PIP Assessment Issues

Hi

I’m hoping someone can give me some advice and/or let me know if they’ve experienced this issue.

Our client went for telephone assessment for PIP on 15/3/21 which went quite well with the client being advised likely to score enhanced for both components. She waited a few weeks and called the DWP when she hadn’t heard - she was then told that another assessment had taken placed but this was done as a paper-based assessment.

The main difference between these assessment is the type of medical evidence used. Client have private healthcare and very rarely sees her GP who I don’t think knows most of her health conditions.

The telephone assessment went on the private medical evidence whilst the paper-based assessment went on her evidence from her GP only. To make matters worse, DWP are dragging their feet and continuing to ask for more medical evidence.

Has anyone experienced this before and is there anything I can do before we receive a decision? Obviously if it turned down then we have grounds for appeal etc.

Thanks Adam

There are a couple of ways that new or amended assessment reports are produced. Sometimes the reports are sent for ‘scrutiny’ which is basically a file review/quality check. Other times the decision maker will ask for further advice, for instance if there is a suggestion that the descriptors haven’t been correctly applied or there is some new evidence. The DM is ultimately entitled to prefer whichever version of the report they want to or discard them all and reach a different view.

As to if there is something you can do - probably not really. I suppose you could use the mandatory reconsideration as an oppurtunity to argue that the first more favourable report is more reliable for whatever reason.

Something to consider is that DWP appeal responses do not always include all the iterations of the report as they should. It is worth looking at the authorship data on the last page of the PA4. Occasionally this will demonstrate that the report has been amended by someone other than the assessor. If the original and amended versions aren’t included in the papers, you can ask for directions accordingly.