I assess disability claims - AMA

[Galactico]

Just as the title says!

I know the public feeling towards assessors isn’t always good. I’ve been doing the job for about 7 years, let me give you some insight into the “other” side.

@Galactico

so if you agree to work under an immoral framework you’re part of that system. It really is as simple as that no matter how you try and justify it in your own head. I get it, as a HCP it must be terribly conflicting and half the time these posts are created so you can convince yourself you’re a good person doing a decent job. It’s entirely incongruent though at the core.

@Galactico one day you may be sat on the other side of the table. Then you'll see the full picture of the immoral job you do

I don't know how you could work for them

OK so, say we all resign. All of us leave the job today and that’s it.

What do you think happens then? What do people do?

Everyone agrees the system needs an overhaul and that it’s not fit for purpose, but nobody offers any solutions to that.

@Galactico

Recruit workers from the DWP to essentially do your job instead. They already do it anyway the healthcare practitioner is just in order to be a smoke screen. That’s essentially what you are because you don’t get the final decision.

• is just there

Of course. Anything could happen. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who tell me they had a lucrative career, travelled, had kids and a mortgage etc, then something happened and that lifestyle was over.

They’re truly dreadful, some of the stories I hear, and I have a great deal of sympathy and compassion for anyone who tries to navigate the benefits system. It’s a maze, even when you have knowledge of it. I can only imagine what it must be like to someone who’s never had to claim before.

If you all resign nothing changes.
Claimants still wait forever and find themselves being gaslit, and end up with zero points.
DWP will easily hire another bunch of amoral liars to do the work.

People always harp on that these assessments should be done by the applicants own GP or Consultant yet as we are seeing right now the NHS is under enormous pressure with not enough Drs. Gp's can't even find the time to write supporting letters to patients in support of their PIP claims without needing to charge £50, let alone do assessments and actually Gp's diagnose and treat illnesses but may not be great at assessing functional ability which is what PIP is about. I do think some kind of assessment is needed. It's very hard like others have said there are some conditions like fibro where Gp's will no longer refer to a Rheumatologist so patients don't necessarily have consultants letters to back up their claim. There's been online campaigns by charities recently saying that everyone with a cancer diagnosis should get PIP automatically due to the extra costs of travel to hospital and extra heating etc but how do you make that fair to everyone as other conditions are just as deserving. I also understand there has been a recent huge jump since covid in people applying for PIP ( something like 20% ). They all have to be assessed somehow. It really is a difficult situation to know how best to fairly assess people fairly.

So, no solutions then?

@Galactico

I am not the PM, I haven’t got the solutions for the whole of the DWP. Imagine, theoretically if every single PIP assessor did indeed quit. It wouldn’t take them long to recruit non HCPs to do the role. The training is only a couple of weeks and you’re not using hardly any clinical skills in the long run. My sister is a mental health nurse by trade I’m pretty sure if she could learn the ins and outs of many physical conditions in a couple of weeks then many other people could too (without nursing registrations).

But you carry on living in denial creating threads on Mumsnet about how you do your best (but then the DWP will override your decision anyway so your clinical expertise is beyond useless). You are complicit in the smoke screen. Why as a trained nurse you would want to commit career suicide is beyond me but hey it works for my sister (she does at least own her lack of empathy though and is definitely not on mumsnet trying to convince people it’s a worthwhile job to do).

The staff turnover rate is high. I’m not sure how it compares to other areas.

For me personally, the practicalities of the job (no shift work, finishing at a set time each day, no weekends/nights etc) are huge factors in my decision to stay where I am for now. I have a primary school aged child and my husband is in the Forces so is frequently away. When I imagine doing weekend shifts, nights etc, it’s just impossible.

@Galactico

It is high as it creates a lot of moral injury and so many people leave sharpish. You do it for personal reasons which is fair enough but good luck trying to convince people what you do is in anyway beneficial to vulnerable people. Particularly when all you do is advise and the DWP do what they want anyway.

I'm sorry about your mum, but you can't possibly know the in's and out's of a person's daily struggle with ASD. Whether or not they can work, by the way, is irrelevant for PIP. if you're talking about ESA, then convincing someone 'once' that you can't ever work simply doesn't happen. Everyone is reassessed at least every three years. Either they're making this up or you're making them up. I know what I think.

Op a shitload of money is that money you receive for leaving disabled people penniless because of these assessments.
£10 is a shitload of money when you're left with nothing.

