OMG copy of capita medical report pip

kim wrote: so should I go through the report pick out the factual points then give my reply to each of them ie 1 to 10 and put my points to each one just incase the decision maker does not ring me as I have said in one of my other posts I have got an appointment in the morning with the mental health team and im going to ask them for a report or letter to confirm my mental state and then I can include this with the above information and also sorry when I had to have a home visit because I could not travel alone to the medical 90mins away should they take note of that thank you

If the DM does not phone and/or you need to progress on to a Mandatory Reconsideration then your approach needs to be slightly different. Your primary goal then will be to show that you meet the criteria for an award, supported by your evidence and finally that the assessors report is in error.

Gordon

Kim

It might be worth your writing a short letter confirming what was said in the phone call and in particular that you will be sending in additional information. You should have 4 weeks to do this but if you can do it sooner it would be better. Send the letter to the DWP that has been dealing with your claim and mark it for the attention of the Decision Maker.

If you want to make a complaint about the assessor then follow the information on the following link

www.capita-pip.co.uk/contact-us.aspx

It is important to understand that your MR and any complaint you make are separate processes, in fact it is very unlikely that a complaint will be processed before the DWP make a Decision on your MR. The two will only come back together if the complaint is upheld and the report is either withdrawn or the content accepted as having failings.

Gordon

Ken

Thank you for your post.

I feel you may have misread the advice that we give on this matter, we most certainly do not advise ignoring the content of the assessment report when responding to failed or insufficient award.

There are a number of issues that need to be considered.

First, the Decision Maker will take the view that the report is correct unless it can be shown to have fundamental flaws, whilst it is not impossible that the claimant can show that this is the case, it is unlikely within the confines of a Mandatory Reconsideration and the timescales involved.

We refer to factual information quoted by the assessor rather than their opinions, because the situation is in general black and white, either something is factual correct or not, either something happened or it did not. When challenging opinions the situation is grey, you might say that you cannot walk 20m, the assessors opinion is that you can walk more than 200m, who is correct, the person who has the problems or the person who has likely assessed 100s of claimants and is using their experience of this to derive their opinion?

If claimants feel that the assessment did not meet the standards required, then we would absolutely recommend that a formal complaint is made to the Assessment Provider, however, it is important to understand that this is a totally separate process from challenging the Decision and will have not effect on it unless the complaint is upheld. Also the timescales for a complaint do not lend themselves to the MR or Appeal process, a complaint will simply not be investigated and responded to before an MR is completed and depending on how quickly an appeal is held, may not even be completed in time for the hearing.

Finally, challenging the validity of the report is unlikely to result in an award, all that you are showing is that the assessment is inadequate, it is not impossible that this will simply result in a new assessment being required. That is why we always recommend that members concentrate first on showing that they meet the criteria for an award, before tackling the issues raised in the assessment report.

Gordon