PIP Decision Maker AMA

[Owmyback]

What do you want to know

I think if you asked most assessors why they make the switch it's for the sociable hours and it's not bad money. The hours thing more so for paramedics and nurses as 9-5 weekday jobs are hard to come by. It's a nice change after years of shifts, nights, weekends and bank holidays.

@Blahblooblah
Your posts are rather enlightening however everything you wrote about the assessment and scoring is at odds with the regulations and law relating to social security. If assessors are trained that way then no wonder so many appeals are successful.

The proof is also balance of probabilities, not absolute, and given that many people cannot access the medical help that they need evidence can be hard to come by.

But thank you for taking so much time to answer on this thread.

@riotlady

I haven’t read the full thread, just the first and last few pages so apologies if this has been asked- but how and why do people get into these roles? I’m an occupational therapist and see a lot of adverts for assessor roles specifically aimed at OTs, but can’t really see why you’d choose to make the switch and dont know anyone who has.

Money. Lots of it. In the early days you could forgive those who went into it innocently and left when they realised what was going on. Over the years there’s been so many documentaries, news articles and heartbreaking stories of families turning up at the appeal with their loved ones ashes or they get a letter saying their appeal has been allowed but the claimant has died. People have committed suicide, people have died of suicide/starvation and only been found when the council bailiffs turn up to turf them out. I’m still VERY angry and bitter about the way I’ve been treated by one particular individual I honestly think she was a psychopath. I was insulted for being an unmarried mother and spoken to like dirt the whole time. When I googled her name there were people on forums who had the same treatment, for my assessment she used a false name and even had it on a name badge. I only found out when I got the report and questioned it. The lady (or gent) posting and explaining I think is a genuinely nice person and wasn’t suited for the job. The high turnover and constant ads prove a point doesn’t it you have to be a certain kind of person to be able to keep at it and the excellent pay isn’t worth most peoples scruples. In all this time I have never heard of the reports being sent back to be changed so the claim can be disallowed, so maybe it’s a case of not knowing this is happening until they’re in the role? I have a friend who is a nurse, his nurse friend left the NHS to be an assessor and tried to recruit him. He told his friend to fuck off. I know a lot of the NHS workers don’t like them.

@Jimdandy

In my personal experience, people tend to fill in the forms themselves, do not compare what they can/can’t do to the scoring system and just write a load of (irrelevant to the criteria) waffle so It gets rejected.

They then often seek help at CAB who assist with the mandatory reconsideration who tailor the appeal form to the criteria it’s actually assessed against.

Further, I also think they have an policy to reject nearly all of them automatically initially to weed out who can be bothered to follow it through or those who will give up at the first hurdle.

Agree with the last bit

I've had my MR turned down. I'm
Waiting for the tribunal.

I won't get it I know that!

Yet I can't work. How are you supposed to live?

Do you get a lot of flack when people find out what you do? Do you purely go on points? What’s more important the assessment or the medical information supplied from the patients doctors

We've been overpaid. The extra money is sat in a stand-alone bank account and has never been touched.

I have written to the benefits department of my local council twice and they can find nothing wrong in the accounts. I have written to the social worker who can find nothing wrong. But whatever they say is irrelevant - the money is sat there in the account when it shouldn't be. It's just over 5K.

What do I do next?

These conversations really rile me.
I was a disability assessor for 2 years.
I NEVER lied, ever. I went out of my way to try and be as fair as the rules allowed.

Im not an assessor but have been offered jobs as one. They are nurses, Occupational Therapists and Physiotherapists who are qualified to assess these things. Whether you get someone who is experienced enough in the style of report writing is another matter.

Its how you fill the form, i have done this on behalf of people who could not and have been 100% successful. The form is long and repetitive. You have to stick rigidly to standard and word answers carefully you need a professional qualification to fill it in!

Right with you @Blueuggboots

@DaisyDreaming

Do you get a lot of flack when people find out what you do? Do you purely go on points? What’s more important the assessment or the medical information supplied from the patients doctors

This is the issue we see at CAB; people fixate on the medical report.

The doctor will say you have condition X and take medication Y for it. It is very unlikely that the report will say, by way of example, that the patient can't peel and cut up a potato or open a can of beans, but that is the sort of information that you need to explain to match the descriptor of being unable to prepare a simple meal.
The medical evidence should support a claim of being unable to do something; it is unlikely to stand up on its own. For example, a stroke could leave you with no more than a facial twitch at one extreme, or leave you severely disabled.

@Blueuggboots

These conversations really rile me. I was a disability assessor for 2 years. I NEVER lied, ever. I went out of my way to try and be as fair as the rules allowed.

It would seem that the rules allowed for an assessment do not reflect the rules for qualifying though.

As in all works of life not all assessors are rubbish and not all claimants are frauds. However the balance of power creates a kafkaesque experience for the claimant.

@Blueuggboots

These conversations really rile me. I was a disability assessor for 2 years. I NEVER lied, ever. I went out of my way to try and be as fair as the rules allowed.

Why do these conversations rile you? Do you think the thousands of us should stay silent about how we’ve been treated? Do you think we are lying because you say you yourself was fair?

@Unforgettablefire absolutely not!!! I cannot say how much I support all of the people that genuinely need PIP. I do however believe that a large number of the assessors do their utmost to be fair but are somewhat hindered by the rules. I also believe that MANY reports are sent back to be reworked because they are too lenient in the eyes of the DWP.

[quote Blueuggboots]@Unforgettablefire absolutely not!!! I cannot say how much I support all of the people that genuinely need PIP. I do however believe that a large number of the assessors do their utmost to be fair but are somewhat hindered by the rules. I also believe that MANY reports are sent back to be reworked because they are too lenient in the eyes of the DWP.
[/quote]
I do apologise I took that the wrong way. I’ve been for so many of these assessments now I don’t know what’s worse the actual assessments or the horror when you see the reports.
Again I apologise for taking what you said the wrong way and thank you for speaking up.

@Unforgettablefire, golly, I totally understand why you would think that, and it's fine.
It just makes me so sad that the assessors are often blamed when having done the job, I have argued my face off disagreeing with the DWP when they send reports back for a change and won't believe the medical evidence or our opinion as the person who has assessed them!!