PIP Re-assessment

Gordon, do you think it would be wise to send the older documents anyway/

A colleague is an assessor with Capita and she said that they have access to the older stuff, although I do understand what youre saying.

Never know if sending in too much will only confuse them and not sending it in may not help my case.

Ooooh you of little faith, of course theyll use it if they have access to it, I doubt that all of them will either.
I'll bear in mind what youve said and make a decision.

Thanks

Hi Rubyred

Having access to something does not mean that anybody uses it!

In my husbands case, along with his claim pack, we sent 9 pages of extra evidence which had it have been considered it should have been enough evidence to make a decision without a F2F assessment. Sadly that was not the case was not the case. Within 1 day of the DWP signing for the claim form, CAPITA sent out an appointment for the assessment to be carried out 4 working days later.

When the CAPITA assessor visited our home, we tried to give her 46 pages of extra evidence, including a recent 'Specialist Experts Report', fully supportive of my husbands condition. The assessor REFUSED to look at it, and said that we are allowed to refer to 1 hospital letter despite us saying that we wanted her to take all of the contents into consideration.

During my husbands assessment, the assessor spent a considerable amount of time dwelling on an old condition, which has been successfully treated enough that my husband never even mentioned in his PIP CLAIM. My husband has a far more complex disabling, permanent condition than the one the assessor was dwelling on.

At the end of the assessment, after the assessor had got up to leave, I asked her "where I do I send the 46 pages of evidence", she replied "To the DWP, but I have made notes from the hospital letter (the 1 letter that she had earlier referred to) and I shall be making some more notes.

I sent the extra evidence to the DWP by recorded delivery, which they signed for on 16th MAR. We then received their unfavourable decision dated 17th MAR.

In my opinion, I do not believe that the DM read the extra evidence before sending out her decision;

a) because I do not believe the extra evidence even reached the DM's desk before he/she rushed the decision.

b) because, my husbands condition is rare and complex, To have considered and understood the 'Specialist Experts Report' the DWP DM would not have been suitably qualified and it is quite possible that neither would a GP, had the DWP DM even bothered to consult one. Again there was not time before rushing out the decision.

So here we have a situation whereas OLD information that was no longer apparent, which was not part of my husbands PIP claim, had become something the assessor wanted to ask questions about and report on; and yet CURRENT evidence strongly supportive of my husbands CURRENT condition was of no interest to the CAPITA assessor or the DWP DM.

It would seem to me that every claim is dependant on whether your individual assessor is a genuine 'HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONAL' supportive of your needs, or has their own individual motive for assisting David Cameron in his campaign against the 'sick' and 'disabled'.

In my opinion, I would go with Gordon and send copies of any OLD and NEW evidence that you believe to be supportive of your claim. You will not be able to control which evidence CAPITA or the DM use in consideration of your claim; but if you do not provide all of your evidence they have the perfect excuse for not considering it.

Wishing you a happy outcome