To apply to be a benefits assessor?

[SoggyFish]

I’m a qualified nurse who can’t nurse in the physical form at the minute due to back problems. I have been given interviews for two “telephone” jobs - one was a 111 call handler and the other was a PIP applicant assessor. This was sold to me as “helping disabled people access the benefits they’re entitled to”. It’s work from home, excellent pay, flexible hours … sounded too good to be true.

Well apparently it is too good to be true. What I’d essentially be doing according to people I’ve spoken to … is preventing as many people as possible from getting PIP.

Anyone know if this is true? I have an interview on Friday and I’m so torn now on whether to go through with it or not!! I’m limited in what work I can do … I can’t really afford to turn down a job offer but I know I’ll struggle morally with it if this is what it is 😫 does anyone on here do it and can tell me the truth on what it actually entails?

The health professional doesn’t make the final decision regarding the actual award of benefit.The
DWP Decision Makers do, but they will ultimately be influenced by your report.

You will have to work under time constraints.

I have seen reports from health professionals that bared no relation to the person I was supporting.

i thought a health professional has to make a non political opinion based on the facts presented be it from consultant and doctors statements or other supporting documentation?

It sounds like some people might want to put pressure on you but you would be honourable to award or make an assessment on medical fact rather than any political pressure.

I am not sure how benefits work especially not ones related to the disabled but to deny someone with a real medical condition, their entitlement to state help, truly awful.

Sorry, posted too soon
There is a PIP assessors guide on Gov.uk ( can’t do links). Which may help you.

I’m in a similar position to you, but not working at the moment due to long covid and probably won’t be able to return to my original job so looking for alternatives.

I know one nurse who has done PIP assessor work and she left very quickly. Highly pressured, and as far as I understand she was only allowed to positively support a small % of the people she spoke to.

I have been tempted by the hours, wfh and pay but can’t help wondering if I’m selling my soul to the devil so to speak.

I have considered this role as well, and have heard mixed reviews. Part of me thinks though HOW exactly can they influence your decision / report so that you can "only support a small percentage of people"? They can't dock your wages etc....?

Please don’t - it’s a sick and cruel system.

Know some nurses who left the NHS to be assessors. There is a narrative that there is pressure on them to make certain decisions and refuse a certain number of claims and thats untrue. Final decsions are made by DWP and assesors esentially collect medical information. I'd say go for it! If it doesn't work out there is always other options!

I'm curious I've seen civil service have some dwp executive officer jobs which seem similar but non medical. I was keen on the "helping people" bit but everything I've heard suggests they have targets and have to refuse people help....

A nurse assessed me for my PIP claim and the report she wrote was so riddled with lies in order to fit the DWP's criteria that I ended up reporting her to the NMC. As former nurse myself I was able to state exactly which aspects of the Code of Practice she had breached.

If you look at the job reviews on Indeed you will quickly see that the PIP assessors role has NOTHING to do with caring or helping people, or exercising a non judgemental attitude, or accurate and contemporaneous record keeping.

I honestly can not understand how any health professional with compassion and a moral compass can do this job, as the system is hideously rigged against disabled people, especially vulnerable ones, and is in no way designed to help them.

Not really answering your question about benefits assessing, but in my area the district nurses & other adult community health services have telephone triage that takes all the referrals, the clinical triage is done by nurses, all remotely. Might that be worth looking into? You don't necessarily need community/district nursing experience to apply.

I have had two pip assessments and was successful at the first, on the second I was 1 point short. I should have gone to tribunal but didn’t have the mental capacity to cope with it. The second assessor had a sour demeanour.

Honestly if you are a fair and just person then actually you could be a force for good doing that job. Lots of vacancies means people have to wait an even longer time to be assessed I know my wait was quite long. I know it may seem like dancing with the devil but that system isn’t changing anytime soon.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

It's not about helping people. Bear that in mind.

I was a PIP Assessor for 4 months back in 2016. I quit because it was dehumanising and there was a great deal of pressure from my superiors to score people lower than I was doing. I told them to shove their job, and I’ve been on the TV twice whistleblowing about it. It’s a disgrace.

