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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Disability benefits  →  Thread

HCP answers and points awarded

jeanette
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Welfare rights - Newcastle City Council

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I am assuming that the PIP descriptors are generated by the answers that the HCP puts in the box, the same as for the WCA. The answer is typed into the system and the computer awards points for that descriptor is this correct?

I ask because I have a PA4 which is a game of two halves, client has bi-polar disorder and many descriptors are nil points where the comments in the justification box are that the claimant said they had low mood sometimes and change their pyjamas if they have been wearing them all day.

In the other half of the report points have been scored where the HCP has entered comments on how the claimant struggled to focus and is on a high dose of antipsychotic medication, talked rapidly and was tense and anxious.

I am thinking that if the same comments had been put in all of the boxes then more points would have been generated. Can anyone give me insight into why the HCP is selective in what they put in the box or how the points are generated? It looks to me as though the HCP has decided which points do not apply and has then put lesser answers in the box.

Thanks

John Birks
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Welfare Rights and Debt Advice - Stockport Council

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I don’t think it does work like that.

The points i’d say are selected and justified by the HCP.

Words, sentences and phrases from the interview section are added to the point scoring/opinion section but I doubt there is an algorithm for that yet other wise they wouldn’t be paying HCP’s.

jeanette
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Thank you, I always thought the WCA points were generated by the statements, eg only certain drop down boxes and choices appeared depending on what was put into the system.  If this is not the case the HCP has been very selective in which statements she has used to justify the points, it looks very inconsistent and subjective.

Dan_Manville
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jeanette - 07 November 2017 03:55 PM

Thank you, I always thought the WCA points were generated by the statements, eg only certain drop down boxes and choices appeared depending on what was put into the system.  If this is not the case the HCP has been very selective in which statements she has used to justify the points, it looks very inconsistent and subjective.

The WCA selections are. PIP? I don’t know but I don’t think so.

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

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Seem to recall there was a thread about the PIP software a while back. Apologies for not finding it. My recall is that PIP software is largely manually selected radio buttons or similar followed by a small free text area. There were two issues with this.

1) Radio buttons are useless when 2 descriptors need to be summed to get to more than 50%. Anybody ever seen a case where the HCP recommended 35% on 1 plus 20% on another and thus scored the higher as per the legislation? That’s why not.

2) The free text areas appear small (two or three lines?) so get filled in to that extent only, when in fact the visible area is only a small representation of the amount of text space available. So whilst a small number of lines may be visible the HCP could actually write paras. The GUI of the software leads them to believe that isn’t an option.

[ Edited: 8 Nov 2017 at 02:14 pm by Mike Hughes ]
John Birks
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Dan Manville - 08 November 2017 09:41 AM
jeanette - 07 November 2017 03:55 PM

Thank you, I always thought the WCA points were generated by the statements, eg only certain drop down boxes and choices appeared depending on what was put into the system.  If this is not the case the HCP has been very selective in which statements she has used to justify the points, it looks very inconsistent and subjective.

The WCA selections are. PIP? I don’t know but I don’t think so.

The para refers to the OP and comparing the AoAtCOA against the WCA.

jeanette
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Welfare rights - Newcastle City Council

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Thanks, in that case it would seem that the HCP decided on the descriptors and then cherry picked the statements to back them up.

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

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A very neat summary of my take on how decision making actually works.