Any nurses here?

[Orangejuice30]

Hi, so I've been working on the wards for the past 10 years and was thinking about a change. I've seen quite a few job adverts for 'Nurse Assessors' assessing people for disability payments, etc and was just wondering if anyone has any experience working in this area of nursing.

I don't personally but know two people who have done it and both have said it is dreadful. It is basically assessing PIP claims and is a system that is notoriously corrupt. I have recently been working in a new job alongside a person who had just left DWP. She said it was very stressful, very targeted, a lot of pressure to get a certain number of assessments done quickly etc. There is an awful lot of computer work. It basically would involve assessing people for disability benefits either over the phone or face to face and writing up the report which gets sent to a dwp decision maker. Or could be behind the scenes so to speak looking at medical evidence and writing reports based on medical evidence.
I have just left my job last week as it was very stressful but this person I was working alongside found it easy because the dwp job she had come from had been so hard and stressful. On a positive note though, it can mostly be done from home as most people claiming PIP seems to still have phone assessments since covid, it is 9-5 hours. There is a lot of training, being taught on all conditions - mental health conditions if you are a general nurse etc.
My other friend who did this job was previously a paramedic. She was a lovely honest person who just wanted to do her best for people but even after six months the job wore her down and she nearly had a breakdown.
You will see a lot of adverts for these jobs all the time because people don't stick at it long, the DWP have massive backlogs because there are huge numbers more people applying for PIP ( long covid, mental illness etc ) so they are constantly recruiting. You will need to deal with very distressed people on the phone as many find the assessment overwhelming. I have supported many people with the assessment where they have broken down etc.
Sorry if I'm not selling this very well, this is based just on a few people I know. I have a nursing background ( 30 years) and left a few years ago. This is not a job I would apply for.

@Babyroobs Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. That has definitely given me a lot to think about. It's the working from home, 9 - 5 part that appealed to me but the ward job I have is already very stressful so I'm not sure I want to take on a job that gives me even more stress! Can I ask, is your current job still related to Nursing or are you out of it all together?

I only knew 1 nurse who did this he lasted 6 months said it was horrific really stressful very fixed on person not getting the benefit .I can't remember % but high people being awarded it on appeal.
A lot of my x colleagues have moved into non ward specialist areas i.e hospital at home , advisors , palliative care etc
So it worth looking around and Google your local nhs services for ideas
Good luck

I left nursing 5 years ago. most of my nursing experience was in Oncology/ Haematology and palliative care and I was burnt out. I saw a job advertised as a macmillan benefits adviser and got it and for a while did that for 3 days and Nursing for 2 days. Then gradually got a full time benefits job, usually working for charities but the pay obviously was quite a lot less than Nursing. The job I have just left after a few months ( embarrassing) was as a disability officer for a large charity. The one I am going back to where I have worked previously is for a charity dealing with older people so involves helping people complete disability forms ( the ones PIP assessors assess ! ), supporting them during their assessments , doing benefit checks for people, helping to maximise their income, some safeguarding referrals if needed if for example I visit someone and they are clearly not coping and need help. There is also a fair bit of work with people with mental illness and dependency issues. However I love it more than nursing and it's mainly 9-5 with some home working and home visits.

I’ve heard similar from colleagues who left wards to try this, said it was awful , sorry OP.

12 months ago we recruited 2 practice nurses both who came from hospital wards. One has been hospital nursing for 3 years, the other for 20+. We've trained them up to do GP nursing and they are both fabulous and love it. It's not necessarily 9-5 but it's certainly within core hours of 8-6.30. Is that an option? I know GP gets a bad press but within the right team it's a great job.

My sister has done the job successfully for around 8 years. It’s fitted in around her kids and she said it’s far easier than ward nursing. She doesn’t find it that stressful.

Sorry. I didn't answer your question. Like PP I've heard that disability assessor role is really hard. I see the patients on the other side and they are often challenging patients with lots of chronic illness, mental health and social problems so these assessments are stressful.

