One to one benefit assessments

[Amazonjaunt]

It would save money in the long run if all benefits claims had to be assessed one to one, surely?

If the evidence some of them are providing is as flimsy as a brief letter with very little detail (as described by a poster above) then the extra layer of assessment is necessary.

Paul Seddon from Vanguard designed a procedure that would allow Universal Credit to be claimed in person in one interview

needless to say the DWP turned him down

In which cases?
surely the first step is to ensure sufficient evidence is provided and request more if not. The forms I filled in for my dm were over 20 pages in total with an extra page for additional information if I wanted to dd something not covered by the questions.

You have avoided the question.

And when there is a large amount of consistent evidence? Do you think it is necessary then? If so, what does it add? This is particularly the case for those paper-based assessments you have repeatedly posted about.

My son was in hospital at the time I received his forms and I received excellent advice and was able to take notes from a hospital social worker who knew DLA inside out.

It's no wonder parents seek help online.

I'm not sure what a face to face with an hcp who wont have even heard of my illness would have gained the government in the way of security, over the letters from my medical specialist, among other evidence

Just one example then.
no other data
multiple posters on here have specified in detail how much documentation they have submitted to support a claim, but you choose to ignore that.

Arthritis doesn’t magically disappear. Presumably that poster included information about medication. For arthritis is one of the conditions where the medication often indicates a level of need.

If the evidence covers mobility and care needs across all the DLA/PIP domains in sufficient depth, then no a face to face assessment should be needed. However, medical reports rarely do that, therapy reports such as OT sometimes do.

A list of medications often tells you very little about how a person is managing day to day. 2 people with the same diagnosis, same meds, same x-rays etc may need completly different levels of support to get around, wash, cook etc based on lots of factors.

It seems to work with DLA though? Face to face assessments have never been required for children.

They tried that when PIP was first introduced. But so many people were being put through the process unnecessarily, at huge cost, they quietly moved away from that approach for those with long term conditions. One of my daughters has a learning disability and epilepsy. She is not able to work or live independently. Assessing her in person is unnecessary as we have loads of documentation - old ehc plans, school and college special needs placements, IQ report, letters of diagnosis and quarterly follow ups....they don't need to see her as well.

The medical evidence, list of medication is only one part of the documentation submitted. Details of support needed is also submitted. Having face to face assessments is no doubt expensive, so surely the goals is to ensure comprehensive evidence is submitted and that the type of form claimants complete is able to capture all that evidence.

That was me. By co-incidence DH has the same type of inflammatory arthritis as me. He is on higher doses than me, not because he is more severe, but because he tolerated it much better than me. I really struggled with the side effects of nausea, frequent infections, brain fog etc, and had to reduce my dose. Due to this I am I'm in more pain/more limited than him, take more pain meds etc. His blood test results look worse than mine abd aren't always reflective of disease processes/needs.

And auto immune arthritis can go through phases of remission and activation where it's worse and better. Mine was triggered by my 2nd pregnancy. I have had phases where I'm almost fine, and phases where I can barely walk around my house. Which does lead to issues with a 1 off assessment as my award could vary between nothing and high depending when it happens. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'm not convinced the current system is working well.

Obviously medication isn’t the whole story and there are reasons why some don’t take more, but medication is used as part of the judgement. For example, someone on e.g. Fentanyl patches clearly has a significant problem with pain which will impact functioning.

Remission doesn’t mean the condition disappears though.

I didn’t mention blood tests.

Children often have access to more comprehensive evidence, as children's services are much better funded than adults, and as go through diagnostic process usually in childhood. There is also a part in the DLA forms where put a medical reference. As a therapy team we used to get lots of calls from DWP asking us to verify info put on form by parents, and that works in paediatrics as children usually have a named physio/OT/SLT/paediatrician etc who knows them well enough - I have children on my caseload I have known for 10 years+. In adult services it's much harder. I can't ever get a call back from my consultant, so I doubt dwp would have much luck. But my daughters paediatrician consistently gets back to me within a few days. That's why face to face isn't needed in paeds/DLA assessments.

Where do you stand on the idea that there should be a list of conditions where barring miraculous medical advances, there should be a completely light touch regime? I'm talking Down Syndrome, missing limbs, neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinsons, MS and Huntington's. These are all conditions which will either not change or worsen, and currently we are wasting a fortune on reassessing these people. That's a lot of money that could be saved.

FWIW the picture painted by a pp on the ease of getting PIP is not one I recognise. My DS has a 10 year award - he had an online assessment, but he also spent 4 hours uploading the stack of medical information from cardiologists, neurologists, orthopaedic specialists, gastro-enterologists, physiotherapists, pain specialists - you name it, he had it. And no, he isn't ever going to get better. He was lucky that his assessor was a specialist in the major areas where he had his health issues.

Some don’t but there are plenty of PIP claimants who have extensive evidence though. They don’t need a F2F assessment and it won’t add anything.

PIP do sometimes contact HCPs claimants put on the form. Some claims do get evidence via this route.

No it doesn't mean it's dissapeared, but it means that it's very well managed to a point where there is minimal impact on a person's day to day life, and at this point and if this sustained, the person wouldn't then qualify for PIP.

That can happen for some conditions, but not for all. And it also depends on what you define as 'minimal impact'.

My dad had Parkinsons. It was in the Netherlands, not here, and he had money. But in the early and intermediate stages he could literally be fine at 10 am and completely falling apart an hour later. How do you assess that, aside from accepting that the trajectory will always be towards ever decreasing ability to live an independent functional life? Not everyone is Michael J Fox. Ultimately the aim has to be to maximise someone's ability to have quality of life, not to penny pinch.

I didn’t say functional impairment doesn’t change. My post said the condition disappear. Two different things.

In order to be judged as able to do something you have to be able to do it reliably. That is: safely, to an acceptable standard, repeatedly (means as often as the activity being assessed is reasonably required to be completed) and in reasonable time (no more than twice as long as normal). If you can, for example, manage toilet needs unaided at 10am but not at say 11am and 2pm, you cannot actually manage toilet needs unaided for the purpose of PIP.

Yes, I know, but for the purposes of this discussion, functional impairment is what's actually relevant, not the condition.

My post didn’t say otherwise.

How does that answer the question?

It would be looked at as an average and over an extended period. When I had my online PIP assessment I was asked to describe my best days and how often they were, my average days and how often they were, and my worst and how often, to build up a picture.

And I'm not taking about penny pinching, but knowing there is a limited amount of money, how do we ensure it gets to those who most need it, and as quickly as possible? The system is so overwhelmed, I have seen struggling families wait way too long, families with severe needs be declined and some pay for reports which 'stretch' the truth, been asked to write untruths in DLA forms and seen families not apply as 'someone else needs it more than us', or because the forms feel too overwhelming. As I said, I don't know what the solution is, but after 20 years in paediatrics I feel something needs to change.