PIP Assessment Cancelled

"I know someone very close to me that claimed PIP a year ago and had no diagnosis at all. Had lots of problem with daily activities and needs support to even get through the day"

I agree with this. There are blurred lines in the assessment when it comes to cases like the above

There are a lot of mystery illnesses out there, where someone can go through all sorts of investigations and not get any diagnosis but a medical professional can see something isn't right, so the diagnosis in your friends case might be unclear, but I would assume in their case they had a list of symptoms, and could discuss all the medical investigations they have and if they appeared in pain or discomfort and had very poor strength or movement in the physical examination in the assessment there was enough evidence to give validity to their claims.

In their assessment their condition would likely just be called something like "generalised pain disorder" or "neurological symptoms" - basically a made up name but gives some loose form of diagnosis.

I saw someone who wrote "twitching disorder" once, basically had random uncontrolled sudden jerk movements that meant they couldn't do many activities safely. He could talk in depth about all the Neuro assessments he has had yet all conditions were ruled out. I think his neurologist just referred to it as "non specified neurological disorder" - He scored basic from what I remember.

I don't think any one can say bad assessments don't happen. They do. And like anything there are going to be good and bad assessors. As Alice says the fact that so many decisions are overturned at appeal points out a major flaw in the system.

On the other hand behind that there are, it would seem, a pretty large number of decisions which are most likely correct and we don't hear about them. In general terms people don't go on social media telling everyone that they have got a good award - nor, unfortunately, do they tell the local CAB (well ours anyway) the outcome. We wish they would so we can get a real feel for how it is going and we are doing. We can only assume they are content or have no stomach to take the fight further.

Contrary to Alice's CAB we don't seem to hear of 'dreadful" assessments that often. Not to say they don't happen and we are a small branch - of course, it might just be the assessors down here are better. I happen to know a couple in my personal life and they are nice, decent people.

I totally agree with the fact that it is not about the diagnosis but about the impact on the claimant. And, nobody really knows just how bad (or good!) the system is.

Without doubt there are fundamental flaws - you only have to read the experiences of Glaswejen and other posters here and elsewhere to understand that. But how the "silent majority" of PIP claimants feel nobody really knows. They don't post online and I suspect CABs like where I and Alice work/volunteer only see a minority of folks going through the PIP process.

Envy, envy, envy.

We are badly under resourced and have no specialist benefit staff (my partner was the benefits adviser until the legal aid changes a while back). As a general service, though, we do do a lot of PIP and ESA applications and I can only say we have had little kickback from clients about the assessments.

We had one volunteer trained centrally in PIP completion and he then trained others. A lot of our generalist appointments are PIP, ESA applications, MRs and appeals. The advisers who do these are usually pleased to get something a bit different like employment! We don't have the resources or knowledge to go through the whole tribunal process. As I say clients don't often let us know outcomes which is frustrating.

To be honest Alice, the contrast between branches such as yours and mine is stark - we tend to feel that CitA centrally doesn't really get the constraints of small, underfunded branches and is more geared to the bigger ones. But that's another topic!