PIP telephone assessment, using form for reference

Hi Lorraine

Obviously, it's up to your daughter what she does, but she needs to understand that the stress of being questioned by a complete stranger can be unnerving even when you do know your own difficulties. It isn't about knowledge, it is about the impact of symptoms on the specific PIP criteria. It is very easy to be caught out by an assessor. They may say "You wrote on your form blah, blah, blah..." and then the claimant gives a slightly different answer. Assessors expect people to look at what they said. Often there is a long gap between filling in the form and the assessment. It's unreasonable to expect everyone to remember what they said.

As I said, your daughter should do what feels right for her, but to wanting to scare her - assessors don't always treat claimants kindly - and they should use whatever they have on their side to hold their own.

BIS

Hi Lorraine

If you have a look at our PIP guide at the link below you will see that there are 9 pages which include advice on telephone assessments. Yes, a lot of the questions are those that would have been asked if you had a face to face assessment.

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/help-for-claimants

- get your daughter to write herself a bullet point list of any particular points she wants to get over, so she has it by her during the assessment, tick them as she cover them during the assessment.
- have paper and pens to hand to make any notes such as the assessors name, date, time
- make sure she is seated in a comfortable chair, she is going to be there a while and at table to make notes
- if she can't hear or understand what is being asked then ask them to repeat the question
- don't forget to have a glass of water if needed so she don't get a dry throat and lose her voice!

Don't forget to contact DWP 48 hours after the assessment and ask for a copy of the assessors report called PA4.

Hi Lorraine

You have to be careful as the assessor may think she is reading off script. Your daughter needs to be open and honest and say how her condition affects her at that moment in time, it does not matter if her condition has deteriorated, if it was at a Tribunal then it would matter as the questioning would be on the day of the assessment how was your daughters condition.

Some assessors will ask very leading questions, if your daughter cannot do a task then say so, remember there are no grey areas, it is only black or white answers ... not 'sometimes' as these answers usually go against the claimant, the assessors will say in their assessment in my opinion ......

Good luck, follow my previous post and let us know how your daughter gets on.

Gary