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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Disability benefits  →  Thread

Serco script for call handlers during PIP1 call

Daphne
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Stakeholders have raised with PIP that it is not clear to claimants when they make PIP1 call that it is helpful to send in evidence. They have given us Serco script and asked for suggestions for any improvements that could be made. They want comments by next Monday 9 August so if you have any post them here and I will pass them on.

You will need to complete the form and return it with copies of supporting information that explains how your health condition or disability affects you carrying out day-to-day activities. By supporting information, we mean things like social care plans, reports from health professionals, prescription lists, test results and statements from carers or family members.  Please only send photocopies, not originals.

The date to return everything by will be printed on the front of the form.

Arrange any help you need to complete the form or collect your supporting information now, because we may end your claim if it’s not returned in time.

Do you understand what happens next and what you need to do now?

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

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First issue for me is that it asks for “copies of supporting information that explains how your health condition or disability affects you carrying out day-to-day activities.” as a separate thing to the PIP 2 and that’s wholly reflected in the claimants I come across. They become obsessed with the evil DWP who cannot possibly have turned them down for PIP given the amount of “supporting information” they provided and especially because “it’s what they asked for”.

It totally fails to emphasise that the most significant element of the form is actually using the PIP 2 to “explains how your health condition or disability affects you carrying out day-to-day activities” before you get onto supporting evidence which enhances that.

Second issue is the phrase “how your health condition or disability affects you carrying out day-to-day activities.”

The problem this leads to endlessly is the belief that you’re being asked “Can you do this? Yes or no?”

That line desperately needs to be changed to

““how your health condition or disability affects you carrying out day-to-day activities reliably.” accompanied by a brief plain English explanation of what “reliably” means. I have found that talking claimants through form filling with an emphasis on whether they can do something reliably and accompanied by 1 or 2 recentish real world detailed anecdotal examples very much changes the claimants perception of the PIP 2 and their ability to understand and complete it without further support. 

Finally I would not have that list lead with “social care plans”. It encourages reliance on a document which details the current level of met need rather than the current level of actual need. Yes it can be indicative but often it is nowhere near and, again, it is utterly inexplicable to claimants why their claim falls over despite including a care plan etc. The focus is constantly towards “here’s your list of magic bullets” rather than “You need to get the PIP 2 right”.

Bcfu
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Blackpool Centre For Unemployed

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Mike Hughes - 03 August 2021 03:18 PM

First issue for me is that it asks for “copies of supporting information that explains how your health condition or disability affects you carrying out day-to-day activities.” as a separate thing to the PIP 2 and that’s wholly reflected in the claimants I come across. They become obsessed with the evil DWP who cannot possibly have turned them down for PIP given the amount of “supporting information” they provided and especially because “it’s what they asked for”.

It totally fails to emphasise that the most significant element of the form is actually using the PIP 2 to “explains how your health condition or disability affects you carrying out day-to-day activities” before you get onto supporting evidence which enhances that.

Second issue is the phrase “how your health condition or disability affects you carrying out day-to-day activities.”

The problem this leads to endlessly is the belief that you’re being asked “Can you do this? Yes or no?”

That line desperately needs to be changed to

““how your health condition or disability affects you carrying out day-to-day activities reliably.” accompanied by a brief plain English explanation of what “reliably” means. I have found that talking claimants through form filling with an emphasis on whether they can do something reliably and accompanied by 1 or 2 recentish real world detailed anecdotal examples very much changes the claimants perception of the PIP 2 and their ability to understand and complete it without further support. 

Finally I would not have that list lead with “social care plans”. It encourages reliance on a document which details the current level of met need rather than the current level of actual need. Yes it can be indicative but often it is nowhere near and, again, it is utterly inexplicable to claimants why their claim falls over despite including a care plan etc. The focus is constantly towards “here’s your list of magic bullets” rather than “You need to get the PIP 2 right”.

The second point of Mike’s response is extremely important and is my biggest issue (more so than the other points). Once I’ve spent time explaining what reliably means it gives the bigger picture.

An short explanation that still entitled if you have good days would also be useful.

 

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

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I would absolutely not get into “good days” etc. DWP and HCPs hear “good days” as days when you have absolutely no issues at all and following on from that infer that some of your problems on the “bad days” are likely partially in your head. I used to get into “good” and “less good” and then fell down a rabbit hole of what terminology might best describe those periods before realising it’s not something you need to engage with at all. It is enough to describe at length the variations in functionality and anecdotal examples of how that might impact without getting into subdivisions like days.

So, for example, ankle flexion might vary between 10 degrees and 30 degrees. All that needs to be added to that is that it’s 10 degrees more than 50% of the time. When it’s 10 degrees it impacts “thus” but even when it’s 30 degrees it impacts “thus and thus”. Poor health doesn’t usually neatly subdivide into days. It is highly likely a claimant could start a day with 30 degrees of flexion and have less than 10 degrees simply because of one wrong movement. 

When pressed in depth I have yet to find a claimant who has an entirely “good day” in any sense. It’s a false construct.