A typical day

Please some explain what is a typical day when assesing LCW?

There’s a joke in there somewhere, but it isn’t Friday.

I don’t wish to be awkward or obtuse but is that a rhetorical question?

If there is no definition available by way of caselaw etc, Commissioners [Judges] usually give things their everyday meaning.  The Oxford Dictionaries offers the following:

  Adjective - Typical
 
  1 Having the distinctive qualities of a particular type of person or thing:
  ‘a typical day’
  ‘a typical example of 1930s art deco’
  ‘typical symptoms’

Not sure if this helps much but I hope it does.

Thank you.

Patrick

One thing it is not however, is an “exceptional” day.

Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) all too often misrepresent exceptional days where, for instance, a claimant might be able to do their washing because they’re having a rare “good day” as “typical” days.

Apposite questioning by or before a Tribunal can illustrate this effect very well and that is one skill of a good representative.

Another thing ATOS HCP’s do is to assume that just because someone can physically dress themselves they never take into account the mental effect of actually having to do it.

eg the motivation it takes to actually start to get dressed and then taking hours to choose what clothes to wear.

If it helps, from the WCA Handbook:

3.1.3.10 The Typical Day

Although not always easy to elicit, a careful and well-focused history of a typical day will greatly help you in completing the rest of the report. If you obtain and record appropriate information at this stage, it will provide you with factual evidence of the claimant’s abilities, which you can then use to support your choice of descriptor. It is important to obtain sufficient detail in order to enable you to address any inconsistencies in the typical day history in your justification of descriptors in the Personalised Summary Statement.

You must write this section in the third person. It is a record of the claimant’s everyday life, without interpretation by the medical examiner. You should make it clear that this is the claimant’s account of his abilities and not your opinion. It is also a factual description of how the claimant’s condition affects them in day to day life as elicited by careful interview, using the recommended techniques referred to in the relevant section of this handbook. Properly completed, it is of great help to the Decision Maker.

The account of the “Typical day” should be particularly focused on the areas of activity which the claimant claims are affected by their medical conditions, and areas likely to be so affected. For example in cases of shoulder pain, bear in mind activities which involve reaching and lifting and carrying. These activities are required in personal care tasks, and domestic and leisure activities. You should give specific examples of activities, e.g. “says she manages to self care independently and is able to wash her hair in the shower using both arms”.

See also the paragraphs in relation to completing the section on activities of daily living. When exploring the typical day, you should also ensure you cover activities relevant to Support Group inclusion such as the person’s ability to eat/drink/swallow.

Avoid making a statement such as “Can only walk 50 metres” as this may well be taken as fact by the Decision Maker or the Appeal Tribunal. Better would be; “Says he only walks 50 metres”, then give an example of what the claimant actually does, as far as walking is concerned, on an average day: “Walks to the shops and back (about 200 metres in all) but says he has to stop at least twice due to back pain”.

At an early stage of the examination you may have identified a mental function problem. Remember that many of the Mental Function Assessment descriptors can also be completed as a result of this exploration of the claimant’s day-to-day life, and completing them will be very much easier if you keep in mind the seven areas involved, ..

It’s rather telling that the example provided of focusing on “the areas of activity which the claimant claims are affected by their medical conditions” is an example of an activity that the claimant CAN do, rather than one s/he can’t.

The ‘typical day’ sometimes appears to be a list of activities which in reality are exceptional rather than typical, at least all on the same day. I suspect that if I had an Atos assessment on my birthday, then my “typical day” might include eating cake and blowing out candles.

Reminds me of my client who had overdosed the night before her Atos medical and had only been discharged from hospital a few hours before attending ATOS.  ESA85 recorded all of that but nevertheless noted “no plans of self harm”.  Correct, I suppose, in the sense of the very here and now.  Typical hour more like.

All we can say with certainty is that the day of your Atos medical is not a typical but a perfect day.  Customers often can be heard saying of the HCP “I’m glad I spent it with you”.

Thank you so much Patrick Hill, DMenville, Steve_h, Craven CAB welfare benefits & Tom H. Great help that I always receive from rightsnet discussion forum. 
In DWP submission (bundle) DM often say something like ‘on a typical day claimant can drive and do ....’ I always wondered what it means !!!
My perception was A Typical day would be a bad day or a day when client is affected by their medical conditions and not able to function. So I was wrong.

The ‘typical day’ is at odds with Reg 34(2) (majority of time or occasion) unless your typical day exactly reflects variations in need and adaptability that might occur week to week (or whatever period might be appropriate in the particular case). How can a ‘typical day’ address the majority of occasion limb of Reg 34(2), unless you are attempting X activity every day?

It is even more of a nonsense in relation to PIP (although also commended by the PIP Assessment Guide), because of the one year ‘required period’ of assessment. Makes it even more important that claimants are briefed to resist these type of queries where they undermine accurate assessment.