PIP REVIEW TELEPHONE ASSESSMENT

Hello elie,

I think every assessment is different and it will certainly be somewhat dependent upon the nature of your son’s underlying condition. They should ask enough questions about the condition to ensure that they have an understanding of the severity of it and how it is likely to impact on his daily living and mobility. They will be looking to see if there is consistency between the condition and the impacts you have detailed on the form.

If your son’s condition is fairly rare, and the assessor may not have experience of people with it, this can be a problem. I was recently supporting a lady who had two underlying conditions, one was fairly common and the other, which was the more serious, was fairly rare. The assessor completely ignored the impact of the more the serious one and I am sure it was that she did not understand it.

This is likely to be followed by a check of the medication he is taking – so if there have been any recent changes he should be ready with this information.

They will probably ask him direct questions about the activities listed in the PIP2 form, but you will probably find that he will also be asked general questions about his normal life – for example does he have pets. Here they are again looking for consistency – if he has a dog, there is likely to be an assumption that he takes it for walks and therefore does not qualify for mobility. They might for example ask him about his hobbies and again they will be looking for inconsistencies. With these sorts of questions he needs to ready to include additional evidence of help / support etc he has to be able to carry out these activities. Most assessors will not ask if you can carry out these things unaided. For example if he might say his hobby is reading books, but because of his poor sight these have to large print books.

There is I think a human tendency to want to display ourselves in the best possible light, but he needs to be willing to present himself to the assessor as he really is. If he needs a rest during the assessment then he should ask for it. If he struggles to concentrate on something then he should say that he needs to help. All a very negative experience for him, but hopefully you will be able to pick him up afterwards!

Do spend a little time reviewing our PIP guide before the interview.

PIP resources

And finally, we do recommend recording the assessment. Various phones have the facility to record both sides of the conversation without anyone being aware that this happening. If you can work out and test the technology before the day this is helpful.

Hope everything goes well for him,
Catherine