A claimant who secretly recorded his personal independence payment (PIP) assessment and provided a transcript to a tribunal has won his appeal against a disability living allowance (DLA) to PIP transfer decision, the BBC has reported.
Nev Cartwright, 45, received DLA because of breathing difficulties caused by a lung tumour which led to his left lung being removed.
Last year he was told to attend a mdical to assess him for PIP instead of DLA. Because he had seen a programme the night before questioning the fairness of PIP assessments, Nev decided to secretly record the interview on his mobile phone.
As a result of the assessment Nev lost his higher rate mobility and had to return his Motability car.
When he read the PIP assessors report he realised that there was information missing and other details such as his peak flow reading, had been altered. The effect was to make Nev seem much more mobile than he actually was.
Nev had a professional company write a transcript of his assessment recording and asked to be allowed to submit it as evidence for his appeal.
The DWP tried to prevent the transcript being admitted by the tribunal, but they failed and the transcript was taken into account. As a result Nev won his case and now has his Motability vehicle again.
Given the very costly restrictions attempt to place on openly recording your PIP assessment, it is not surprising that some claimants turn to doing so covertly. Although we have had members who have used relatively inexpensive cassette recorders at their assessment.
It is not illegal to secretly record your assessment.
But if you are caught doing so and refuse to stop, the interview is likely to be ended and you will be held by the DWP to have failed to take part in the assessment with the result that you will not be awarded PIP.
We’d be very interested to hear from readers who have considered secretly recording their PIP assessment and what decision you made in the end.
If you decided against it, what was the reason? If you went ahead, did it go smoothly and did you make use of the recording?
You can comment below or drop us an email – we may publish it, but without identifying you.
You can read the full story of Nev’s secret PIP recording on the BBC website.
