PIP telephone assessment

poppy12345

Muttleythefrog said:

poppy12345 said:

Gig1968 said:

 Too have to wait since Feb when most people on here are getting there claims sorted out far quicker than that is unfair.

You think a 4 month wait is unfair, really? Sorry but personally i don't think that's long at all. 

  A decision on a PIP claim given a returned completed How Your Disability Affects You form... could be made within an hour at the DWP...

Not sure how you've worked that out because the forms are sent to the health assessment providers first before any decision is made.

Gig1968

Couldn't agree with you more nice to see some one thinks like me...

Spoonie_Turtle

I don't have stats because it's just what I've read time and again over different sites in doing the research for my own claim. It could be that the internet only usually sees the difficult or long cars which would of course skew the perception.

I just find it ... curious, when it's so widely known that disabled people routinely have bad experiences and long waits for benefits, that anyone actually expects their case to be different. Yes there are claims that sail through and some people do get the right entitlement easily, but I tend to think if you have low expectations then anything better is a surprise. I'm not saying it's right, and I'm not saying disabled people deserve the treatment they often get at the hands of various government departments, not at all - but I'm saying it shouldn't be a shock. I'm also not not saying shoddy treatment is definitely The Norm but again, low expectations mean less chance of disappointment!

And ultimately, we are in the middle of a pandemic! The numerous factors to cause short staffing, along with redeployment, mean you should realistically be expecting things to take longer right now anyway. I'm not sure when the government started telling us to self-isolate if we had symptoms but I think it was back in February, possibly early March at the latest, so that will have started disrupting their staffing from then. 

Plus, I repeat, PIP is not an income-replacement benefit which is why staff have been redeployed to help with claims that are for income-replacement benefits.

I too hope that this all helps shake up the DWP to show that they can get things done more efficiently without needing in-person appointments, but we'll see. Whether they currently hope to return to all in-person assessments when it's safe, none of us know. It would be nice if those in charge make some sensible decisions even when it is safe to mingle in person again.

Gig1968

I think everyone aggrees it shouldn't take as long as long as it does. But we can't change it. So we live it with I guess. I feel really sorry for those who wait significantly longer than others especially since Feb. Their is no point us quiibling, we cannot change the process. It is what it is. I must apologise to you and others if I may have offended you. My head is not right since I came out of hospital just over a week ago. 

born_again

Gig1968 said:

I think everyone agrees it shouldn't take as long as long as it does. But we can't change it. So we live it with I guess. I feel really sorry for those who wait significantly longer than others especially since Feb. Their is no point us quiibling, we cannot change the process. It is what it is. I must apologise to you and others if I may have offended you. My head is not right since I came out of hospital just over a week ago. 

Well our case.
Applied 12/11/19.
Assessment approx end Jan.
Assessment received by them 07/02/2020
Award letter 07/03/2020
MR letter returned 10/03/2020
Text to say received 02/04/2020 with a should hear within 10 weeks. Nothing yet..
Award was backdated till Nov which is good.
But to be fair in our case and I think many others as well, that when applying for PIP it is not something that you are totally desperate for the money straight away.
YES, it should be faster, but that is the way it is, more staff = more costs = could mean less/lower benefits. 

Just one of the joys of this type of thing being farmed out to tender for 3rd party companies to do, who have to save costs by not employing enough staff to deal with things faster.

Gig1968

A nice brown letter arrived this morning from the dwp saying my pip had been increased from £61 .20 to £62.25. That's the rate anyway.
My ESA payment that I have been on for years didn't appear in my bank account. Allways been paid on a Monday. I thought got to have some connection with me now being on pip. Phoned them up and as my pip oayment is now every four weeks and it is made on a Tuesday. Someone has amended my ESA fortnightly payment date to Tuesdays. Nice of them to tell me. I did ask if I was going to be informed and she said no it had just been bought in line. At least I now know. Can't be arsed to rant. Just a shambles.

born_again

Gig1968 said:

A nice brown letter arrived this morning from the dwp saying my pip had been increased from £61 .20 to £62.25. That's the rate anyway.
Just a shambles.

Snail mail at it's best....
That was the annual increase from April

Muttleythefrog

poppy12345 said:

Muttleythefrog said:

poppy12345 said:

Gig1968 said:

 Too have to wait since Feb when most people on here are getting there claims sorted out far quicker than that is unfair.

You think a 4 month wait is unfair, really? Sorry but personally i don't think that's long at all. 

  A decision on a PIP claim given a returned completed How Your Disability Affects You form... could be made within an hour at the DWP...

Not sure how you've worked that out because the forms are sent to the health assessment providers first before any decision is made.

Probably don't need to exist in the standard process which is why I added "That we have systems and bureaucracy to drag things out for months is a choice of government." The reason I gave the Home Office visa processing as a comparison is because there are some key similarities (including face to face interviews if necessary)... the application can be complex... it may be incomplete... it may lack for evidence... but for the most part a person trained to look at what is sent in can rapidly make a decision. The Home Office takes months like the DWP to determine an application but the Home Office itself proves day in day out it can do it within hours if suitably bunged a voluntary payment to speed them up (in fact since they changed the system to using a private company for electronic evidence submission at appointment it has been known for people who pay for priority service to get a decision before getting home from that appointment.. yet it is common for people to wait close to the 6 months target if they do not). If a DWP DM was incentivised to take a decision in a process that didn't insist they pass the buck to a 3rd party (for their recent and most suitable evidence nonsense) who would default to passing the buck back (as we don't take the decisions but the DWP do nonsense)... I wouldn't be surprised if a very high percentage of PIP (and ESA) new claims or reviews could be done within an hour of receiving back a completed form from claimant along with their evidence. 

Like I suggest.... there is a danger that people have become so used to bad systems and poor performance that there's a sort of acceptance it should be that way.. and if you get performance towards the better end of that poor performance it is somehow something to be cheered. That despite the grave inefficiencies the system seems poor at getting decisions right without involvement of yet more bureaucracy and independent eyes is the ultimate indictment. I think if the decisions were more robust and reliable then inefficiencies might be better tolerated. Telephone assessments are just yet another example of how in many cases the process could be improved...cheaper safer faster and in many cases I imagine more reliable and easier to record...why do we need a contagious virus to tell us that? 

Muttleythefrog

Gig1968 said:

Couldn't agree with you more nice to see some one thinks like me...

Don't tell the judge that.... whatever you do..lol... even my wife thinks I might be a reincarnation of Jack the Ripper despite me telling her I don't believe in that sort of thing.

born_again

Muttleythefrog said:Telephone assessments are just yet another example of how in many cases the process could be improved...cheaper safer faster and in many cases I imagine more reliable and easier to record...why do we need a contagious virus to tell us that? 

Except how do you judge mobility or other physical problems over the phone?
Not all of these are documented by consultants/doctors. As at the time they are not a issue, yet by the time a assessment is due are a lot worse. Due to appointments being a year apart.
From my experience with the wife's assessment, a large part of it was how she was physically viewed in the interview. Not something that can be done over the phone.
Even as someone who spends a large part of the week talking to people on the phone, you can never judge someone just by how they speak.