very stressed indeed

I had a PIP face to face assessment in my home last November. It was with Capita, rather than Atos, but as with steffi, it only took place in one room and the HCP never asked to go into any other rooms.

I wonder if it may even be a policy to not enter other rooms so it does not place a claimant at a (dis)advantage compared to those who have to visit an assessment centre who would be unable to show the HCP the aids/appliances/special layout of other rooms.

I know this doesn't apply to you, Cat, but for anyone else, if you explicitly want the HCP to see any aids or appliances ordinarily in other rooms, my suggestion would be to move them into the room where the assessment will take place (assuming it's a home assessment, as it may not be practical to cart them to a venue) if at all possible, that way the assessor will definitely see them even if they don't venture into any other rooms. Failing that, take photographs. I showed the HCP a series of photographs at my assessment and she mentioned that they were very helpful indeed - this is despite the information booklet suggesting that photos are unnecessary.

steffi wrote: Hi,
As in my recent post I had a home visit which lasted 2 1/2 hours and was all endured in the one room even though I have special washing facilities and cooking aids as stated on my form she never asked to see any other part of the house despite being there so long.
Hope that helps
Effie : )

Thanks steffi Great that your visit was straightforward, but wow that was a long visit; no wonder you wrote 'endured'! Thanks so much for reassurance; helps a lot.

Jonathan wrote: I had a PIP face to face assessment in my home last November. It was with Capita, rather than Atos, but as with steffi, it only took place in one room and the HCP never asked to go into any other rooms.

I wonder if it may even be a policy to not enter other rooms so it does not place a claimant at a (dis)advantage compared to those who have to visit an assessment centre who would be unable to show the HCP the aids/appliances/special layout of other rooms.

I know this doesn't apply to you, Cat, but for anyone else, if you explicitly want the HCP to see any aids or appliances ordinarily in other rooms, my suggestion would be to move them into the room where the assessment will take place (assuming it's a home assessment, as it may not be practical to cart them to a venue) if at all possible, that way the assessor will definitely see them even if they don't venture into any other rooms. Failing that, take photographs. I showed the HCP a series of photographs at my assessment and she mentioned that they were very helpful indeed - this is despite the information booklet suggesting that photos are unnecessary.

Thanks Jonathan Glad you've got yours over with, and hope it went well. Sounds right about there may be a policy in order to not disadvantage those attending assessment centres. Great ideas to have anything needed in the one room, and for people to take photos with them. I have the adapted bathroom, and just a microwave etc, and can make sure any other things are there on display. Thanks again.

It went very well, thanks. It took exactly one hour and led to an award of the enhanced rate of both components, which is something I never managed to achieve on DLA.

I've been invited by another claimant to sit in on their home-based face to face assessment tomorrow, so I'll report back afterwards to let you know if the HCP stayed in one room in that assessment too.

Glad it went so well! That's great to be awarded enhanced for both components. Thank you very much about reporting back.

Cat,

The assessment took place earlier today and I am pleased to report that it was contained to one room, and took 1 hour and 6 minutes from start to finish. She arrived promptly even in heavy snow and never asked to check any other rooms.

In case anybody is interested, this particular claim has been really fast - the claimant only phoned DWP to make a claim for PIP on 29/12, received the PIP2 form a couple of weeks later, completed and posted it on 16/01, then Capita phoned less than a week later on 22/01 to book a face to face home assessment, originally booking one for 26/01 but, as that was inconvenient, it was changed to today (29/01). The HCP advised the claimant to expect a decision in 6-8 weeks. This was a new claim and not a DLA migration.