PIP

zoemk12

Hi

I recently applied for PIP & had my assessment 2 weeks ago, I’ve just been declined and given absolutely no points! I’ve seen posts from people saying assessors lie and I’d thought they were exaggerating but I’m shocked at my report & experience really! 

I feel the whole system is designed to put people off. 

1 the phone line is awful, with the automated system often not working so you just keep going round in circles. 

2 I asked for the assessment to be recorded and received this on a CD! Who has a CD rom these days? Again is this deliberate? 

3 the same day as the assessment I called and asked for my report, a week later I called again as it hadn’t arrived, I’ve not received either so I’d guess they weren’t even sent. 

4 it feels as if the assessor has used a lot of creative licence or just lied. Eg she asked if I drove and I said I have a licence but currently I’m not driving because of the issues with my hands. She’s reported - I can drive and have no issues planning journeys. !!!!!!?! My claim isn’t for cognitive issues. 

I also said my husband currently prepares all our food as I cannot cook, she’s said I can use cutlery and I’m getting nutrition! Well yes if I wasn’t getting nutrition I’d need more than PIP! 

And because I still work, from home due to being immunocompromised she said I wasn’t depressed as I was motivated enough to work! 

I will of course appeal but I’m just shocked, I’m not even sure why I’m posting this but I suppose as a cautionary tale. 

zoemk12

Ps she was really nice too, put me at ease. I was completely open and honest even though I still find my diagnosis very upsetting to talk about. 

HillStreetBlues

Which company did the assessment? I had mine a week ago via Capita and was able to download a recording shortly after it finished.
My assessor was very friendly as well, but had too many assessments to give any credence to that. I go into it as expecting I will have to appeal, anything else is a bonus.

zoemk12

HillStreetBlues said:

Which company did the assessment? I had mine a week ago via Capita and was able to download a recording shortly after it finished.
My assessor was very friendly as well, but had too many assessments to give any credence to that. I go into it as expecting I will have to appeal, anything else is a bonus.

I think it was Capita, I’m not sure but I wasn’t given a download option. 

I didn’t expect it to be easy, it shouldn’t be
but I did expect it to be honest and not be littered with trip hazards! 

HillStreetBlues

It should be honest and a reflection of what a person actually states, sadly people do get reports that should be filed under fiction.

born_again

As to 3.
You get a text from PIP, once they have received it. Till then you can't get a copy. Even ringing assessor for a copy they will say no.
Mrs went for a internal audit & took 5 weeks to get to PIP.

zoemk12

born_again said:

As to 3.
You get a text from PIP, once they have received it. Till then you can't get a copy. Even ringing assessor for a copy they will say no.
Mrs went for an internal audit & took 5 weeks to get to PIP.

Yes I’d had the text before I asked for the assessment form. On both occasions I was told it had been sent. 

Now I have the rejection letter can I start my reassessment application or is the assessment different ? 

peteuk

I feel the whole system is designed to put people off. 

Sorry you feel this way, had the outcome been different Im sure you would feel differently.  

1 the phone line is awful, with the automated system often not working so you just keep going round in circles. - not just pip lines, so not sure you can judge pip on their telephone systems, some systems do this when lines are maxed out.

2 I asked for the assessment to be recorded and received this on a CD! Who has a CD rom these days? Again is this deliberate? Youre overthinking this. In an ideal world you’d be able to download the assessment, but not everyone has the ability to download and listen.  So what’s good for one, is useless for others.

3 the same day as the assessment I called and asked for my report, a week later I called again as it hadn’t arrived, I’ve not received either so I’d guess they weren’t even sent. 

Although reports tend to be written the same day, they do sometime go through an audit process.  

4 it feels as if the assessor has used a lot of creative licence or just lied. Eg she asked if I drove and I said I have a licence but currently I’m not driving because of the issues with my hands. She’s reported - I can drive and have no issues planning journeys. !!!!!!?! My claim isn’t for cognitive issues. 

Reports can not be generated unless there is a comment, and having a drivers licence can be used in various activities.  Seems it’s been correctly used here.  Youve no cognitive issues, you’ve learnt to drive and have no neuro issues since doing so.  So therefore you should be able to plan a journey.  The fact that you don’t because of you hands has nothing to do with it.

I also said my husband currently prepares all our food as I cannot cook, she’s said I can use cutlery and I’m getting nutrition! Well yes if I wasn’t getting nutrition I’d need more than PIP! 

Does husband cut your food up?  In board terms there’s a different between not doing an activity and not being able to do?  Can you open a tin of soup and heat it on a hob?  The description is prepare a simple meal for one using a hob, 

And because I still work, from home due to being immunocompromised she said I wasn’t depressed as I was motivated enough to work! 

I will of course appeal but I’m just shocked, I’m not even sure why I’m posting this but I suppose as a cautionary tale. 

As an ex pip assessor, I never lied on my reports but I was taught to use certain things to contradict the claimants answers (ability to drive being one of them) PIP is difficult to understand you have to explain your life to a stranger in an hour or so. Was this backed upmwith credible evidence.

For me, in general there are two miss understanding first one is the I’ve got this condition, I should get pip.  Don’t loose sight about PIP being there to help people and is based on the individuals needs and the effect their conditions have on them.

Secondly is the high threashold (and likely to be even higher) that you need to reach to be able to claim pip, that doesnt mean your not disabled it means you haven’t reached that threshold.   I have three long term, degenerative diseases which will affect my later life for sure, when I claim PIP will be subjective.

Spoonie_Turtle

To do a Mandatory Reconsideration it is best if you know which descriptors apply to you for which activities, to focus on those.

Challenging the report won't necessarily, by itself, get you an award.  It is actually less work to focus on the descriptors - you can challenge reasoning used in the report where relevant, but going through disputing every single … inaccuracy … risks getting sidetracked and wasting energy on irrelevancies.

My first PIP report was surprisingly accurate to what had been said and what was in my claim form - but the assessor (who seemed to be lovely and understanding and sympathetic in the assessment) simply decided I was lying and exaggerating.  She'd written a fairly accurate record but rejected virtually everything I'd said.  It helped me to know that it wasn't personal - even though it feels deeply so! - because they do this to very many people.  It's routine.  And then the DWP decision makers go with the report as standard, very rarely go against it regardless of how rubbish it is.

If you decide you want to complain about the assessment/assessor, that's a separate endeavour to challenging the decision.  A complaint would be to the assessment company, whereas challenging the decision is to DWP.  And the latter is the one with a time limit, that's what you need to focus on right now.

zoemk12

@peteuk thanks for your reply and useful insight. To clarify, currently I CANNOT drive and I stated this to be the case. Yes I have a driving licence but the report says claimant ‘drives’ and can plan a journey. Ignoring the point about planning a journey do you see how this is misleading? It should say saying something like claimant drives but is currently unable to do so. 

Same with eating, I said my husband prepares all our meals as I am unable to use sharp knives, lift things out of the oven and no I couldn’t open a can of soup on a bad day which is more than half the days. The question is in two parts, food prep and consumption. 

I could go on but I wont. I do understand about it not being the condition but how it affects you and that’s why I claimed. 

zoemk12

@Spoonie_Turtle thanks for the advice and you’re right I need to take the emotion out of it. I don’t want to complain about the assessor but I will mention that her account varies from the actual conversation. I’ll will focus on the areas where I feel I should’ve received points.