DWP tests sharing PIP assessment reports before making a decision

Details: Published: 04 April 2024

The DWP has confirmed it is testing sharing PIP assessment reports with claimants before making a decision.

Mims Davies, DWP minister for disabled people, announced the move last month in response to a written question from Labour MP Marsha De Cordova.

Davies explained that:

“We are currently conducting a test to understand the impact of sharing assessment reports with PIP claimants by default. As part of the evaluation, we will gather insight from claimants to understand whether sharing the assessment report provides them with the opportunity to clarify evidence so that we can make the right decision as early as possible and improve trust and transparency in the decision-making process. Once the analysis of that insight is complete, we will consider next steps.”

Were easily disprovable errors made in your PIP assessment report?

Or were there outright falsehoods?

If so, would you have welcomed the chance to try to correct them and do you think it would have made any difference to the decision if you had done so?

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Charlotte · 1 months ago
I have now written two very lengthy responses to this question and have managed to lose the thread before posting on both occasions. Unfortunately this is something that occurs for me regularly in all areas of life rather frustratingly. The basic gist was that yes it would have been a much better idea to proof read the resulting report before it is put forward as i feel let down not only by the initial process of Assessment but also by the Tribunal process. The resulting statements could have been written by a complete stranger plucking a completed form out of a random hat such was the farcical nature of the system as it stands.
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SeekingAletheia · 1 months ago
My report was all falsehoods from start to finish. In the end my GP, after I’d made a formal complaint to the assessing company, spent half an hour on the phone with a manager contradicting their entire report and insisting they resubmit it to DWP with her corrections. I was simultaneously going through tribunal appeal and by the time my GP was done with them DWP awarded me top rate of both components from a previous 0 on all criteria’s. So yes, the extreme falsehoods in reporting are in fact costing DWP money not saving them when it consistently needs to be challenge by tribunal. I was fortunate to have such strong support from my GP at the that time.
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Roz · 1 months ago
I think it’s a great idea. We asked for the PIP assessors report after my daughter was refused both elements, having previously had them. Due to her disabilities our GP had supported a home assessment which was granted.
The assessor who was a nurse had written ‘able to get around the room by holding onto the back of the sofa’. This is impossible as our living room is small and the sofa is against the wall.
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Charlotte · 1 months ago
Most definitely. The reasoning for the decisions made regarding my PIP application seemed to have been plucked out of a hat by someone who had never laid eyes on me even, never mind actually carried out a lengthy face to face assessment with me at their Offices. I was awarded no points whatsoever and even after a Tribunal the results were beyond comprehension. I was eventually awarded minimum points for Mobility and zero points for Daily living. Absolutely Soul destroying. I choose not to go into detail here as it is very personal to me but needless to say had i been given the option to proof read my results before a decision was made would have saved me a whole lot of heartache and further personal and physical distress in what is still an extremely dissatisfying outcome. I feel wronged and let down by a system that should be protecting me.
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O · 1 months ago
yes ,it would help a lot.
I was refused a few years back.
But when my key-worker and we saw the cpoy of the assessment it was fiction . They said htat in a telephone call, (there never was a phone call, plus the date they said it was was on a sunday), they said that i had said on the phone that i lived on shop bought sandwiches, which again i never said because there was never a phone call in the first place as the form i filled in was with the help of the cAB at their office !
If we had had a copy of their assessment bofore they had been able to made their decision we could have taken that apart.
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Jason · 1 months ago
When receiving a copy of the report after a decision has been made, really undermines trust between claimant and assessor.
From the initial visual overview of claimant recorded by the assessor you feel wronged. You know all to well how you felt internally, externally and how well you managed to conduct yourself within the assessment and whether you managed to explain your condition and how it affects your personal independence.
What it takes to face an assessment and what happens to you physically/mentally following an assessment.
It's so difficult when social communication is at the forefront of your disability. 'Masking' is a real thing but it comes at a mental and physical cost that the Assessor has not seen and may not understand or recognise if they did
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Bart · 1 months ago
Yes! I requested a copy of the assessment done via phone and discovered the nurse hadn’t listened to most if the answers given to her questions and actually made stuff up in the answers! I mean luckily for me the main points she backed me up on and my claim went through. Although I do wish I had done a mandatory request as I was one point from higher living because she choose to say I needed help washing in the shower rather help getting in and out! Even though I need both! But on the waiting list for my reassessment since Oct 23 never know it might be done by Christmas!
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Sheila 966 · 1 months ago
It would certainly help - In my recent experience it has been brought home to me just how inadequate the assessment process can be, being reliant on a number of factors;

1) whether the assessor has actually familiarised themselves with the case

2) whether the assessor has any knowledge of the claimants disability - it certainly helps when you are assessed by someone who has knowledge of the problem

3) It is very easy to forget to elaborate/confirm/build upon answers to assessors questions with assessors asking 'closed questions'

I am sure that there are many other variables that have an impact on the quality of the PA4, certainly a lot of us are overly anxious during the assessment and will only realise how inadequate some of our answers are when listening to our recording, (if you have requested one), or reading the PA4 once it arrives on the doormat!

