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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Disability benefits  →  Thread

To bend or not to bend, that is the question

Brian JB
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Advisor - Wirral Welfare Rights Unit, Birkenhead

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Total Posts: 472

Joined: 18 June 2010

I rarely take to these pages to let off some steam, but ....

Client attends PIP assessment. Has had arthrodesis of right knee - there is still a 27inch metal rod in his leg. HCP asked him to bend his right leg - client explained that he couldn’t.

PA4 shows clinical finding that he could bend right knee to 120 degrees.

Understandably, client thought the assessment may have been less than accurate.

We wrote to IAS to point out the error and to ask whether a reviewing medical officer could look at the case again in view of this error, and advise whether any different descriptors would have been recommended.

Reply to our “complaint” contains the usual one and a half pages of explanation about why a PIP consultation is not the same as a GP or hospital doctor examination, then goes on to say the case was reviewed by the HCP’s manager as well as their clinical support lead (described as a “senior clinician occupying a supervisory clinical role”).

Their conclusion - report had clear and robust justification for choice of mobility descriptor; the MSO was carried out and documented; client was scored for aids based on restrictions to his lower left leg; knee flexion was shown in the right lower limb and displayed in the examination as stated in the report!!

There follows the usual “we are unable to reconcile the differing accounts, etc, etc

And no, the HCP wasn’t Uri Geller

Mike Hughes
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Senior welfare rights officer - Salford City Council Welfare Rights Service

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Total Posts: 3138

Joined: 17 June 2010

I’m sure we’ve all had similar. I heard of a person without any vision being given a Snellen reading. Not much to “reconcile” there but…

I’ve also realised through a series of complaints that the MSE outcomes are compiled not just from the in room conversation but from the walking with the claimant to the room etc.