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

How on earth is it awful? What an unnecessary, sniping comment.

But it doesn’t suggest that. Adult DC are still the parents’ DC. Many still care for them and still require support in caring for their disabled DC.

In relation to your other post, as I said, my original comment wasn’t anything related to PIP, but about the use of mild. As I also said, I know what the criteria are and how PIP is assessed. I also know by reading the thread the biologics aren’t controlling the asthma since the poster also posted “In and out of hospital On a constant high dose of steroids”.

I didn't read it as children being those under 16 and/or only in receipt of DLA not PIP to be fair.

I have adult children. But they are still my children.

@Rosscameasdoody just to give you a national example of an organisation who supports parents of disabled DC beyond 16. Contact is a charity who supports ‘families with disabled children’ (their wording). They don’t stop their support at 16. They continue to support with advice and information about things such as credits only new style ESA, PIP, social care assessments, shared lives programme… and campaign on issues such as those around CTFs and transport for post 16 DC.

OK OK, can we stop now. I wasn’t trying to be snarky or anything else, just trying to clarify because you said you supported parents with disabled DC. I was a disabilty outreach worker for over ten years - admittedly a little while ago now and I do know what you’re saying in relation to older children and ongoing support, but some of my colleagues dealt exclusively with children under 16 and I was just trying to clarify. That was all.

@Rosscameasdoody don't take this the wrong way but are you disabled yourself and have you had to navigate filling in the forms and writing it all down and getting evidence for yourself?

Because it's very different when it's for yourself as opposed to advising someone else and I honestly don't know how to explain it - I've been a volunteer benefits advisor and helping people fill in forms etc but it's a totally different experience to doing it yourself or for your children (regardless of whether those children are technically adults or not).

it's a totally different experience

@Baileysatchristmas, as a disabled adult with disabled DC (both adult and under 16) who supports parents of disabled DC, I completely agree. My experience is completing forms for each one is different to the other situations. Even claiming for yourself is different to claiming for DC.

Personally, I have never encountered anyone who had a good experience going through this hideous process. I spent many years in a healthy related forum reading posts where people related stories that showed how horribly broken the system is.
’Acurate, objective and honest’ - I had a seizure during my assessment and according to the assessor it didn’t happen!
The amount of similar stories that I have read and heard ( I also volunteered for CAB) indicate that the assessments are very poorly conducted, by people without sufficient knowledge and information regarding the conditions that they assess, presenting an incredibly brief and subjective picture of the effects of a medical condition, medication, side effects on the life of the individual concerned.
Whilst I fully appreciate the tendency to only report bad news, I would think that I would have encountered at least one favourable experience.
The best I have ever heard is someone who stated that their assessment ‘wasn’t completely awful’.

Not an unreasonable question - yes, I am disabled, and yes I’ve filled in the forms both for myself and the claimants on my caseload when I was working as an outreach worker. I think my point of view is probably coming from the fact that I was involved, and still am, with a disability charity and had quite a bit to do with the various consultations on PIP, as well as the original consultation when it was first proposed - I was on the editorial committee. I also worked for DWP a long time ago, so l know something of the processes involved with making benefit awards.

There are good and bad assessors. I’ve seen my fair share of reports which have been incorrect or unfair, and have helped successfully challenge them. But on the other side of the coin, I’ve also had problems when filling in forms with claimants because they have insisted on presenting their conditions as much worse than they actually are. And when that backfires and they end up with a lower award, or no award at all, it’s always the assessors’ fault and they’re telling lies - when in fact the assessment has thrown up the fact that they have filled in the form from the perspective of how they are on their worst day, which is not every day, and they don’t meet the criteria. I’m not denying anyone’s experience here, but sometimes the reality is that the assessor doesn’t see your condition in the same way you do, and if the evidence you present isn’t robust enough to challenge that there’s not much you can do.

The bottom line is that the PIP assessment system has never really been fit for purpose. It was never designed to properly support disabled people - it was introduced to save money which it never did, simply because it was so unfair that it forced claimants to go to expensive tribunal to get a fair award. But the intention was never support, it was about the money spent.

When it was first proposed, the government took very little notice of the opinions put forward by disability organisations during various consultations, so disabled people themselves had no real voice as to how it was designed or implemented. A perfect example of this was the reduction from 50m to 20m for the higher rate mobility component. The then minister for the disabled Esther McVey actually stood up in parliament and claimed that it had been reduced because many of the consultation responses from disability organisations had suggested and supported a reduction. This was exposed as a complete lie and how the woman hung on to her job after that was testament to the utter disregard for the disabled under the coalition government.

The assessment criteria for PIP are stringent and underpinned by legislation. Assessors can’t change the criteria - all they can do is work within the system as it is and be as fair as they can. As with any system there will always be rogues, but the OP has opened a can of worms by coming online to answer questions. I applaud her for her bravery, but she hasn’t been forthcoming with an awful lot of information that I, and I suspect many people here didn’t already know. She also opened herself up to a lot of abuse, which doesn’t surprise me, given the strength of feeling against assessors in general.

