Telephone review of PIP award today - a year late, after several cancellations.

I started the discussion by asking the occupational therapist from Independent Assessors to record the call, as Benefits & Work suggest is now routine for DWP PIP telephone reviews, and should be accommodated.
The response from my assessor was "Oh, I have never been asked for that before. I will have to ask a manager and get back to you, which means we will have to stop the interview. Do you want me to do that, or shall we continue?"

I replied "I was told it is routine now to be sent a CD copy of the interview, if requested". The reply was "I've never heard of that".

I smelled a rat, that I was not being told the truth, that they know full well about recording interviews, but this was a device to get me to succumb to acceding to the interview without them recording it. Knowing that once you're started you will just want to get it over with as soon as possible.

Fortunately, my carer was recording the whole shambles, so we continued.

You have to be on your guard with these people as they deliberately string it out with repeated innocent-sounding questions, throwing in off the cuff sounding questions like "do you have a pet" to catch you out (if you can look after a pet, how can you claim you cannot look after yourself etc). Do you pay your bills? How do you pay your bills? (No, of course I don't pay any bills that's why you've phoned me in a shoebox in the middle of the road where I'm homeless with no phone.)

All the while they are tapping away at a keyboard and you have no idea what they are putting down.

We should be sent a transcript, or they should read it back after each question so you can agree it is true and fair (but then the whole business would drag on for 3 hours!)

However, the suspicion is that they are typing up what they want, rather than listening to you properly, because often they then ask another question, and you think "I've just spent 10 mins explaining all that to you; were you not listening? If not, what on earth have you been typing!?!""

The whole thing is designed for them to make conclusions that they can reduce your financial help from the state, because you can 'manage'.

They are not really interested in how much difficulty you have doing these tasks because you are in constant pain and under heavy sedation all day from a basket full of strong medication that knocks you for six.

They don't earn any bonuses for that.

You have to be really on your guard, be prepared for the interview by reading the Benefits and Work guidance and having written responses ready that STRESS how DIFFICULT it is to do basic tasks when you are seriously ill, in pain, heavily sedated etc.

Otherwise they will lull you into a false sense of security of saying yes I can do such a basic thing, what a silly question, when the purpose is for them to conclude if you can do X then you can do Y and Z so you do not need support.

To subject seriously ill fatigued people to 90 mins of this Spanish Inquisition of trick questions to catch out sick and poorly people and put them under even more financial stress should be the first thing the new government abolishes.

But I bet they don't.

I'm all for stopping deliberate cheats from claiming benefits, financial support that those who are genuinely ill and disabled desperately need, but this is not the way to do it.