Mental Health Claimants - Questions asked at ESA and PIP medicals

wellynever

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I appreciate that you're talking about severe mental illness and I'm not but not all mental illness is as extreme as you've experienced.

There is a level of mental illness where people may genuinely believe that they can't work and don't put themselves to the test on it because there's little financial incentive to do so. I don't think that makes them liars or fakers but neither do I think that they should be allowed to remain on benefits for many years, otherwise they can become unemployable, even if they weren't before.

Here we go welcome back, we get the pull socks up to mental health. :mad: you know very little about it, even though you seem to know much, this person usually gets PPR'd because of her hatred of anyone suffering from any mental health problems, she seems to have fun looking at the posts going years then posting them.

COPD self afflicted.

Tolly_T

"people may genuinely believe that they can't work" - if that's the case they'd probably struggle to convince an interviewer that they could even if there was a financial incentive. If they're still at that point they probably need more treatment, ongoing support, confidence building, maybe voluntary work for some of them to build their confidence over a longer period of time. It doesn't sound to me that they were ready to return to work but that's just me and it probably it is influenced by my experience. Maybe you were wrong in your judgement about them being able to work? Recovery is very precarious and pushing people to do things before they are ready is likely to set them back. I think that's the same regardless of the severity of the initial illness.

There's so little funding for treatment in mental health these days that generally only people with fairly severe illness are seen by anyone and someone with a relatively mild condition would be very lucky to get ongoing support. In what context were you working with them if their conditions weren't severe?

Back to the topic though. I would be interested to hear about the assessments that people have been through and the comments that have been made on their reports. Are there any other memory or calculation questions that have been asked?

I know one issue recently has been if a claimant drives. They seem to assume people can do a lot of things if they can drive and that if the claimant is really as ill as they state they ask if they really should be allowed to continue driving. I wonder if this is to frighten claimants into downplaying their symptoms. It's across the board, the impact of both physical and mental illnesses doubted because of driving.

missbiggles1

wellynever wrote: »

Here we go welcome back, we get the pull socks up to mental health. :mad: you know very little about it, even though you seem to know much, this person usually gets PPR'd because of her hatred of anyone suffering from any mental health problems, she seems to have fun looking at the posts going years then posting them.

COPD self afflicted.

I think you may be confusing me with someone else as I can hardly hate people suffering with mental ill health as I've suffered from it myself for the last 25 years and am still currently taking Fluoxetine and Alprazolam.

teddysmum

I spent some time teaching basic skills (maths and English) to adults and one student, who had brain damage at birth, was unable to do reading , writing and calculation (work with money) beyond the level of a 6 year-old, so had a personal helper with college work.


He was in his late thirties, able to express himself and was physically fit (loved gardening) and my colleagues and I wondered why he hadn't been guided towards some kind of paid work (he said he'd never worked), instead of being on benefits.


10 years on and I have been greeted by him twice , while out shopping, and he is so proud to talk about his part-time job (not sure what job, as he was so excited).


As we thought, he was capable of work, but those overseeing his welfare , took so long to enable him to work.

dadtobe

densol wrote: »

Total rubbish. These interviewers are trained to trick confuse lie and confuse people. None of those writing on this forum in such terms have been through the humiliation of ESA/PIP interviews I would bet. If they had, they might have an ounce of empathy.

Crap site - crap board - please ban me !! Lol

They aren't trained to trick or confuse anyone.

FBaby

Two people with the same conditions, affecting them the same way will have a totally different view of what they can achieve or not. It's no different to two single parents with children the same age, one will believe they couldn't possibly work FT, another will get on with it.

That's because it takes many more factors than the one they are being assessed for to decide if they can work or not. Education, resilience, confidence, self-esteem, attitude towards challenges, values, ethics etc... all these will impact on whether one person perceive themselves capable to work or not.

It is quite obvious though that there would be a correlation between people who without disability would be unlikely to earn much more than what they get in benefits less likely to perceive themselves as capable of working compared to a person with the same disability, who however could earn twice as much or more.

The_Fiddle_Man

dadtobe wrote: »

They aren't trained to trick or confuse anyone.

My ATOS HP lied through his teeth about what I said / didn't say in the medical report. What he didn't know was that I recorded him and logged a complaint with ATOS. He's now been suspended pending an investigation. I also have a complaint logged with the HCPC over his actions.

Now awaiting Tribunal to try to have points not awarded, re-awarded.

My claim was based on complex mental health and other disabilities.

belinda1960

The Fiddle - what questions were you asked at the medical, presumably for PIP ?

tazwhoever

The_Fiddle_Man wrote: »

My ATOS HP lied through his teeth about what I said / didn't say in the medical report. What he didn't know was that I recorded him and logged a complaint with ATOS. He's now been suspended pending an investigation. I also have a complaint logged with the HCPC over his actions.

Now awaiting Tribunal to try to have points not awarded, re-awarded.

My claim was based on complex mental health and other disabilities.

How did you use the recording without HP knowing and making a complaint?

The_Fiddle_Man

tazwhoever wrote: »

How did you use the recording without HP knowing and making a complaint?

I recorded it on a dictaphone hidden in a bag, initially for my benefit because I have some memory problems, but the recording came in handy when I got the medical report. ATOS could hardly refuse to accept the evidence, and my MP is involved as well.