Assessment done. Now the wait….

Over an hour late they rang to say it would be in the next hour. Then another hour went by and I was about to phone them when they rang and said there would be further delay and did I want to continue or rebook for another day.

So I opted to continue but did manage to negotiate a later time so I could have lunch. I had been up since 6am and was tired, cranky and hungry. I was surrounded by notes and stuff everywhere and really had prepared (so I thought). I had got to the point where I could not take in any more info or stuff to remember and was just surfing the net to escape it.

Anyway, the call came, late, but by then I was refreshed, in better humour and glad to speak to them.

On the plus side - the assessment actually was not horrific or anything like that. The lady was really nice. She did not talk over me and she let me speak. She did seem to skip back and forth between sections but I was able to follow which she was on. She confirmed she is a nurse. I did not ask what specialism. She was easy to talk to and displayed empathy. I could not have wished for anything better having read some horror stories. Before I realised it, 2 hours had gone by!

On the minus side of things, despite my extensive preparations and copious notes, bullet points that alone would make a small book, I felt I had forgotten things. This was afterwards although I can’t put my finger on what. She even gave me chance at the end to ask her anything or mention anything but by then I thought we had covered it all.

I do remember getting in the key reliability criteria where it mattered along with medication side effects, pain and fatigue.

All in all it was not the scary ordeal I had feared but of course, the result is yet to come.

I decided not to use an app to record the call as I did not want to be focussed on that working etc… or not. However, I switched up the volume of my phone and used a simple voice recorder on my iPad which has captured things quite well (although rustling of papers by me did sometimes blot out her voice).

Thank you to everyone here for all the help.

I will update in due course once I get my decision.

Hi B Owl,

Fantastic - really pleased to hear you got a nice assessor! Despite my negative experiences so far, I'm happy to hear others are still getting good quality assessors who listen to them/are willing to let them speak. This is the way it should be done. Glad you recorded it too, just in case it's needed for future reference.

Fingers crossed you get the award you're hoping for x

Fingers crossed we are in the same boat as d's telephone assessment was yesterday as well. Not had the text telling me that report had gone to DWP yet though.

Great that your experience was more positive than a lot of people! And I'm glad the recording more or less worked. That could be really valuable. We tried recording but my son's phone didn't work, which is a real shame as the assessor's report bore no relation to anything we had said!
We did request, a week before the assessment, that they record it so hopefully there is a recording because if we need to go to a tribunal it will show that the assessor has not recorded anything that we said, and where she has alluded to things mentioned they are actually incorrect!! (Like referring to a 15 minute journey as 50 minutes).
Fingers' crossed for you that things go well, and do keep us informed! If you get a copy of the assessor's report it will be really interesting to see how it is. I'm sure there are big discrepancies between experiences of assessments, the quality of reports, and discrepancies in decisions.
Good luck! 🤞
Anji