

Your point about having to work from home did strike a chord ,potentially bad phone line,poor Internet connection and might not have a vpn either and no access to your medical records because of data protection issues.
Couple that with the assessor putting his own spin on what he's being told must make it really difficult for the DWP to come to a decision.