Rights during assessment

My husband has his ESA face to face assessment tomorrow. He's worried they'll make him do things that will cause him pain and then say on their report that he can do them okay. Does he have the right to refuse if they ask him to do painful movements? Is there a risk they will cancel his claim if he doesn't do everything they ask?

Hello Aurora

Sorry your husband is so worried.

He need not do anything at all that he finds painful or distressing. All he needs to do is explain the problems he has and how much pain he finds in doing certain activities; the assessor should NOT try to coerce or bully him into doing anything painful or uncomfortable.

His claim can't be cancelled because he is unable to perform certain activities; the assessment is to ascertain just what he can and can't do.The assessor should not say he can perform an activity when he has said he can't. It has to be said that this does sometimes happen, but if it does, then you can query this and if necessary take the matter further. Hopefully in your husbands case this will not arise. Presumably you will be attending his assessment with him; make sure you listen to all that is said, then if there is some discrepancy you will be able to support your husband's version of what has been said.

Good luck. Let us know how you get on

Thank you. I will be there taking notes. I'll let you know how it goes.

As Shelam explained already I doubt the assessor would ask him to do anything that he would find painful or distressing.
My sister accompanied and although the questions asked predominantly aimed at me to answer, my sisters input on how my illness affects me on a day to day basis was taken into account too.

Bit too early now if your WCA is tomorrow, (not sure if you have already) but requesting a recording of the assessment gives you a little peace of mind. But you have to have this arranged prior to the assessment.
Good luck I hope it goes well for you, I know how stressful they actually can be - my own to be fair went fairly well and I got the impression the assessor did go into detail about how my illness affects me along with my evidence & checking my ESA50. It certainly wasn't rushed or anything, was in for like 50 mins

I think my husband's assessment went okay. Apparently one of their medical staff was absent so they were running late. We had to wait around 50 minutes during which time my husband's pain was building up in the awful waiting room chairs. Finally they saw him about 4.20, nearly the end of the day, and the assessor seemed to be hurrying to get through.

She said she couldn't understand why he'd even been sent for, except that they'd been waiting for a reply to a letter they sent to his doctor and it never arrived. I think they just needed some confirmation about some of his meds, which I took with us anyway. We'd already sent a lot of other medical evidence.

She raced through the questions and didn't do any kind of physical exam, or picking up cardboard boxes. She told my hubby she didn't want to keep him too long (he was clearly in pain) and we were out within twenty minutes. I'm hoping that's a good sign.
Now it's just a nervewracking wait to see if he's back in the support group.
Thanks for all the kind advice.