I’m a PIP assessor, happy to advise if I can

[Impr90]

Hello all,

If you’ve got any questions you think I might be able to help with, please let me know

All the best for the New Year

They’re from an official DWP publication so it’s fair to assume the figures have been checked by someone and they publish their methodology. You can have a look here if you want to make your own judgement

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-2023-to-2024-estimates/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-ending-fye-2024#total-estimates-of-fraud-and-error-across-all-benefit-expenditure

I am really sorry your friend/colleague had a life changing injury.

How would you feel if they had been treated in the way so many of us on this thread have been when applying for PIP?

As I said upthread I do believe that there are bad assessors, but I’ve worked with PIP rules and guidelines for long enough during my career to know that many claimants believe they should be eligible and insist that the assessor has lied, when in fact it’s simply that they don’t agree with the claimants’ own assessment of their condition. I’m not saying that this is the same in your case, but it does happen. It also happens that assessors occasionally mix up claimant details - happened to me in my own assessment, and it was rectified, as hopefully it will be for you at MR.

OP - I have been asked, as a health professional, to verify information claimants have put on forms. Sometimes my clinical assessment is very different to what someone has written, which is really hard to know how to manage.
What should I do if I think someone has put information on their forms which I believe to be incorrect from my professional experience. I am hesitant to contradict as I only see a snapshot of their life, but equally I struggle to verify something which I believe to be untrue. Can I decline to comment?

My partner suffers from osteoporosis,severe asthma which she needs biologic injections
In and out of hospital
On a constant high dose of steroids (40 mg daily of prednisone )
Struggles with walking due to her breathing
Has weak bones now due to the medication
Yet got turned down for pip ...
Why ?

I have already had my MR and was awarded within a couple of weeks.

I just don't understand how they could write such a load of rubbish about me - it was honestly completely made up and bore no relation to what was in the form or on the medical reports.

It was honestly so humiliating and made me feel like I wasn't being believed when I'd written what my life is like - and fuck me but that was hard to do - it's humiliating to have to write down how un-able you are.

Also has a nebuliser at home
Which she uses daily

Ask CAB they will fill in the form for you over the phone.

Op why do pip assessors not listen to specialists surely cardiologists, neurologists, vascular surgeons etc know more about their patient then a pip assessor does ?

Please don’t ask a random on the internet that question (especially one that doesn’t even seem to understand the limits of their own role)

Your workplace will have a policy

OP, why are assessors hired to decide if someone is entitled to the benefit? Why do doctors not get to decide based on the persons medical report?

That’s the DWPdecision makers that do that.

They ignore medical specialists over the assessors snapshot report.

and they are the ones that actually make the awards (despite the OP’s confidence that they just “sign off” on her decisions).

This is absolutely what happened to me.

DLA was a very different benefit though, with lots more leeway for assessors to be lenient. It was still a difficult benefit to secure, but the assessment criteria were very different and much more flexible and dependent on opinion. For example you could be capable of walking up to 400 metres and still qualify for higher rate mobility if there were enough mitigating factors. PIP has reduced complex disability to a point scoring exercise, and that’s half the problem.

Can you explain why a PIP might claim that despite a person having a diagnosis and the requisite paperwork signed by a consultant documenting their disability that they with no knowledge of this condition understand its ramifications better?

I remember my GP saying they don't always know what needs a person has. They know you have a diagnosis of something but don't always know how this affects you. Many a time I've been told I have a diagnosis of something and just been discharged. No follow up, no advice or anything.

The problem with this is that most specialist reports don’t reflect the assessment criteria for PIP. It’s a functional assessment of how your disability affects your daily life and most specialists wouldn’t commit themselves.

As a mental health nurse how well do you understand the various health conditions you assess their functional impact?
for example would you understand the difference between the impact of diabetic retinopathy on someone's visual function as opposed to retinitis pigmentosa?

Mine did.

It was pretty clear due to the nature of my disability - the doc was totally clear about my current state and expected trajectory (and he was the person who advised me to apply) and the physio wrote about who much movement I had and the therapies I'd had and was continuing to have and the OT wrote a report about the aids I have in the house.

Edit to add. But the assessor ignored all that and wrote a work of fiction.

One of my BIL is a mental health nurse and has been for many years. He relates similar difficulties to those in your post. However he wants to use his training to try to improve the situation people found themselves in, not to engender unhappiness.
I find it amusing that you consider your current position ‘another area of clinical practice’.
Really? Clinical practice?
To reiterate: Why on earth would anyone want to do a job that injects so much misery and fear into the lives of anyone with a medical condition?

They have a habit of ignoring them even if they do tbh.

Four times over the last few years I’ve been involved in appeals that have awarded full PIP based on form and medical evidence when it was turned down basically based on the assessors report. Each time they got a call in the morning saying the panel had enough to decide and not to travel.

it is staggering that someone who claims to work for the DWP doesn't believe the government's own, well publicised for very obvious reasons, figures.

And told me to "drop it" while harping on and on and on even though they are wrong here. Ho hum.

OP hope some of the comments have not put you off your job. It sounds like a thankless job, but maybe rewarding in some instances.

Do you find this role stressful? I've heard it's difficult to retain assessors due to the pressure to meet targets etc

Because their role is to assess medical conditions and prescribe. Them being able to award drastically blurs their professional lines. I find even being a reference on a form puts me in a challenging position professionally, taking that one step further would be hugely damaging to the Patient-Dr/therapist relationship.
If a person exaggerates their needs to an assessor, the worst that happens is fraud. If they exaggerate to a dr in belief this could get them pip, it could be life threatening.