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PIP Health Care professional had treated claimant
Client had a PIP medical that was undertaken by a physiotherapist who had treated him earlier this year. They recognised each other. My client did not object at the time but considers the assessment should have been done by an independent person. My client says their relationship was strained when he was a patient.
At this stage I am seeking to establish if there is guidance, either from the Dwp or Atos [Independent Assessment Services], as to what procedure the HCP should have followed. I cannot see anything relevant in the PIP Assessment Guide [but it is a large document].
I am aware that a option might be to seek a Direction from a judge but an appeal has not been made yet and I wish to explore the internal guidance of Dwp/Atos.
interesting.
to my mind, the hcp should have recused himself for cause.
in medico legal work, you would never instruct a treating physician/whatever to provide a report, and the court would criticise you if you did (unless, of course, the condition was so rare that there was no choice, and there’s not many conditions that rare)
i should be exceedingly surprised if a tribunal didn’t take the same view
and frankly, i should also be exceedingly surprised if ATOS etc and DWP don’t have rules/procedures governing the exact situation.
after all, they’d be sharp complaining if their hcp was highly favourable to the claimant knowing for a fact (through previous treatment sessions) that the claimant did in fact satisfy the conditions.
one always wants someone independent.
interesting.
in medico legal work, you would never instruct a treating physician/whatever to provide a report, and the court would criticise you if you did (unless, of course, the condition was so rare that there was no choice, and there’s not many conditions that rare)
Do you know how that would work from a different perspective? Say, if a respondent put us to proof that someone was disabled for the purposes of the EQA. Would an excerpt from their medical records suffice or are independent reports a given?
This is relevant now as with the damages tariff for EQA infractions changing this might be pivotal to whether pursuing certain claims is feasible.
So, I trawled through the provider guidance, which is a very handy document indeed for all sorts of reasons DWP clearly haven’t anticipated. There’s an awful lot of detail on training and standards but next to nothing on conflict of interest. The only thing I can find is at 4.5.8 where it refers to what makes a report fit for purpose and starts with
“The criteria are that reports will be
1 Fair and impartial. “
This is unfortunately in a section about when a report should be “reworked”. When it comes to those matters to be considered at the outset of the assessment there is silence. An astonishing omission given the useful levels of detail included elsewhere.
At 4.6.2 is also says that
“Where a medical member of an appeal tribunal identifies that an assessment report is below the standard expected of providers, they may consider giving feedback on the report to the provider in question. The criteria are that reports will be:
• Fair and impartial”
I would guess that the number of times this has actually occurred would be somewhere between “nil” and “digruntled ex employee of ATOS/Capita/Maximus sitting as part of a tribunal panel”. Probably still nil.
Conflict of interest is not listed at 4.7.3 as a “Serious Complaint” although to be fair nor is it explicitly excluded.