The op hasn't answered questions and you are someone who was involved in setting it up.

Well you'll forgive me for thinking you're not quite seeing it through the lens of experience that some of us do.

If you think I was involved in ‘setting it up’ as you put it, you either haven’t read or haven’t understood my post. I was involved in the consultation from the point of view of the editorial committee putting forward the views of the disability organisation we represented - on behalf of disabled people themselves, and reflecting their views. Unfortunately, like the views of most of the organisations representing the disabled, we were pretty much ignored. We tried to mitigate some of the worst aspects of the proposals, as did others but when the consultation response was published it became clear that the government were only paying lip service.

And as a disabled person myself I’ve seen PIP from a personal point of view when I submitted my own application and went through subsequent assessment, and from the perspective of those claimants I represented at various stages of their claims. And since PIP was introduced I’ve been trying my best to represent disabled people both by supporting them at various stages of their claims, and by participating in every consultation on PIP to try to put forward the views of disabled people and to try change various aspects of the assessment for the better. What other perspective is there ?

Well, now you can see posts on this thread from people including me who had a very positive experience with their assessment.

The perspective of someone who had actual lies written about them?

I am sorry if I misunderstood, but when you said you were on the editorial committee, I took that to mean you were involved.

It would be so nice to be believed when talking about my experience, the lies that were written about me by the assessor, instead of just dismissed. The op hasn't answered, and isn't coming back, and in fact they didn't really provide anything useful and seemed to misunderstand their own role?

I want to know. What can I do to stop the same flipping shit show as last time when I come up for renewal. What can I do to stop the assessor writing literal lies about me? What more can I do? How can I complain properly and be sure that something is done? I hoked out my docs earlier - I did complain, as part of what I submitted for MR, I said I wanted to complain about the accuracy of what the assessor wrote - but I never heard another word about it. Are assessors disciplined if they are found to have fabricated a report? That question I'd like an answer to.

Are there targets in the job and if so, what are they?

What are the guidelines for what the assessors should ask and can I see them online anywhere?

But no one wants to answer me those questions.

Edit for clumsy phrasing and to explain more.

What other perspective is there ?

The perspective of an appointee?

I’ve never come across anyone, including myself who had actual lies written about them - I’m not dismissing it and I don’t doubt that it can happen. Not least because there have been some prominent cases reported in the press about assessors who were writing up reports before they had even seen the claimants.

I personally have never come across actual untruths but I did handle several cases where the claimants I was dealing with claimed that the assessors had told lies about them. Mostly they turned out to be misunderstandings, and in one case the assessor had written up several reports after the assessments and had mixed up the claimants. Mostly it was because the claimant had an entirely different view of their condition than the assessor. My own assessment resulted in pretty much the level of award I was expecting, but experience with other claimants prompted me to request a copy of my assessors’ report. Despite being happy with the level of award, I did find several glaring inconsistencies and some things that were just incorrect, so I do know it happens.

My main problem was with claimants who had been advised to complete the form as though it was their worst day - some of them were bordering on benefit fraud. As a result the assessment had clarified that the symptoms and effects they were reporting weren’t present every day, so a lower award than expected was made. In some cases where the reported symptoms were present less than 50% of the time there was no award at all. The backlash against the assessor was always couched in terms of the assessor telling lies, which was not the case. And that’s what makes me wary when I hear ‘the assessor told lies’. There is a difference between an assessor not agreeing on the severity or other aspect of the condition and actually stating something which is not the truth, and I’m not sure what an assessor would have to gain by telling lies which could be refuted by further evidence at a mandatory reconsideration or tribunal.

@Rosscameasdoody Lying in the report about someone refusing to be examined isn’t a difference in opinion about severity. It also was clearly not a mistake as everything else in that paragraph was definitely related to that review.

I’ve never come across anyone, including myself who had actual lies written about them

You have now. Why start with that? That immediately makes me feel you don't believe me - I had actual lies written about me, I've explained (more than once) on this thread what they were.

The assessor in my case actually wrote lies. They did a phone assessment and wrote that I could walk more than however many metres. As an example. When I had reports from 3 or 4 different medical professionals to say that was impossible. If that wasn't a lie what do you call it?

What do you expect me to say? I'm glad you've never come across anyway who had actual lies written about them? Do you realise how dismissive you sound of my actual experience?

Can you explain from what perspective or lens you saw the "glaring inconsistencies"?

The backlash against the assessor was always couched in terms of the assessor telling lies, which was not the case. And that’s what makes me wary when I hear ‘the assessor told lies’. So what this means is that you don't think I'm telling the truth. I'm not having any backlash - what a weird term to use - I merely pointed out that they said things that could not be true because .... and gave my evidence. How is that a backlash?