DH was made to do it after having to leave ward work due to injury. He was on job seekers.

He lasted three months. It’s immoral and the people who stayed had shocking and prejudiced attitudes.

I know someone who does this. He freely admits he's underworked, he works from home 3/5 days a week and often does housework or other things during working hours (I presume low case loads/low targets or something?). Good pay, stress free, great hours. So very surprised to hear people saying it's so stressful for others. Their only complaint is the lack of career progression opportunities.

Another nurse here who’s heard what a rotten job it is, how you’re encouraged to reject claims. Claimants won’t see you as a lovely nurse there to help them but as a callous gatekeeper trying to deny or take their money off them.

Also, as a CNS working 9-5 Monday to Friday, I felt I had a lot less time off than when I worked shifts on the ward.

I’ve done it, it was awful! I would not recommend it all if you have any kind of conscious.

It may be easier than a ward but it’s just soul destroying.

do not do it!

I was on the receiving end of a nurse assessor from ATOS. She knew very little about M.S, why would she it’s a specialised field and my Drs don’t even see me for it.

She lied on her report and my daughter was a witness, she tried to catch me out in various ways.

She also relayed that the M.S wasn’t so bad anymore and getting better, I could hardly lift my legs. She refused to take further evidence when I tried to pass it to her to submit with the case. All in all horrendous. I had to appeal to reinstate my PIP, which was done straight away. No one recovers from M.S it’s a degenerative evil condition.

So my opinion is if you are a decent caring professional I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole. To us they’re the scum of the earth trying to make disabled peoples life’s worse and dehumanising them.

Not related to this thread but my friend had a stem cell transplant for MS - I know it’s only for certain types so perhaps not relevant for you - but she’s symptom free pretty much now. Is that a possibility for you?

I totally agree with your points about PIP assessors though.

Yeah I wouldn’t. I’m a nurse who knows those who left to do the assessments. One initially said she enjoyed the perks like WFH and the hours after 12 hour shifts, the other said the quota she had to get through was ridiculous. My personal experience of PIP assessment was my issues being downplayed, my words used against me, evidence not reviewed and frankly I felt gaslit!
Have you considered specialist nursing? I moved last year. I have more autonomy, manage my own time (aside from booking clinics), I work Monday-Friday office hours and do weekends for extra money if I chose which helps waiting lists. Worth considering!

I did it for a short period. It wasn't for me although I didn't hate it or think it was awful.

The job is basically asking people quite formulaic questions about how well they can manage a series of activities (such as cooking, washing, managing money etc) and how their condition(s) impact their ability to do them.

You write down what they say and then once you've finished speaking with them you make a recommendation based on what they've said, your clinical knowledge of the condition, their medical evidence and medications to say how much support you feel they need in each area (how many points they score). Reports get sent to the DWP who make the final decision on what to award.

Lots of reports get internally audited so you end up getting back things with requests to change recommendations you've made and an explanation of why. It's not usually too time consuming.

3 reports a day is a good number. Some places ask you to do 4 which is probably too many as some people provide 100+ pieces of medical evidence and you have to read them all.

You need to be a good listener, able to type quickly and accurately, ideally while talking. You need to have a broad understanding of a wide variety of conditions and medications. You need to have empathy for people and be able to give them time to try and understand exactly how their conditions affect them. You also need to be able to make fair judgements of evidence, taking into account various factors.

I never felt pressure to give negative recommendations, the only targets were for the quality / timeliness of reports. The people I worked with I felt wanted to do their best to make sure those qualified got awarded the benefit.

It was frustrating at times when I couldn't make a recommendation I might have wanted to - for example, I might have seen a person and believed they probably were quite anxious as they had said but they had never seen a counsellor or specialist and were prescribed only the lowest dose of an antidepressants, and had managed to get out to the appointment (although it was probably really hard for them) no other medications tried, so I couldn't justify a recommendation that they needed significant support because I had nothing to back up my opinion.

I left because it just didn't feel like nursing for me and I needed to get back to being with people.