I think you are getting a hard time op ! I help a lot of people to claim PIP and most times they say the assessor has been fair and compassionate. Most get an award as long as they have provided good medical evidence that they meet the descriptors which is the key. In my experience the ones who get turned down are where there is no recent relevant evidence or they haven't been to a GP for ten years as in one of my recent cases and despite my encouragement to her to go and get reviewed and push for further treatment the applicant would not. I have another client who says he cannot walk at all and sits in the chair soiling himself - again he has no medical evidence to say why he can't walk, he has never even had an xray or scan and GP ( oddly ) doesn't seem to think it is necessary so I think this is going to be problematic. I think a lot of the problem is also delays in the NHS and people not being able to get GP appointments and social care assessments for months .

I am not obliged to offer solutions, OP.
I was merely commenting on your hypothesis that all of you resign, and your question "what happens then".

I wish you all would resign. En masse. If there are enough of you with a moral compass, I imagine none of you would be thrilled by the outcomes of your "assessments".

Yes, I did use inverted commas there, because as can be seen from this thread alone, the assessments usually bear no resemblance to what the claimant remembers being said.

Most of you who work for the DWP (and you can tell me a hundred times you work for the NHS - you're still essentially an arm of the DWP) have no interest in helping claimants and are remarkably good at writing things which either did not happen during an interview, or which you could not possibly know, because you didn't actually observe things personally.

For example, my assessor wrote that I could walk 200 yards. She assessed me in my house. None of my corridors are 200 yards long. In fact, she did not see me walking at all.

I stand by my previous posts. Most of you assessors are liars.

I think you meant ADP (Adult Disability Payment)?

I am also in Scotland which is why my initial assessment was done at my house, because I live in a remote area. I got zero points and eventually (after 18 months) the tribunal reversed the DWP's decision and awarded me PIP.

Then I had a review after three years and despite things having deteriorated health-wise, my PIP was stopped. I put in a Mandatory Reconsideration request and THAT decision was reversed, and my PIP was started again.

Anyway - AFAIK Scotland is moving people gradually on to ADP, depending on what area of Scotland you're in. I am in Highland Region and we are not yet due to be moved over.

If you want to make a variation in your claim because things have deteriorated you have to go for ADP in Scotland now. I imagine it's a fairer system anyway, given that benefits generally in Scotland are better, and also because the Scottish government have pledged not to give people awards for specific periods of time. Everyone's award is for ten years, I think, then they have a quick look at it.

www.mygov.scot/adult-disability-payment

Your sister is right RE the adhd case.
Does that go for all ADHD cases?

Yeah you’re absolutely right about the importance of evidence. I appreciate that these days this can be hard to come by though, with the scarcity of GP appointments and the charges associated with getting a letter etc.

The person you’re talking about who says they can’t walk but have no reason as to why - this is something that does come up. They’ll be asked why and say “I just can’t” which will never persuade anyone.

In relation to your assessment and the 200 yards statement, did you complain or query this with them afterwards? If you didn’t cover that kind of distance, I’d be curious as to how they explained the observation.

Of course I queried it. It formed part of my grounds for appeal.
Naturally the appeal was allowed and the DWP's decision was overturned.

You said earlier in the thread that you thought a lot of claimants appealed.

I checked. It's 9% only who appeal.

The other 91% just give up. And that is what the DWP wants them to do.

I'd still like to know the answer to "what happens if we're undiagnosed?" please. I've been ill and hitting all the criteria for standard rate daily living and (at least) standard rate mobility for over a year now, but because of how slow being seen by anyone on the nhs is, I still have no diagnosis. Tests coming back negative means I have no "medical evidence". Given the average time to be diagnosed correctly with a chronic illness such as mine is supposed to be around 7 years, do you think there should be better provision in place for those whose disability does not show up on scans and blood tests?

If asked why I can't walk, the answer would genuinely be "I don't know and neither do the doctors", although I could say "it causes intense pain and fatigue and I risk passing out or having a seizure"

Medical letters don't necessarily don't necessarily mean they have to have a diagnosis. Do you have any physio letters or details of any therapies you've had or even letters where a consultant details what your problems are eg poor mobility or difficulties doing certain activities? Thinks like medication lists, or MRI reports etc can still show you have difficulties and are being investigated and it's always helpful to send a print out form the GP ( patient summary I think it's called)- to show visits to your GP and detailing what the GP is referring you for etc. I would not wait for a diagnosis if you think you meet the criteria, as long as you can show you have difficulties.