PIP was 2nd claim with new conditions but from 15 April 2025 new 3rd claim as advised.

tifo

M25 said:

That's very unfortunate and what a lot of people have been hinting at in this thread.

That essentially means your evidence is unreliable (ie they think you're a liar). I don't know everything that's been said so I can't comment further.

My evidence wasn't only me at the tribunal and my submission, there were many GP notes and hospital consultant letters and photos showing my conditions. How can they find these unreliable? Why would the GP and hospital consultant be liars?

The judge simply believed everything the assessors wrote (and yes, this includes the WCA report).

tifo

Cressida100 said:

It's very confusing when you keep mentioning percentages. Have a read of your posts out loud and see how confusing that would be to any assessor. 

Only because the legislation and guidelines mention percentages and I thought (think?) this is what they work on. More than 50% or half of the time. 

peteuk

tifo said:.

My evidence wasn't only me at the tribunal and my submission, there were many GP notes and hospital consultant letters and photos showing my conditions. How can they find these unreliable? Why would the GP and hospital consultant be liars?

The judge simply believed everything the assessors wrote (and yes, this includes the WCA report).

GP letters mean nothing, photos don’t explain the effect the condition has on your life.  A consultants letter needs to be explicit in its discription.  Eg I saw this person with extreme gout, walking with a stick for support.  Finding it painful to walk X distance.  Rather than I saw this patient with gout, X mg of X medication has little effect, increasing to Y mg bd.

 tifo said:. 

Only because the legislation and guidelines mention percentages and I thought (think?) this is what they work on. More than 50% or half of the time. 

I’ve never seen percentages in the PIP guidelines, and it refers to the majority of the time, 50 % isn’t the majority.

born_again

tifo said:

M25 said:

That's very unfortunate and what a lot of people have been hinting at in this thread.

That essentially means your evidence is unreliable (ie they think you're a liar). I don't know everything that's been said so I can't comment further.

My evidence wasn't only me at the tribunal and my submission, there were many GP notes and hospital consultant letters and photos showing my conditions. How can they find these unreliable? Why would the GP and hospital consultant be liars?

The judge simply believed everything the assessors wrote (and yes, this includes the WCA report).

As has been said. Conditions do not get PIP
It is how your activities fit into the descriptors. Which a GP or Consultant can not provide. So they are not saying they are liars. Just that their input does not help prove your meeting of the required descriptors.

If you had a carer that could document what you can or can not do that would be far better.

Muttleythefrog

tifo said:

M25 said:

That's very unfortunate and what a lot of people have been hinting at in this thread.

That essentially means your evidence is unreliable (ie they think you're a liar). I don't know everything that's been said so I can't comment further.

My evidence wasn't only me at the tribunal and my submission, there were many GP notes and hospital consultant letters and photos showing my conditions. How can they find these unreliable? Why would the GP and hospital consultant be liars?

The judge simply believed everything the assessors wrote (and yes, this includes the WCA report).

As above one might query just how specific these GP and consultant documents were to the PIP activities... I suspect possibly not very as they're probably for different purpose namely medically advising and assisting your case. In terms of not being believed... it may be that or the lack of evidence... but I do think... and I have to be honest to help you.. it may be that you come across as a chancer... trying to make your situation fit the criteria in a way that sounds convenient, manipulated or suspicious.... you know.. like the murder suspect who is asked where they were at 9.30pm last Thursday and remarkably has an alibi at hand from 9.29pm. From reading over the years tribunals tend to take what claimants say with some seriousness but if they feel they're unreliable they can find the walls cave in... as example we've seen people with good PIP awards from the DWP go to appeal tribunal and lose the lot because they argued for a higher award via descriptors that made them sound unbelievable and perhaps treating the points scoring system as some sort of game. I personally find you credible and honest but I suspect you may not come across to others that way in this process.

In my own case back in the days of DLA I claimed and was not particularly believed.. a tribunal essentially rejected much of what I said and bizarrely a GP panel member threatened to come and punch me.. I've never heard anything like it before.... the judge went red faced and tried to avoid my eye contact.. but I reclaimed and got a suitable award and have not faced issue since moving to PIP. I definitely changed my tone and approach as part of all that even where it meant trying to avoid giving a view directly into the erratic thought processes I experience that could appear scrambled and hard to interpret for actual disability. Not everyone.. including the medically or disability trained... will always get a true understanding of a claimant/patient reality. And it's not always logical to others... I started earlier today chemotherapy for advanced cancer and I was sat in a chair receiving Oxaliplatin to a vein... naturally the chemo nurses would ask how I was feeling and while my arm felt like it was on fire and with pain and pins and needles (as it is still tonight as I face taking my second drug) my reality was that I was being mostly affected by OCD relating to all the things I'd taken to hospital for the trip and that only changed when I got home and was able to put all those things into proper places and process them. So disabling has that OCD been that I am now over an hour late in eating and taking the second drug of treatment... and with that in mind wish me luck...while here's sending out festive best wishes and hoping all readers have a happy new year and hopefully a healthier or more tolerable one... and with successful claims of support applicable!

peteuk

Slightly different to to @Muttleythefrog but attitude is everything…

One assessment that sticks in my mind was a guy who just didn’t want to understand as an assessor I had no access to his medical notes.  It was obvious that he was trying too hard to hit a points system and when he thought he couldnt or thought he wasn’t answering correctly he’d go back to but hay you got my medical records you can see for yourself. 