In our case, we have been able to do just that - we have viewed the PA4, disputed & clarified before the decision maker has looked at the report ......................

We received the PA4 approx 2 weeks after the assessment - I put in a full complaint, disputing both the comments and scores made by the assessor, this was sent to Capita within 24hrs and copied to the DWP.

It is now 8 weeks since the assessment and we've not heard anything, my daughters paperwork has been allocated to a case worker but is still in a queue;

Two scenarios here:

1) The Caseworker/Decisionmaker
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Fionn · 1 months ago
Blimey, has DWP finally come up with a half sensible idea? The cynic in my back brain suspects it's to test how much skill and determination they're up against, but it might be quicker than a tribunal.
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Rosie · 1 months ago
I have always asked the DWP for a copy of the report a few days after the assessment. Unfortunately they are so slow in responding that I only received it ONCE before I actually got the decision letter! On that occasion I sent a letter straight back disagreeing with two of the findings; I received a response from them a few weeks later in which they referred to my letter as a "mandatory reconsideration request", which, of course, it wasn't; it was a pre-emptive strike on my part! Knowing what the report contained in advance of receiving their decision certainly gave me the feeling that I had some modicum of control over the decision making progress.

Every single report that I have received since 2010 (6 I think) has contained omissions, inaccuracies and references to questions never asked and answers never given. Twice I managed to get the decision changed from Standard to Enhanced without having to go to a tribunal. What I particularly remember is the increased stress and the negative impact on my mental state while I waited for their decision.
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UB40 Rumrunner · 1 months ago
Anyone enlarge on exactly what this all means, sharing the report with the claimant about what, and for what purpose? The claimant will have already filled in the report and given any appropriate evidence so why PIP decision makers need to have it reconfirmed again, before making a decision. Now i bet I, and no doubt many others, will be wondering exactly just as to why ?

The PIP reports can be accessed by a claimant after any assessment, so why this new need to be having extra pre chats? The cynic in me has a good idea, but would like to hear what others feel is the case.
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  Neet M · 1 months ago
  
  @UB40 Rumrunner See my post above… it would save one big stressful step for people like myself - repeatedly having to wait for a reduced decision (and being paid less benefit) whilst applying for mandatory reconsideration by going step by step to pull apart an inaccurate and/or untruthful report before being put back on the original higher award
  
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  Ilo · 1 months ago
  
  @UB40 Rumrunner This is to view the report the assessor has written, not the application form
  
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  Charlotte · 1 months ago
  
  @UB40 Rumrunner Basically so that the Claimant can make sure they have been represented correctly on the form that will ultimately be the deciding factor for their case.
  
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Porridge · 1 months ago
I always record and transcribe any and all interactions with the DWP, including assessments. Even if I have to do it without telling them. In my experience assessment reports are usually conducted and produced by so-called “healthcare professionals” who have got no understanding of my disabilities at all and they usually contain large amounts of factual inaccuracies very easily proved when I have supplied the DWP with the recording of the assessment. Even artificially intelligent assessors would be better than the bunch of liars and idiots which are given a good salary to assess people for disability benefits. I think that they are “incentivised” to downgrade as many claimant’s benefits entitlements as possible or are otherwise trained specifically to be cynical about what claimants say during their assessments.

They are even sniffy and dismissive of hard evidence such as scans and chronically poor blood test results. I guess the government just cannot afford to provide benefits for the swelling numbers of genuinely disabled people and instead of owning-up to that and asking the nation what it wants to do about it,, it instead punishes disabled and sick people by forcing them through a cynical and harrowing application and assessment procedure/assault course instead.
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Annoyed · 1 months ago
Outright lies in mine. I told her my sister was just parking up as she had to leave me at the door because I couldn't walk that far. She downgraded my pip from high rate on both to nothing and stated I walked by myself without help from the carpark when she knew fine well that I didn't!
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Sara · 1 months ago
It would be interesting to see whether sharing 'by default' gives the claimant's comments on the report greater weight than that accorded currently when the claimant asks for a copy of the report and challenges it.
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anees292 · 1 months ago
Not a bed idea? Hope something good for us.
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denby · 1 months ago
Oh YES!!!! daughter "coped well with the assessment and did not appear distressed" [PA4] On our recording she is audibly snuffling most of the way through and crying in multiple places. Because we had the recording we were able to win at appeal, but will they take any notice of claimants who get the report and disagree, especially if [like, is it most?] they haven't got a recording?
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  Charlotte · 1 months ago
  
  @denby I really wish that i had recorded my Assessment now.
  
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Dolly · 1 months ago
Well it certainly would have helped me when an assessor described my one to one art psychotherapy as an 'art class' & gave me 0 points for engaging with others. I was too unwell to cope with an appeal so I lost a lot of money for 4 years. On reassessment I now get 8 points which means I now get EDL instead of SDL. Cost me £50 pw for 4 years and she also removed my SRM. I think that if this works it could help a lot of people who currently aren't capable of engaging with the MR & appeals processes. However I cannot but be scared that somehow this must be a way to save money on their part, so I don't expect it to work in our favour in practice... It might just end up being yet another hurdle. I imagine something like "didn't reply in time, claim closed" or some other such slight of hand...
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