[joss]

FAILURE TO ATTEND PIP TELEPHONE ASSESSMENT
Claimants who fail to attend a PIP telephone assessment will face having their claim ended, in spite of the pandemic, the DWP revealed in its pre-Christmas edition of Touch base.

When telephone assessments were introduced for PIP last March, the DWP said it would not to take any action against claimants who did not attend a scheduled assessment.

However, from the week commencing 14 December the DWP have warned that:

“PIP telephone assessment appointment letters will make it clear that claimants must attend their telephone appointment. FTA [Failure To Attend] action will apply, e.g. benefit may be stopped for those who have been issued with this letter and fail to attend without good reason.”

The DWP have said that no-one will have their support stopped without being contacted first to ask them to explain why they didn’t attend.

But if the claimant cannot show a good reason why they didn’t attend, or didn’t take part in, their assessment then their PIP is likely to be stopped.

There is a right of appeal against any such decision.

Worryingly, Benefits and Work has heard from claimants who never received a call from the assessor, in spite of waiting by their telephone at the correct time.

In some cases the assessor then claimed that they had repeatedly called the claimant but not received an answer.

For example, one member told us:

“Capita did not call. My appointment was at 11.45, I waited and no call was received. I phoned them at 1215hrs and was told that I had failed to attend for my assessment and that they had called 3 times!”

Another member told us:

“Appointment at 11.45am. Called capita at 12.05 an was told assessor had rang 3 times and no answer, no missed calls on my phone. I didn’t receive any and was told assessor no wrote no show . . .”

These are both claimants who, under the new procedures, would have faced the possibility of their claim being ended through absolutely no fault of their own.

There is detailed advice in our PIP claims guide on how to prepare for a telephone assessment, including how to ensure the assessor’s call isn’t blocked, what action to take if the call doesn’t arrive and how to obtain evidence from Capita and IAS (Atos) that will help to show whether any calls were actually made.

We have updated our PIP claims guide to warn about the change in DWP policy.

We strongly advise anyone with an upcoming PIP assessment to be fully prepared for the possibility that they may not get called, but still be blamed for having failed to attend their assessment.

My advice is: If this  happens to you, then I suggest that you look through you telephone logs to check if the DWP health professional has actually made the call they claim to have. To do this just got to your telephone providers website, and log into your account. You will find all calls logged in there. Use this as evidence. when challenging DWP that no such call was made from them.

Joss
*** ***
Current car BMW X2 2.0i Sport sDrive Auto 2019 with Sport pack
Last car Ford Focus Titanium 1.5 TDCI
Builder of Gaming PC's

Topic

[martinod]

joss i read that in my email today thats bad ,  so that they can get through their work load all they need to do is say they tried to phone you , what chance do claiments have . they always seem to try new tactics yet no missed called its very suspect ,

but they wouldn’t do that that would be unethical  would they

 

[joss]

Sadly martin it has been proven that this is what DWP are resorting too.

Joss
*** ***
Current car BMW X2 2.0i Sport sDrive Auto 2019 with Sport pack
Last car Ford Focus Titanium 1.5 TDCI
Builder of Gaming PC's

[martinod]

i would have thought there would have been a lot more interest in this topic

[Tharg]

This does not surprise me in the slightest. The whole PIP exercise was founded using malicious lies to bash the cripps who have the very NERVE to need help with mobility. Fight back as hard as you can. In one’s youth the only way to deal with bullying thugs was to hit them harder than they hit you. So try to do this, but figuratively – a more physical approach would no doubt bring out newly formed armed PIP response squads.

[Wigwam]

There is no question the PIP scheme is being mismanaged – for which it’s time someone was held to account.  But the move from DLA to PIP was driven by the desire to address the legacy of the Thatcher era which put thousands of unemployed people on disability benefits to massage the unemployment figures. As usual a moderate aim became a monster when the civil service promised too much and it was handed over to a greedy and uncaring private sector to manage.

[Author]

Replies