Telephone Assessment Review as Appointee

For clarification, as there has been an amount of posts on here regarding Appointees and Review Assessments;

* I have recently completed my daughters PIP Review Telephone Assessment with a Capita Assessor
* My daughter was not, and did not need to be present, indeed the Assessor did not expect my daughter to be in attendance
* The Assessor was excellent at 'encouraging/reminding' me to reiterate at all stages that my daughter has had a condition since
birth that it has an affect on all aspects of life.
* The Assessor encouraged/reminded me to explain crossover conditions that have manifested during my daughters lifetime,
(mostly resulting from the original condition)
* Not having my daughter in attendance made the whole process less stressful.

I had completed the PIP Review Form and forwarded along with current and historical evidence in February 2023, this was further backed up some months later with supporting evidence from the workplace, (special measures/risk assessments/occupational health assessments etc).

The Assessor had not had sight of any of the supporting evidence - this was abundantly clear when we moved on to speaking about employment - The Assessor paid particular attention to the extra help that she received and that individual Risk Assessment/Methods of work that had been raised- When I mentioned that they had been forwarded and received in September she said that the DWP Case Worker would have those copies. I did mention that I had thought that supporting evidence, especially medical might have been forwarded with the Review paperwork, but, in this case it had not been!

I must admit that despite all of this the Assessor covered all aspects of my daughters health in just under 3 hours, she was meticulous in her questioning, rephrased questions that could have resulted in ambiguous understanding. Surprisingly the whole process was stress free and I was gobsmacked to realise how long we had been talking!

I have since listened to the recording and cannot fault her summary of every point/descriptor - so, I am hoping that the PA4 produced matches her summary of our conversation. It also occurred to me that I needn't have bothered with the original PIP Review form - this phone assessment covered every aspect and some!

I hope that this will be useful to other Appointee's - again, not having my daughter in attendance took the stress and a great deal of emotion out of the whole process.

I will await the PA4 - I am not bothering to chase it up as I already know from experience that they can take weeks to be forwarded to the DWP, depending on Assessor experience and auditing procedures .................. so it's a waiting game

Hi I was also able to do my son’s pip review assessment too,my husband is the appointee who rang capita and requested for me to do the assessment,capita agreed to this.The lady was very polite and it took 45 minutes. To all oppointees if you look on the back of the appointment letter there is a statement to which you can invite someone on the call or can take the call hope that helps

Hello everyone,

I so wish I'd known this when my son had his assessments, although in our area they are conducted by Independent Assessment Services, who may operate according to different rules, as each time, they insisted my son must be present, or his benefit would be stopped. They wouldn't listen to anything I had to say and my son, who is aware of his own limitations but doesn't like to admit to them, did not emphasise his difficulties as maybe he should have done. (Not that it would have made any difference because the assessor just noted that the difficulties he told her about were "improbable.") Now we are heading towards a tribunal, but I have no faith that anyone present will believe anything we say. And would I, as his appointee, be allowed to speak anyway? I wish with all my heart that the assessors were right and my son could complete all the tasks they say he is capable of doing - it would make my life so much easier and my worries for his future so much less.

Kind regards to all,

Wendy

Just sending a hug from one PIP parent to another, reading your last sentence.