PIP assessment on the phone

[longtompot]

My ed is having one tomorrow, all the previous one have been face to face. She has looked up online about it, just wondered if anyone else has some advice, hints or tips, on how to get through it. She is on day two of a crashing migraine and I doubt it will be gone by the call (9am :( ) though has been brought on by the stress of it.

Has your person got a copy of the PIP form and questions?

It would be helpful to have their answers written down in advance, and for them to understand how their symptoms are scored/valued for PIP assessment purposes.

That way, they can ensure they give all the information needed, as the phone interview can be quite conversational and I can see how things could be missed.

When I did it for DS I printed out all the responses we had sent in (word document). My tip would be to print each on a separate page with the number and question on big letters at the top and not stapled together, use a table to spread them out on - the assessor jumped about and didn't ask the questions in order. Use speakerphone so hands are free to find papers, write notes etc.

I think I used a red pen to tick off everything as we covered it to make sure nothing was missed

Great advice, thank you. I took photos of each page so will get her to print out.

My DP had quite a stressful time with his telephone conversation, it was as though she was trying to trip him up and she kept asking him the same questions. He got quite frustrated with the conversation. He was in immense pain which didn't help.

I do the assessing. The advice you’ve gotten so far is good. A copy of the PIP form at hand might help them.

I’m not sure what “ed” means in terms of the person’s relation to you, but tell them not to feel rushed throughout it. If there have been any medication/diagnosis changes since the form was submitted (we still see cases from 2021 coming through) then they need to make sure they have that info at hand. They should also know when the changes happened, who made them and why.

The assessment can last a while depending on how complex their conditions are, so they should make sure they’ve been to the toilet, eaten etc.

Can you answer the questions for her? I did this

My daughter has found that during the face to face ones. She also has chronic pain and trying to answer through pain fog is so difficult.

@Galactico sorry, ed is eldest daughter.

The phone call took almost 2hrs 20 mins are we were both shattered afterwards. The assessor kept asking and various points about which certain area was one of her issues, as if to trip her up. The assessor was nice sounding, and did sound sympathetic about some things, but we've had this before with my YD and she ended up with all her PIP being removed, so we won't be fooled by that again. Just 8 weeks to wait until she gets her determination and to see if we have to go down the appeals route again.

What’s your daughters diagnosis if you don’t mind me asking? 2hrs 20minutes is a long time by assessment standards. Remember to ask for a copy of the report when your decision comes through.

Agree on not taking the pleasantness of the assessor too seriously. The decision will be out of their hands by now.

She has various things, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), allergy induced asthma, migraines. She also has a couple of other things which haven't yet been diagnosed one being a dairy allergy and one being Essential Tremors (ET).

Her original form was sent towards the end of 2021 and it was a lot of clarifying meds that she is now taking or no longer taking, and she also went through all her conditions and when and how they were diagnosed.

Wow, you must both be shattered.

I hope you get a good outcome x

That sounds awful, 2.5 hours on the phone is a very long time for anyone let alone someone with health conditions such as hers. We phoned up the DWP and asked for a copy of DS's report after about 3 weeks rather than wait for the decision so we could start preparing to appeal if the scores were low, it might be worth doing that.

I Hope you were successful, very long for you both

@longtompot please do not worry. They are compassionate and will just refer to things you’ve submitted. Print it out be clear on how conditions impact your daily life. They are not trying to catch you out. Take things slow - it won’t be more than an hour and if needed you can stagger it. I guarantee the thought of it is worse than reality.

This has been really helpful as I have mine next week (first time). Hope mine doesn't last as long, though!

Put the phone on loud speaker & record the assessment on another phone if you can, you don't have to ask permission. It is very useful when they ignore what you have said, I got ds award increased from standard to enhanced after proving we had told the assessor he was under mental health services.

Hi Op

Make sure you write down all your Answers to questions, as your daughter will get bit flustered stressed out,
So writing will help her memory as much as possible,

I had my PIP Application. Renewal recently,
Your daughter is allowed to have someone as support for her too,
The PIP Agency will take this on board,
They did this for me,
I had my local charity support worker as support,
You just on the day of PIP benefit assessment tel call,
You give the Assessir/interviewer of PIP Application the tel no of whoever will be supportive,good enough for this role,

PIP Assessor will get in touch with them,and they can listen to conversation and back up your daughter illness /health disorder,

I was awarded Standard rate PIP benefit recently,
I thought I had screwed up(messed up, when I said how long time wise it takes me to get to local swimming 🏊‍♂️ baths for hydrotherapy exercises,

I have Rumertoid Athritis/OestroAthritis,
I can do certain everyday tasks but I need disability support Aids such as walking stick, suction handles on shower, speacial chair to sit in shower,

Also Op, you can allways send on extra information from your specialist Dr consultant or another medical person who can produce a letter backing this up, about your daughters health conditions, to the. PIP benefits Application Agency ,

Get in touch with Pals( NHS patients Advocate role, send them an email requesting supportive letter about your daughters health conditions

I had a phone assessment. Probably lasted about an hour. I got enhanced rate in both categories and no review until 10 years. I think that’s the best outcome possible. I also got it backdated to date of claim. So it is possible to get a positive experience from phone assessments and I hope your daughter is successful. Poor girl is having it rough.

I'm another who had a positive outcome after a two hour telephone assessment. I was shattered after it though ! I had a copy of my answers from the renewal form, went hands free so I could underline where the assessor would seem to be asking the same questions twice and keep my replies consistant. It's very easy to get confused especially when it's such a stressful thing to have to do. I also got an increase backdated to date of claim.
I hope your daughter has a successful outcome...poor girl has enough going on.

Nice to read about some positive experiences. We’re definitely all monsters ☺️

Of course that should say “definitely not all monsters”. 😬

Ours was a positive outcome too, I can't remember how long it took (it was a couple of years ago) but the assessor's report was accurate and the scoring was similar to my estimates.

Thank you all for the extra advice, sadly a bit too late for us, but will no doubt help others.

I'm sure you are a nice assessor @Galactico , most of the ones who we have been seen by have been. But they have also written down things wrongly which have in turn been read wrongly by the determination person.

I think it's naive to think they are there to help and won't try and trip you up, as some people have said on this thread. We have first hand expert this with my youngest. She was seen by an OH at our local gp practise who said she should be getting the mobility element of her PIP and not just the daily living component. When her determination came not only did she not get her mobility element but she also had her daily living element removed! They said she could do things she can't, that certain things had happened in the room which didn't. I got the full report and went through it with a fine tooth comb and wrote a letter back stating all the things that were wrong. She had her daily element reinstated at a slightly higher rate and also got her mobility element awarded.

I didn't know about contacting PALS for getting a support letter, so that's good to know. We'll see if we can get a copy of the report in 3 weeks like mentioned.

I advocated a lot for my dd during the call, especially when asked hypothetically if she could do xyz which are utterly ridiculous questions imo. Hypothetically she could do anything, but in reality she can't.

Good luck to all of you who are also going through this. One thing I will say, do not give just yes or no answers. Expand on them as to why it's a yes or no.