Hurried Home Assessment - Not Optimistic

After submitting PIP form in April, finally had Home Assessment just now. Had a young male nurse who got annoyed with my husband when he mentioned blackouts and said he would have to start the whole form again! Where on the PIP form does it ask about blackouts? I know it did on the old DLA forms. Just looked at the PIP form & it asks about 'falls' but a fall is not the same as a 'blackout' where you lose conscientiousness, is it?

Then it moved on to cancer & my stroke - this was fully explained on the separate pages that were submitted (did whole form typewritten as: See separate page 'Answer to Q4a etc' as no PDF version to type on available). Assessor then said he had not read what I had submitted as it was 'repetitive' & "... nobody ever reads them anyway"! Well, sorry for having illnesses which each have an affect on the other! Or are you not supposed to mention something in one question which you can't do because of problems you have in another question?

My husband said I was shaking and twitching away for most of the time but he was so engrossed in his computer he probably missed it.

Stupid question he asked too: "If you bought a bottle of water for 75p in a shop, how much change would you get from £1." My answer: "My daughter always takes a bottle of water with her as she says it costs £1 or more a bottle to buy in a shop." - "Well, you obviously have a good grasp of the value of money!!! - um, wasn't he asking about how much change I would get???

Then I got in trouble for not keeping all my copies of letters from the hospital which he said would outline a 'treatment plan'. Well, none of the ones I have had back have given a treatment plan; just said they had seen me, would see me again in X weeks/months or were discharging me back to GP's care. On the very first DLA form I ever submitted (in 1993) I gave names of Consultants I had seen. The response (of all of them) was "how should I know how any of their problems affect her at home! & they sent a (useless) Social Worker round.

She had obviously never filled in a DLA form in her life! "...I went to an old man the other day who had really bad arthritis, I would never have believed he could get out of bed by himself, but he showed me how he could roll to the edge, grab hold of an open bedside drawer and use that to pull himself up to his knees, then put his hands on the bed 'walk' across the bed with his hands to get onto his feet, then 'walked backwards' with his hands until he could pull himself up straight using the headboard. - after seeing that I could not possibly say he needed help getting out of bed!" What a First Class Idiot she was.

I did ask a GP (never able to see same one all the time) about hospital letters and last one I saw said there was nothing there which would help a PIP claim; equally they could only give basic details of medical conditions presently being treated as they are not paid enough to trawl back through years of records, many problems for which are on the old paper records system, which is stored somewhere else.

All I know is that for the last 3 DLA assessments, all 3 of them said: "As a doctor I can see how all these conditions interact with each other and give you massive problems." I didn't get any such feedback from this nurse today. I can hardly walk but did he ask me to walk at all - NO!

I am not at all optimistic about the outcome of this assessment. Sorry to ramble on, but just want to get it off my chest.

Thanks Gordon. No idea why my name was on the post - have posted before and first time it has ever happened. Wondering whether it has anything to do with site asking me to register every time I try to do anything, but managed to change it, thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Will be on phone first thing Monday morning asking for a copy of this 'non-medical' report.

Husband says it was completely different to any other assessment at home, or when he has taken our autistic daughter to the centre for DLA/ESA assessments.

Neither of us can work out how he can assess mobility when he didn't even ask me to stand up!

Time will tell, already making copious notes ready for the appeal I am expecting, after the Mandatory Reassessment.