To be delighted PIP assessments are to be face to face?

Because for instance someone could state they can’t have any social interaction with strangers or they can’t leave the house due to anxiety. Attending their interview and answering their questions disproves both of these things! Im not saying that this is the right way for these things to be assessed but this is the way the DWP operates!

My eldest has had the same condition since birth, but now its harder since they need independence that they can not have. Its not improved. Its harder. Dla/pip since they were 2 and we still have to have a reassessment every 2 yrs. Pointless.

Well as many PIP claims are now ‘unseen disabilities’ - how will face to face assessments help?

you may say on your form for instance that you cannot stand up without help! They will often come and greet you in the waiting room at an assessment, they are not really greeting you they are assessing which kind of chair you sat in for instance. A chair with arms would be easier for you stand up from than one without arms. They are watching to see how you stand, how you walk etc! They can assess cognitive abilities by watching how you respond to their questions and how you answer them!

Well there we go, you answered you own question. OCD is a severe mental disorder especially when coupled with other conditions i.e anxiety. However anxiety alone should not be a reason to claim a disability benefit long term. Especially if the person is not seeking treatment.

As for suggesting I "look after him for a day" your assumption that it is anymore difficult than caring for my 5ft 10 year old daughter who has the mental capacity of an 18 month old (including all of the hygiene issues, behavioural issues, social understanding, personal care, dressing herself, language skills, plus periods) would be incorrect.

The amount of PIP needed for the extra costs of anxiety are not even in the same stratosphere as someone with the conditions I listed. The rates of pay are unfair and not fit for purpose.

Yes they do.

i applied for pip after my accident in 2015.

I had a home visit.

at the time of the visit I could not walk at all due to the accident - leg mangled.

i got a report that said I was male (I’m female) and that I had a spinal condition affecting my arms.

i’d like to think the assessor just typed the wrong report by my name, but it was beyond inaccurate.

I suggest you learn how pip works! Its nothing to do with the condition you have its to do what you can or cannot do due to that condition! For instance diabetes may affect one person very differently to how another person is affected by it! You don’t need to be an expert in diabetes to see that!

Which is a waste of everyone's time if an assessor doesn't even know what they are talking about.

All it does is lead to more mandatory reconsiderations and tribunals which again, not only wastes even more time but also costs money.

It isn't logical. At all.

PIP is assessed on functional ability - this is nigh on impossible without a working knowledge of how their disability affects them. There is a ‘probability’ factor built in to the assessment, based on what is known about how some disability presents, and common factors, such as incontinence for example. Forty minutes is the length of the average assessment. Nowhere near long enough to assess complex disability.

Thats tax data and it was an error!

Strange, they knew id been out of the country prior to applying for UC and ADP, so 2 different departments. It was a 10.day holiday, nothing sinister.

Well thats the way it works 🤷‍♀️

Assessors are not required to have any specialist knowledge, and no doctors are employed by assessment providers.

It isn't the same though, is it?

An assessor has access to medical evidence and can challenge it. How is someone with little idea of certain medical conditions qualified enough to be allowed to challenge specialists in the area of the medical condition?

Someone on the end of the 999 call doesn't already have a consultants report or in some cases, several different consultant reports.

Yes, they do. That’s what they’re trained for. Their official title is disability analyst. They assess functional ability in the descriptors provided - how are they supposed to do that if they don’t understand the limitations of the disability ? They don’t just blithely accept what the claimant tells them - you have to have actual medical evidence to back up what you say, and in the absence of that, you’re at the mercy of an assessor who may not fully understand your condition.

www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/28/hmrc-cuts-child-benefit-for-35000-families-based-on-incomplete-travel-data

Ok
Thanks
I assumed it was an announcement today

They don’t assess any conditions or illnesses, they assess what you have told them you can or cannot do!

As an outreach worker I’ve accompanied claimants to assessments and some of them have been appalling. Assessors who haven’t the first clue as to how disability affects functional ability - which is the whole point of the assessment. I’ve seen amputees asked to wriggle toes on artificial limbs and on one horrendous occasion a double above knee amputee was asked why she needed help in and out of the shower - ‘why can’t you sit on the floor and shower ?’. A claimant who had spina bifida (a neural tube birth defect) asked how long he had had the condition, and someone who had two rigid full leg callipers asked why they couldn’t sit at a kitchen counter to prepare food. And I’ve never been able to understand how an assessor who actually doesn’t lay a hand on the claimant is able to assess the degree to which they can bend and flex limbs despite having never been asked to move out of the chair - and yet several pages are devoted to detailed information about angles and degrees of flexion. It’s nonsense.

I don’t believe that you wouldn’t have grassed her up yet if this were true, no.

Why don’t you?

And depends on the qualifications of the assessor and their capability to assess complex neurological conditions, for example.

Do you actually believe that the DWP have the staff/money or time to be constantly following up on such things? Seriously?

And I assume you have reported this?

In the same way a person on the end of a 999 call can assess how urgently an ambulance is needed without any medical training! By using a prescribed set of questions that are pre determined by the DWP. They are qualified enough to see if a person can perform certain tasks and to what degree they can perform them. PIP is granted on how your condition affects these day to day tasks NOT on your illness/disability.

Which, as I’ve already said, can and does happen. But it’s checkable. Guess what ? DWP actually share information with other government departments. So if you lie, and you’re found out, it’s benefit fraud.