Who is best to submit, extra medical evidences to DWP or HAAS

Good afternoon folks,
I have significant diagnosis for BPD and a number of neurological diagnosis, Tethered Spinal Cord Syndrome, 4 levels of degeneration in my Lumbar spine and 2 levels of degeneration in my Cervical spine, there are a number of moderate nerve impingements, Meralgia Paresthetica in both legs and number of other issues with, Clonus, Ulnar entrapment, diebetes2, Deafness and I'm 60 with all that entails.
Having had my work capability assessment postponed due to my UC113 being submitted by printout by my GP surgery admin and failing shockingly to disclose my medical diagnosis. The printout does include Tran scripted interactions with doctors that bear out what I have said to some degree
Yesterday, I had a GP appointment, during which my GP said she would complete and submit the DWP generated UC113 form, which should have been submitted in the first place. We discussed calmly but at length why such important information was omitted. I have been assured this will be corrected.
My WCA should have been this morning, I have confirmed it has been postponed and am relieved to some degree. My BPD amplifies anxiety and obsessive thinking, the past week has made me significantly unwell, I have many physiological symptoms of stress, exhortation and raised pulse 110, vomiting, as an examples.
My GP has told me she will complete the UC113 correctly, see that it is returned to DWP in due course, with a letter explaining and giving me, her support.
I do not yet have a date and time for a new assessment. I have also now received a report from the Complex Needs Service, following my 2nd round of MBT, the course completed in June and report arrived yesterday. Timing can be a real disappointment.
I attempted to use the interactive UC50 PDF and now fully regret doing so, as my UC50 is riddled with spelling mistakes.
With my UC50, I did include medical reports from Neurology, Complex Needs Service and Adult Mental Health Services. Appointment letters for near future appointments with Neurology and Neuro surgeon.
In consideration that my GP medical report was so wildly uninformative, and this is important
I have convinced myself I may have to debate my diagnosis with HAAS assessor. I am very unlikely to be able to contain my emotions if that does occur. I will absolutely ask for the assessment to be recorded and have attempted to get Cube ACR a call recording app, to work on my phone but the recording are blank. I have attempted to change the settings as directed, the recording remain blank.

So on to my questions,
1. Who should I send new medical evidences to ? I have conflicting information and have been told to send to both DWP and HAAS. I am definitely sending to DWP
2. What will the HAAS assessor know of my diagnosis ?
3. Based on what I have disclosed in this post, should I seek advice from a solicitor and are there recommended solicitors who can give me advice.
4. What is the best way to record the assessment
5. Should I seek legal advice and if so, are there recommended solicitors that deal with this type of advice. I live in in Oxfordshire

Finally, I realise my thinking about all the above is hyper mentallisation, I continue to fail to control the impact on me, I suffer brutal anxiety.
I have been LCWRA until June 2023, I inherited some money that wiped out my claim and here we are today.
I apologise this is so long, but I feel detail is of utmost importance

Best regards to all

Hello Nige 60/BIS!

Apologies if this is a Brain Dump, but it may be of interest when wanting to find a way to Record a Call from the DWP Assessors.

In terms of Recording a Telephone Assessment within a room via Speaker Phone, one fairly easy option is to use either a separate Mobile Phone to Record the Speaker Phone, or to do the same via the FREE Windows Voice Recorder that comes with Windows 10.

Indeed, some Mobile Phones may even have a Call Recording App, or one may be available at low cost, to Record a Call made to themselves directly, which is likely to be optimal as it's a direct Recording from Digital to Digital within the Mobile Phone.

Just make sure it is not limited in terms of Time, and will Record anything up to 3 hours or more.

By comparison, anything that is Recording a Speaker Phone in a Room, will invariably mean an Analogue step or two in the middle, so Digital Call, to Analogue Speaker, to Analogue Microphone, to Digital Device's Memory Storage.

Despite the above steps, it can still work to an acceptable standard.

