From my experience it is vital for claimants to understand the PIP process and especially when transferring from DLA. With PIP it is all about the impact that disability has on the specific daily living and mobility tasks mentioned in the form rather than this claimant has this particular disability which means they will will have these challenges. So, for a claimant as well as proving that they have a certain disability they will need to prove the impact that it has on them.
Of course the reality, as anyone who has made a claim for PIP knows, is that the process was designed to lead to a significant fall in those receiving PIP as opposed to DLA. This is where the ‘assessments’ come in. The ‘health professionals’ (HP) carrying them out don’t (in theory) make any clinical diagnosis they ‘assess’ the impact on the claimant in the chosen areas.
This means that if they claim there were no problems in this or that area when they saw/spoke to the claimant it is very hard to challenge when there isn’t any video/audio recording. The HP can use general descriptions to build a false ‘picture’. As an example they can say ‘claimant was well-kempt and informally dressed’ when in reality the claimant was in night clothes and hadn’t showered for over a week. How is it possible to ‘disprove’ these sort of claims without video showing the assessment?
The generalised observations can a particular problem when it comes to mental health issues. So, a HP can say ‘Claimant was polite and co-operative’, as ‘evidence’ that they didn’t have mental health issues, but the reasons given for stopping an assessment and returning the papers to the DWP can be ‘Claimant was rude and uncooperative.’ A real Catch- 22 situation.