ATOS Assessment

We attended my adult autistic daughter's P.I.P. Consultation in Chelmsford, Essex. This is an Atos Centre, at Summit House, Waterloo Lane, Chelmsford, Essex CM1 1YG. We live in East London and it was 55 miles away, a local bus and train journey, from door to door an hours journey. It was 10 minutes walk from the train station. For us it was okay. I don't know about parking facilities. Forum members in East London/Essex this may be one of your consultation centres.
The centre has good disability access and facilities, nice reception room, friendly reception staff. Everything is on the ground floor, I noticed about 8 interview rooms. There was a disabled toilet. We were called just fifteen minutes over the assigned time, like all of us applicants/carers etc, knots in our stomachs not knowing what to expect. The assessor introduced herself, she didn't say what her profession was I guessed at Occupational Therapist, which was fine with me and appropriate.
I am so grateful for this site and the forum, it was good to know what would be asked and possible additional questions. What did surprise me was that the first thing she asked me about was my daughter's recent diagnosis of scoliosis of the spine, I had only listed after her main disabilities of Autism, Learning Difficulties and Epilepsy. I had said that as yet she wasn't having any issues with her spine. She asked me to talk about the Autism in great detail, from birth to current, that surprised me, she had read the 15 page clinical psychologist's diagnosis, and intelligence tests. I found her really helpful, she asked questions from the form that I hadn't needed to fill in and seemed to type in additional information, asking my daughter about washing her hair and picking up on something that I hadn't.
In addition she tested my daughter's short term memory, adding up money, how she used the microwave to heat up her food. I do think these random questions you don't expect will be asked to test what you have put in your P.I.P. application form.
I have to say the assessor was very pleasant and thorough, she went right through the application form and asked additional questions as well.

I now have to wait for the outcome.

I hope these comments may be helpful to some of you. Best wishes to forum members, on which ever part of your P.I.P. Journey you are on.

Celya

Hi Celya

Thank you for your email; it's good to know that not all experiences of 'face to face' interviews are unpleasant; nice also to know that at least some 'Health Professionals' take their work seriously, to the extent of actually reading the supporting evidence you provide.

I hope your visit was successful..

I had my f2f assessment at the same place in Chelmsford
and I can only confirm what Ceyla wrote.

Enough Parking facilities are directly outside the entrance.

The nurse who interviewed me was very friendly, hat a lot of empathy
and I had the feeling she knew about my health issues (Fibro/ME/CFS
plus spinal damage) quite well.
She even suggested not to do the examination, because
she told me that she can see in how much pain I was.

It took her only 30 minutes.

I received enhanced Living and Mobility award.