My PIP assessor lied in my report, and I’ve known it to happen to other people more than once. I think some people work for them for the sole purpose of removing their benefit if they feel they are undeserving. I don’t know if there’s any truth to the bonuses for denying people benefit or not, but some of them are nasty.

This was a thread I started back in the day, under a different username.
www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2764894--to-give-people-assistance-with-claiming-PIP

It's widely documented that PIP assessors are tasked with denying disabled people support. I am surprised you were unaware.

Do it and pass every genuine disabled person. PIP is disgusting and it needs genuine people working for them to fight disabled peoples corner.

Yeah, you can’t though. You’ll just get your reports sent back to you to redo them.

Yes I’m a nurse and one of my colleagues husband was a team manager for the pip assessments - you basically have loads of targets to meet and often you can get reports back after your assessments with things crossed out and told to lie basically! I looked into it once as like yourself was attracted to the wfh etc but was warned off 😂

I supported someone through a PIP/ESA application, including attending the face to face assessment with them, so hearing all the questions asked and answers given. The application was turned down and we asked for a reconsideration which also involved seeing a copy of the report written by the HCP (a nurse).

The report bore very little resemblance to what happened in the assessment (think as a minimum stating the person “appeared to cope well” when their issues were evident to see and discussed in detail). We refuted around 60-70% of the report, and an appeal was upheld.

I can think of no reason why a HCP would lie on a report unless the system they work under pressures them to do so - they don’t stand to gain anything and the stakes are high if someone submits an official complaint via their regulatory body like the previous poster who reported to the NMC. Many many of the nurses I do know stay away from the DWP jobs because morally they can’t square what they’d be asked to do to keep their job.

Assessors are not tasked with deciding who gets benefits at all. There is a systematic assessment process, you complete the assessment and submit it to the decision makers at the DWP who then make the decision. The appeals process works by totally different rules to the initial assessment process which is why so many claims are granted on appeal. The cynic in me thinks this is a feature and not a bug in the process.

I was an ESA (PIP is slightly less unpleasant) assessor for about 6 months. Its a demoralising job. You will meet people who are gaming the system (sorry to all those who think no one ever cheats the benefits system) and then you will meet those in desperate need who do not know how to game the system, you have to do your best to "guide" those people without asking leading questions.

I worked with a group of people who did their best for claimants within a system not fit for purpose. They absolutely did not hate benefit claimants at all. Its the job to do if you really want to understand, "there but for the grace of God..." I met some truly remarkable people, they had so much to contend with and yet still managed to be cheerful. There are some less pleasant encounters too but that's just the nature of people.

If you can complete the assessment process knowing that there will be winners and losers and it's not fair but you are doing your best, then go for it. I only lasted 6 months because the process is unecessarily stressful for claimants and it is a colossal waste of money.

I have read reviews from nurses who have done this job on the 'mental health nursing' group on Facebook. It sounds awful, people working way over their hours to get reports done in the required timescales, lots of pressure to deny people the benefits they need.

It seems the opposite of being a caring professional.

There has to be a reason that they are always advertising the jobs, there must be a high turnover of staff.

The nurse who assessed my relative wrote a report which contained a number of inaccuracies and the claim was downgraded (transferring from DLA to PIP.) We appealed the decision, highlighting the inconsistencies one by one and clearly explained why the information didn't add up and we ended up with a decision which was better than the original and longstanding DLA claim. The lies were so blatant, we didn't even need to go to tribunal. The whole experience was sickening and left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I honestly couldn't believe what I was reading. I have heard almost identical experiences from several people. Anyone saying that the assessors are simply collecting information is deluded I reckon.

I did this job for a few months and was bullied into changing my scores. Everything is sent to Auditors before you “qualify” and all your marks are lowered.
I wanted to the job to provide a fair assessment and unfortunately the system was completely biased and I was unable to do so.

I also know someone who left the medical profession for this role in the last year - she absolutely hates it and is looking to change jobs again.

She's found the pressure and hours to be no better than her NHS gig, hates her boss and finds a lot of the service users very difficult to work with.