Hi @Macca 🙂
Yes I had fairly much the same attitude as you – nothing to lose by applying, they can only say no. I was convinced i’d have to go to appeal but thankfully, I ended up with what I thought was a fair award after mandatory reconsideration, though I would have gone to appeal if was necessary.
Fingers crossed for you at your face to face next week.
Whilst I am not advising you to, just for the sake of it, make several stops on the way from the entrance door to reception and on to the waiting room and then to the assessment room, to get your breath, steady yourself, etc. and to take your time getting there because we claimants play fair, if you feel that you need to make 2 or 3 stops or more, do so. Do not let the assessor rush you. And the same leaving the room and getting outside. Do not try to be brave and walk it all in one go if you have difficulty doing so. Using my crutches wears me out after a few steps, as does the pain from the wiring on my knee cap, so I had to stop several times, though the assessor said I managed the walk ok which was just ridiculous and physically impossible but assessors will be assessors :/
It shouldn’t be the case but many assessors leave an awful lot to be desired!
If the assessor asks you to do movements that you know will be painful for you to do, you can refuse to do them but tell the assessor that due to the pain you are unable to do the exercise, make it abundantly clear the pain is too much for you.
When I had my assessment, the assessor pointed me to a chair with no arms, if you need a chair with arms to help you push yourself up to a standing position ask for one, or ask that she/he puts the chair near enough to her desk that you can use that. As it happened with my assessment, I was accompanied and the two chairs were next to each other, the chair my helper was in had armrests and I had to use those but on my assessment report, the assessor wrote that I had managed to get up from the chair without arm rests with no trouble. So you live and learn, of course in my mandatory reconsideration letter I pointed out about having to use the arm rests on the other chair but I wish thinking back i’d asked for the chairs to be swapped, just to make the point really.
Be aware, they might ask you if you have pets and if so, they will ask you how you manage to look after them, how do you manage to walk the dog, bend to put the food down, or clean the litter tray, etc.
Anyway, fingers crossed for you, hopefully you will get a better assessor than I did, there are some very good ones out there i’m sure, just my luck to get one that wasn’t fair/honest.
If you have given DWP a mobile phone number, a couple of days after your assessment you might get a text saying they have all the info they need to make a decision. At this point you can ring the DWP and ask for a copy of the assessment report, that will give you an idea how you’ve scored. If you didn’t give them a mobile number, just phone them anyway after a few days and ask for a copy to be sent out.
Anyway Macca, good luck. I hope I haven’t worried you mentioning about the things my assessor didn’t report fairly/accurately about here but I thought it best to make you aware that this sort of thing happens.