I get people are nervous and especially those with mental health issues don't cope with the assessment well, but some of it is (especially over the phone during Covid) does everything add up and a broken, disjointed set of answers does sometimes come over as trying to score the max points.  He was a zero score in the end, because things just didn’t stack up.

M25

tifo said:

M25 said:

That's very unfortunate and what a lot of people have been hinting at in this thread.

That essentially means your evidence is unreliable (ie they think you're a liar). I don't know everything that's been said so I can't comment further.

My evidence wasn't only me at the tribunal and my submission, there were many GP notes and hospital consultant letters and photos showing my conditions. How can they find these unreliable? Why would the GP and hospital consultant be liars?

The judge simply believed everything the assessors wrote (and yes, this includes the WCA report).

I think the tribunal judge was saying you were unreliable/not credible. That must be very rare.

I don't know the full story but the fact you keep going on about it doesn't bode well for your new claim. Your new claim does seem weak from what you've said but it's further weakened by your insistence not to concentrate on the facts (descriptors).

Nothing else matters [in your case].

kkkklinky

The assessors can usually tell when people are trying to make their conditions fit the descriptors because inconsistencies inevitably resulting in contradictory information and focusing on percentages will definitely cause red flags to the DWP which unfortunately happened to my own sister. I don't know how you are affected but this thread makes it look like you are desperately wanting an award as you have made inconsistent comments and the judge stating you are not credible makes that point clear.

tifo

kkkklinky said:

The assessors can usually tell when people are trying to make their conditions fit the descriptors because inconsistencies inevitably resulting in contradictory information and focusing on percentages will definitely cause red flags to the DWP which unfortunately happened to my own sister. I don't know how you are affected but this thread makes it look like you are desperately wanting an award as you have made inconsistent comments and the judge stating you are not credible makes that point clear.

I did the best i could in the previous PIP claim and the same this time.

I don't try to make my conditions fit the descriptors, at all stages i've told the truth, it's consistently reported that DWP unfairly reject many WCA and PIP claims and the majority are awarded at tribunal.

I know i'm bringing my WCA claim into this again but that's what the DWP did. I had 2 tribunals a week apart and was awarded WCA but not PIP. I believe the PIP judge feeling I wasn't credible skewed my PIP tribunal whereas in the WCA tribunal the judge must have believed some of what I said. The Dr in that tribunal was nice in the way he spoke and seemed to understand what I was saying.

I'm not desperately trying to make a PIP claim. Following my WCA referral and ongoing claim, the work coach suggested I apply for PIP. This was 2 years after my first WCA referral. If I was desperate for PIP I would have applied 2 years earlier. At that time my conditions from that time were far worse than they are now. I've applied again because this time I have a new condition which affects my mobility.

Muttleythefrog

peteuk said:

I get people are nervous and especially those with mental health issues don't cope with the assessment well, but some of it is (especially over the phone during Covid) does everything add up and a broken, disjointed set of answers does sometimes come over as trying to score the max points.  He was a zero score in the end, because things just didn’t stack up.

The problem also broadly is that people think mental illness should make sense and add up - but mental illness is often characterised by irregular and irrational thinking and actions and won't add up or make sense... one might query if there was illness if not. As a result I found myself having to circumnavigate that deficiency in medical professionals who were MH specialists never mind assessors of disability. For example I have Schizoid PD... I was trying to assist another sufferer of it on another thread last night... but sufferers can manifest in social setting very differently... I do so by being incredibly sociable and open while others will just be people avoidant (something I've had to overcome to work etc)... but it's a facade and one of grave limitation in time depending of preparation and it creates significant risks... it's one that will fool most into thinking I'm emotionally engaged when actually I'm probably not even thinking about them as such but OCD related thoughts... and therein lies another problem.. people with MH problems often have more than one consideration (diagnoses) and especially  if they're significantly disabled to the point of PIP potential.. and the symptoms... how these illnesses play out can conflict... for example depression typically makes people less active and perhaps struggle to perform tasks... if you chuck a load of instant coffee on my floor any depressive symptoms are invisible... I will react with anxiety and clean it up before it makes me ill with anxiety... as a result with a currently sick cat any suspicious sound at night isn't something depression prevents me from getting out of bed to resolve... not even chemotherapy side effects with depression that will override the OCD responses and need to instantly tackle anxiety. So claimant may say they struggle to get out of bed due to depression and then tell you they get out of bed regularly to clear up the mess of a sick pet - sounds like a lie or deception but it's their truth. Another example.. I have OCPD so I really like rules based thinking and order and really dislike non compliance (unsurprisingly I ended up in roles creating rules, systems and tackling non compliance)... but to react to anxiety I will often break rules and create disorder....I've even done it in assessment by lunging for the assessor with a desire to kill... I can quite imagine someone saying 'if you are so obsessed with rules and order why would you create chaos and try to kill someone... makes no sense'. How many times have members pulled me about not paragraphing and using proper sentencing... breaking rules but why.... well because much more influential is anxiety, OCD and Schizoid PD... I'm not engaging with others as presenting (so this is in my reality a people free informal environment)..  it is about casual anxiety reduction and OCD responses with constant need to add to and amend posts that then become unwieldly. You might notice I can be adding to posts or amending them even days after first published... paragraphing this one is tough..lol