Role of Appointee in PIP Assessment

My wife has MS. It causes cognitive and memory issues. She has strong medical letters confirming this. Her PIP assessment will happen in a couple of weeks. I have now been made her appointee.

Obviously I will be present at the assessment. If I were there just as a companion, I would only have a secondary, supportive role. However, as appointee I understand I will have a primary role in the assessment process. Please could someone explain the effect and parameters of my role, ie what can or should I do in dealing with matters that will be put by the assessor, bearing in mind my wife's memory and cognitive issues, and that when under stress she can have major problems in speaking - her voice goes into spasm.

All advice would be welcome.

Thank you for that Gordon.

The DWP representative came today to formalise my appointeeship. Also today, my wife received the letter from ATOS confirming the assessment in a couple of weeks, at home. Strictly, they are obliged to serve it on the appointee, but I shall tell them I will forgo that unless they are still legally obliged to serve it on me.

Matters about her health and wellbeing are fully dealt with in the claim. There is a total of five reports/letters from medical practitioners. I obtained them myself rather than simply provide names in the claim form.

I fully take your point about working with the assessor, but, first and foremost, I must protect my wife. For example, even though the meeting with the lady about the appointee today was anything but stressful so far as I was concerned, my wife's left leg went into an uncontrollable spasm. That is the sort of thing that happens. I should also say that I totally prepared her claim. She could not possibly have done so. It includes 18 pages of detailed notes about her disability and how it affects her. She went down with MS over 60 years ago. It was wrongly diagnosed as polio at that time. I shall certainly allow the assessor to ask questions, unless the point is already dealt with in the claim. Moreover, her memory can be so weak, that she forgets the most basic of things. One example is that earlier this year she fell full length in our sitting room and was very badly shaken. She does not even remember it.

According to the law, appointees 'stand in the shoes' of the claimant and can sign forms, make appeals and generally deal with benefits claims as if it were their own.

Obviously, I hope we will be successful at this stage, but I would have no problem in taking the matter to a tribunal if I had to: I might even enjoy it. In my professional life, I appeared many times as an advocate at public inquiries and tribunals.

Any further advice would be most welcome.

Gordon,

Thank you for your further advice. ATOS were already aware that the appointeeship was in the offing.

I put in a covering letter when I sent in the claim It mentioned that I already had had two conversations with DWP staff, but I wanted further advice from them about being made an appointee. That was underlined in red. It was totally ignored. Instead, they sent the papers straight to ATOS and within a couple of weeks of submitting the claim, we received a letter from ATOS making today the assessment day. Bearing in mind that the DWP were ( and still are saying) that the delay is usually around 16 weeks, I was amazed. I spent umpteen hours on the phone last week trying to unravel it. In terms of access and contact and ability, the DWP PIP people are the worst I have ever come across in all my life. It would be easier to smash a granite rock with a feather. DWP would not speak to ATOS, and I finished up relaying messages backwards and forwards. I don't mind being adversely affected in terms of my health, which is not good, but I resent it when my wife has been brought to tears because of the incompetence of the PIP branch of the DWP. I have already told them that I am referring the matter to our MP.

I feel sorry for anyone who has to have contact with DWP about anything that is not totally straightforward. But what a remarkable contrast it was in relation to the lady about the appointeeship. She could not have been more helpful and sympathetic.

I have no intention of going on the defensive, but I will not be messed about either. If something has been clearly dealt with in the claim, I will not allow probing of that unless there is good reason.

Thanks again.

If anyone has experience of attending assessments as an appointee, I would appreciate learning of their experience.