My Home PIP Assessment

I had my home pip assessment.

I was getting very nervous and anxious for the week running up to it making myself physically sick.

Here is everything in full that happened and hope it helps others.

I had my sister with me
Visit was at my home
ATOS lady used to be a Nurse for 20 years and fully qualified disability advisor

She arrived promptly bang in the middle of the 2 hour window for arriving i'd been given


My sister made her a cup of tea and she sat pretty much opposite me

Whilst my sister was out of the room she 'dropped' some pens on the floor and asked me if I could get them whilst she carried on rummaging for her things - before I had a chance to reply with yes and use my grabber my sister had already darted in and picked them up for her with a nice big helpful smile. (This felt very staged and on purpose to see if I would bend to get them for her)

She then finished with that and took me quickly through what would happen and asked for my ID - I had my birth cert and marriage cert and no photo ID so she also asked for a bill which my sister had to rummage about for - so please take an extra bill with you if in the same boat as me.

Next she went through my various medical conditions as noted on my form - ticking them off as she went - confirming how/when diagnosed, by who, what year, any specialists seen, still seeing anyone, and how that condition affected me, how often and where.

eg: carpel tunnel diagnosed in 2002 by neurologist and neurophysiologist, given a prescription for wrist braces and home advice. No longer see anyone. Use braces every night and when weather varies during the day, and all day over winter. Painful pins and needles, loss of feeling, swelling, pulsing pain down the nerves, trembling etc.. both hand affected.

So quite in depth.

Next she went through questions in the same order as on the questionaire - just asking some further questions about things eg: do you go shopping, how often and where, do you cook, how often do you eat etc..

She also threw a few curve balls in there such as:
Do you have any pets, do you work

I was pretty prepared for all if this and answered nice and slowly in full and didn't feel rushed.

After all that I needed to pee so excused myself

Coming back she was scribbling and looking at me so i'm guessing she used that as my walking info eg: gait, pace etc..

Next she asked me to remember 3 words in order, 'cat, dog ball' and repeat the straight back then asked for them again a few minutes later and right near the end of the meeting.

She got me to read from a card with different sized writing on for a few sentences at normal book distance and also a standard eye test card in the same way.

Then she asked me how much change i'd have from £1 if I spent 75p

Then to count backwards starting at 100 in 7's - which I was rubbish at.

After those was a quick 5 minute physical - which was done in a seated position with my feet on the floor.

Asking me to copy her movements - look up, chin on chest, tilt head, turn head, various arm movements including hand up in the air and cupping back of head. Then some for my ankles and knees.

I went slowly and indicated if something was too painful - she did not push me to do anything I could not manage and noted my swelling feet and random bruises and things so was really paying attention.

That was it then just a quick ask of if I had any questions and that it would be 4-6 weeks for the report/letter and off she went.

It took in total 1 and a half hours and she didn't seem to miss anything and was very thourough.

When asking me about my walking on the mobility question - she did word it as 'in metres or minutes, how far can you walk' I indicated the patio furniture she's walked in past and said that was the furthest and she looked at it and said 'just over 20 metres' - which to be honest the 20-50 metres aided is the one I had ticked - so happy with that and expected.

I am personally hoping for max level in daily care and standard in mobility - I'll update this and let you know if the report is accurate to how I felt it went

Hi treacle and Welcome to the forum, you might want to have a look at the following FAQ which explains where everything is

Welcome to Benefits and Work

Thank you for telling us of your experiences. PIP decisions are taking around 8 weeks following the face 2 face assessment.

You might want to bookmark/favourite this on your web browser now so that you can find it easily in future. This will allow you to return with further questions or comments about your PIP claim without having to start a new topic each time. It helps us enormously when everything relating to the same claim is kept in one place - and I hope you will find it useful too

Hi Treacle1983 i sent you a separate message asking how you medical went thanks for this great explanation of your medical and what happened. I will watch out for the pen dropping thing! im glad yours went well and it wasn't too bad for you im keeping my fingers crossed for my medical on Monday!


Mx

Thats ok

Yeah physio normally does same basic things:

with head looking up, chin on chest, looking left and right, tilting head to each side.

with arms right up in air, cupping back of head, crossing over at chest, with elbows in lowering and raising forearms, putting hand behind back as if putting on a bra, then like a chicken wing type one and arms out to the sides in little circles. Then one pushing against her.

with fingers touching my fingers together on each hand thumb to each finger, squeezing her fingers hard, squeezing my finger and thumb in a loop and her pulling gently on it

then it was some with legs rocking my front of feet upwards to see how my ankle flexed, lifting my knee, pushing down with knee, turning my legs outwards, straightening legs, bending knees back a bit

finally reaching forwards as if putting on socks or shoes

She did note that I could not put my hands behind my head or back, could only reach to my mid calf, could not put my arms up in the air, could not extend my arms much at all really. She also noted how my feet ballooned within a few minutes of doing these activities and painful clicking in my shoulder and almost immediate redenning

How do I see messages?

Treacle1983 wrote: How do I see messages?

OI'm not quite sure what you are asking? You can obviously see these replies, are you looking for anything else in particular?