PIP assessments are a strange place somewhere between the Great Escape and Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition

                                            

After what Reverend Mike Loach said at that event about the media demonising people with disabilities I am writing and publishing this story to explain what life is like if you are a disabled person in the UK.

For mistakes the state made before I was born I was born disabled. There is no cure for the disabilities I have and I struggle and muddle through life in constant pain and yes I work.

Eleven years ago (2008) the Department for Work and Pensions decided the nature and extent of my disabilities was so great that I was awarded a lifetime award of Disability Living Allowance.

Despite a “lifetime” award because I am aged between 16 to 65 on a date in 2013, the state decided to reassess me.

This is the story of the second, third and fourth attempt at assessment at what I will refer to as the PIP centre.

The second attempt was cancelled at about 4 hours notice and arranged to the next day. We (Leonora and I) both arrived and I sat down.

The waiting area had two potted plants, various posters (including one stating a zero tolerance to abusive or threatening language), a radio, a reception area and various rooms and corridors ran off it.

One of things I suffer from sadly is migraines – which from time to time give me shooting stars in my vision. Something in the place triggered a very bad migraine which got worse when I got up when Leonora indicated to me that we were called.

Whereas the migraine is usually just shooting stars at the edge of my vision – this time getting up and starting to walk meant my vision went all because I lack the language to describe it properly like a Salvador Dali painting on me and I nearly walked into a door.

Something like a flashing dragon or a flashing snake with a forked tongue in a zigzagging line in your visual field can be most distracting.

So then we got into a room, permission to record had been asked for and granted in advance for the original appointment.

My vision and hearing weren’t really up to any assessment at this point.

However when Leonora got the tape recorders out – which is now known as doing a “Steve McQueen” in our household – this is the closest video clip I can find to as to what happened next where everybody else starts getting way too overexcited and shouting at each other. I’m the guy in the woolly hat just looking confused – whereas she is Steve McQueen.

I might point out that the government response to the Work and Pensions Committee report on PIP and ESA assessments states (in response to a recommendation that all PIP assessments are recorded), “For PIP assessments, claimants can currently audio record their face to face assessment if they provide appropriate equipment. The equipment must generate two copies at the end of the assessment; one for the claimant, the other for the Assessment provider. Media types that are acceptable are standard CD and audio tapes only.

While this arrangement means that claimants can in theory record their assessments, in practice the complexity and potential costs to claimants means that very few take up this option. We agree that this does not go far enough to help build trust in the system and therefore we intend to make recording the PIP assessment a standard part of the process.”

So then the third appointment got rearranged to a fourth last Friday aftetrnoon.

We were kept waiting for around 2 hours past the appointment time. This time the paperwork was there for the recording and the person doing the assessment was happy for it to be recorded.

However at the fourth attempt the state has determined it is unable to assess me.

The whole way the fourth attempt started though reminded me of Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition – except replace the word Spanish with disability.

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