I live in fear of being re-assessed for PIP – I’m made to feel like a liar

A woman has spoken of “living in fear” of being called for re-assessment for her disability benefit payments after being reduced to tears by multiple failures in a system she says is set up to “destroy people”.

Carol Vickers, a 47-year-old operations manager in the education sector, told i she had been left “traumatised” by her experience of the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessment system after a report on her needs contained the cut-and-pasted details of another individual. And when considering how much money Ms Vickers should receive, assessors penalised her for being able to care for her assistance dog – but gave no allowance for needing her pet in the first place.

The full-time worker from Leeds, who has multiple conditions including severe osteoarthritis and ADHD, said she had been made to feel a “lesser human” while undergoing four PIP assessments in recent years, each requiring up to 50 pages of documentation and medical records for lifelong conditions which will not improve.

She raised concerns about what she said were multiple shortcomings with the face-to-face assessments required to access PIP, a benefit designed to help those with physical and mental impairments meet the cost of living with their conditions.

The PIP system has come under scrutiny this week after the Government announced it is looking to overhaul the benefit following a rise in the number of claimants. Ministers are considering replacing PIPs with a new six-tier system of disability benefits that would see many recipients receiving less money than now. Scope, the disability charity, has described the reforms as a “reckless assault on disabled people”.

Ms Vickers, who receives a little over £300 a month in PIP for assistance with daily needs, said she was living in dread of her next assessment due shortly after her last encounter with the system in 2022.

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“There are a lot of people out there who are being destroyed by this system. I can represent myself, I’m confident and I chair committees but even I live in fear of their envelopes landing on my doorstep because you just know it’s going to be another trauma and you’re going to end up shaking and crying and being told that what you said wasn’t said.”

The education worker said she had been left anxious and despairing after being assessed by medical professionals who seemed to have no knowledge of her conditions.

She added that assessments, which are sub-contracted by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to external providers, had often been carried out in challenging circumstances, with last-minute cancellations and a requirement to attend a disability assessment centre with only one disabled parking space.

“I feel the whole system is set up to be as difficult as possible for you. It is traumatising, they make you feel like a liar and fraud. I’m not trying to con anybody out of money – what this money does is it allows me to stay in work and contribute. It keeps me useful in the world.

“The whole system seems to be set up to punish people who try hard. So the harder you try to work or socialise or integrate, the more they use that against you. If the Government wants to get people who have disabilities into work, what they need to do is support them.”

In PIP assessments, health professionals use a points system to judge how claimants’ ability to carry out certain tasks is affected by their condition. Under the current system, the benefit is made up of two payment levels, a lower or higher weekly rate, for both a daily living and a mobility component.

Disability charities have previously complained about the weighting given by assessors to what the DWP describes as “informal observations” made during an assessment about the physical appearance and capabilities of a claimant. In one previous case, a woman with Multiple Sclerosis was categorised as being able to be prepare her own meals after she had been observed to cut up a banana during her interview.

Ms Vickers said she had been repeatedly disappointed by the subjective nature of the judgments made about the impairments that affect her life. She said assessors came from backgrounds including a paramedic, an occupational therapist and a paediatric nurse but no-one with experience of her conditions.

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She said: “It’s very hard not to feel that they’re just looking for opportunities to catch you out. I’ve had one assessment where I lost points for being able to put my assistance dog’s protective boots on. But I didn’t get any points for needing an assistance dog in the first place.

“In one assessment I was in tears and asked the assessor for a tissue. I said I’m really anxious and need a minute. The assessment report said I had showed no signs of anxiety.”

She added that one of her assessment reports had been so poorly assembled that it included details of the case of another individual.

“You end up with a report that you feel doesn’t reflect who you are. I had one experience where that was literally the case. The final report came back with a passage in the middle where there was a male patient’s name and some material that had obviously been copied and pasted from another report.”

The education worker said she was concerned that those with disabilities were being demonised by attacks on a benefit which goes some way to addressing the £1,000 a month in additional expenses required to provide a disabled person with the same basic standard of living as a non-disabled person.

She said: “PIP helps me run a car, it helps me pay for adaptations to my home and it helps me pay the costs of working from home. It also pays for my assistance dog. These are all the things that keep me useful in the world. To then have to fight for them repeatedly, for conditions I have that are lifelong and are not going to go away, seems incredibly counterintuitive.”

The DWP did not respond to a request to comment on Ms Vickers’ concerns.

The department has previously insisted its overhaul of PIP is designed to respond better to individual needs. A spokesperson said: “Fairness and compassion are at the heart of our welfare system. That’s why we want to update PIP’s ‘one size fits all’ approach, recognising that people’s needs vary.”