I've no idea why the assessor lied in my report. I asked, but I just got an award at MR and I never got an answer to that and no one here is prepared to make a guess, which I understand the reasons for, so I will never know. But lie they did.

They said I left the house regularly when the reason I got a phone assessment was because I couldn't leave the house. As another example.

The most blatantly incorrect report I have read was about a young person. It was before Covid in the time where more claimants had F2F assessments. The young person had a home assessment. The report stated the young person walked downstairs when the HCP arrived, sat at the dining room table in their school uniform and spoke eloquently. The young person lived in a bungalow. The family didn’t have a dining table, let alone a dining room. The young person had EOTAS/EOTIS so didn’t attend school, therefore didn’t have a uniform. And they used AAC.

That's appalling.

To answer the questions in your edited post. When you receive the renewal form don’t just skim through it and write ‘no change’. Explain your condition again, clearly and in simple terms - referring back to what you wrote in your original application if you still have it.

Don’t complain as part of your MR - they will treat it the same as any other MR and that means that if the evidence you submit with it doesn’t warrant a change in award, you’ll get the same decision again. You need to make an official complaint, in writing, to the DWP at the address on your award letter, and ask for the complaint to be passed to a Complaints Resolution Manager. That way a fresh pair of eyes will look at your entire claim process. Your complaint should include your NI number, full name, address and all contact numbers. You need to detail what happened, when it happened, and how it affected you, and also what you want to happen to put things right. It will help if you can point out where the DWP haven’t followed their own rules or their customer charter. If you’re not happy with the DWP’s response to your complaint, you can write to them again and ask for the DWP complaints team to look at your case or you can contact the Independent Case Examiner. So you have a few options. I would also recommend getting your MP involved - I’ve done this several times on behalf of clients and it speeds up the response time and quality of the reply.

The DWP reiterate time and time again that there are no targets for whether or not benefit is awarded. There are auditors for each assessment provider and they will audit random assessment reports for quality and accuracy. They can apparently also ask the assessor concerned to re-evaluate if they think the points awarded are either too high, or not high enough.

There is an assessors’ handbook along with tables of the assessment criteria and the various points awarded in the different categories. These are available online. You might find these links helpful.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6749dedd75bb645366b3a269/pip-assessment-guide-part-one-the-assessment-process.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/personal-independence-payment-assessment-guide-for-assessment-providers/pip-assessment-guide-part-2-the-assessment-criteria

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66d9a4e8293afcbf8a81110e/pip-accessibility-guide-part-3-health-professional-performance.pdf

https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/personal-independence-payment-pip/pip-points-system

Hope this helps. PM me if you need any help.

I haven’t commented that it was. I’ve come across assessors saying that the claimant refused to be examined several times, and have challenged it successfully. In one case the assessor actually said she realised examination would be painful for the claimant and didn’t ask him to respond. She still wrote in the report that he had refused to be examined. In my own case, the assessor wrote two pages detailing range of movement in my lower and upper limbs, complete with percentage angles. All despite the fact that she never laid a hand on me and didn’t ask to observe any of those things. I spent the assessment immobile in a wheelchair. I have a suspicion that the software they use to complete the reports has something to do with this, but I’ve never been able to get to the bottom of it.

I won't PM you but thank you for the links. I have seen them before. I'm talking about the internal assessor guidance issued by Capita and the other companies that carry out the assessments. Apologies if I wasn't clear.

I refuse to believe there aren't targets - even if unofficial ones that are never written down - or more accurately "expected % award rates" or whatever they might be called.

None of what I do as per your first paragraph will stop the assessor writing lies about me. None of it. There is NOTHING I can do to stop that. Literally nothing.

Do you believe me that the assessor wrote lies? Wrote that I wasn't upset when I was able to say listen to the attached recording and transcript at x minutes so many seconds where it is audible that I am sobbing and begging the assessor to stop. Wrote that I could walk when I couldn't. Do you believe me? Why is it so hard to get people to believe us that we are lied about and that assessors don't record truthfully what happened in the assessment? Do you have any idea why that might be?

Don’t complain as part of your MR - they will treat it the same as any other MR and that means that if the evidence you submit with it doesn’t warrant a change in award, you’ll get the same decision again. This sentence doesn't make sense to me, sorry. I submitted a MR and in that I said things such as I've indicated above - the assessor says I wasn't upset at any point in the assessment in para such and such but the recording and attached transcript show that at time whatever I was sobbing and saying please stop (and more, but to say that would out me).

I submitted exactly the same evidence as I did the first time and yet I was awarded at MR.

That sounds more like they mixed 2 applicants up than willful lying.

I’m not calling you a liar. I’m relating what I’ve experienced myself during years of supporting PIP claimants. None of what I’ve said is personal to you or anyone else. I’ve tried to be as helpful as I can but if you’re going to twist my words when I’m only relating my own experience in terms of how the assessors words are sometimes interpreted then l’m really not going to engage with this any more. The OP has now disappeared from the thread, and to be honest I don’t blame her.