Bending or kneeling descriptor

Hi,

I'm just wondering from those who have been to tribunal if you're generally believed when pointing out omissions and inaccuracies in the atos report?

I feel pretty much stuck in proving that I needed to hold onto a table in order to be able to crouch when in the report it just says 'can crouch to floor and stand up again'.

Having read a case on the internet sent to Upper Tribunal it seems to have been decided that it is not valid to say someone can crouch when they need to hold onto furniture to do this. My back was also rigid when I carried out this action and so picking something of off the floor would not have been an option since I could not get down that far.

I mentioned in an earlier post that in the atos report it does say I 'did not bend forward to touch knees' which in theory should score 15 points but for that whole descriptor category I scored 0.

I'm just trying to cover all angles that the tribunal may come from. There are so many other points from the report that I need to argue but I feel that the bending and kneeling descriptor should be the more clear cut one.

I did also note that in the ESA guidebook it says that In certain functional areas, the descriptors do not conform to a simple hierarchical progression. In these areas the descriptor chosen should be that which most accurately reflects the highest level of disability experienced by the claimant. Because of this they could say that since I could crouch not being able to touch my knees was the lesser disability. I'm supposing this is the only argument they could use as regards to not awarding points.

This is quite a long post but I was wondering if anyone thinks this is a point they could realistically argue?

Thank you in advance for any replies.

Having just been through a Tribunal and been successful, my advice is to stick to the facts of your medical evidence not on that against you ie. Atos report

I seeked advice on this very point as there were so many factual inaccuracies in my Atos medical report. However, I was firmly told Not to try and discredit the Atos Doctor as it wont get you anywhere.

Get as much medical evidence based on the things you can't do ie. bending, rather than trying to argue against their findings.

Hope this advice helps.

That's a very good point. I suppose it would be easy to get bogged down trying to discredit the atos report. I think it would also make me quite angry and might start a bit of a rant in the tribunal. I shall try an avoid this. Thanks.

The one difficulty I have is that I am now 6 months on from the assessment and so realistically the only person who saw the difficulties I had in carrying out certain descriptors was the atos assessor.

I just feel it's an unfair to get my doctor to sign something saying I couldn't bend when in fact at the time of the assessment he hadn't seen me trying.

I have all my xrays up until and after the date of assessment and the first physio report which was the day before assessment. Nothing specifically fits with descriptors though.