In terms of using a Computer to Record a Speaker Phone in the Room, this is usually an easy option with a Laptop, as they nearly always come with a Microphone built-in, unlike many Desktop machines. But, having said that, most Desktop PCs have a Microphone-in socket so, it's not at all costly to buy a low cost Microphone if all you have is a Desktop PC and it hasn't got one as standard. It should then be easy to plug one in.

Do also move the Recording Device near the Speaker Phone, or at whatever distance makes the best Test Recording.

In terms of the Telephone side if needing to Record one on Speaker Phone (assuming you don't have a Mobile with an App that can Record an incoming Call made to itself), you will obviously need one that can indeed be put on Speaker Phone, and that does so nice and clearly, so that any Laptop/Desktop or separate Mobile, can then Record both sides of the conversation within the Room.

Assuming you have any of the above already, then the key after that, is to try this out first, and make sure it works to an acceptable Audio standard. By that, I just mean that it's clear, and not muffled, or filled with snaps, crackles or pops!

Do also practice the steps needed to both answer the Call, activate the Mobile's own Call Recorder, or put the Telephone onto Speaker Phone, and also launch Windows Voice Recorder to start the Recording, or set a separate Mobile to do the Recording within the Room.

What ever equipment you have, it would be wise to get a friend to Call you, and keep testing to make sure that, on the day, you won't get in a muddle and forget to follow any of the steps outlined above.

There are other ways but, the above are suggestions that many may already have.

One word of caution, make sure this works to create a clear Audio Recording, because it is hard to later Transcribe the Audio into Text if you cannot clearly hear every word spoken. Transcribing is incredibly tedious, and very hard work indeed, if the words are not clear.

If your Test Recordings are rubbish, find a better way, as a clear Recording is far, far better than a poor quality one. That's because if later needed at Tribunal, any Transcription made from the Recording needs to be accurate, just to stop the DWP trying to claim it is not. Transcribing is a nightmare if the Recording is poor. It's hard to be accurate if you cannot hear it well enough.

In any event, the Tribunal won't want to listen to the whole Recording, they won't have the time, but will almost certainly be quite happy if a full, or part-Transcription, plus the Audio File itself, is just made available for them to check any particular quotations from it.

In terms of any Written Submission supporting any Appeal that's needed, all you then do is quote specific parts of the Telephone Assessment, and add, say, the Audio File's Time Stamp where that happens, which you should also add to, say, a column that runs alongside any Transcription Text itself.

For example, the Audio Recording will start at 0:00:00 (Hours : Minutes : Seconds) when you start Recording, and run for however long the Recording lasted. So if 40 minutes precisely, then the end would be 0:40:00.

If something interesting is Recorded, quote that bit for the Tribunal, but add where it can be found, say, at 0:32:12 or at 32 Minutes and 12 Seconds into the Recording. If needed, the Tribunal can then easily go straight to that part, and also listen to it for themselves, whilst also reading the applicable part of any Transcription to make sure it's all acceptably accurate. They won't be concerned by the odd Transcription mistake, provided it's a faithful representation of what was said. Missing the odd word out won't matter unless a Legal point turns upon it.

Also, as I say, given that Transcribing is really, really...really tedious, then another option is to not to try Transcribing the whole lot, just Transcribe the key parts that matter.

But, do note the Time Stamp for each, and do provide a copy of the Audio File for the Tribunal to check, if needed.

The Time Stamp is critical, as the Tribunal won't have time to hunt for anything, they will want to go straight to the relevant part.

Others may have better suggestions, the above are just ones that can work fairly easily, and that people may already have without needing to buy anything (other than a Microphone if their Desktop PC doesn't have one as standard). Many may not have realised they can already do this with what they already have.

Lastly, the other advantage of doing it via Mobile or Computer, is the eventual Audio Recording is then Digital, and on your Mobile/Laptop/PC, so can be re-played, or possibly sent via email if the File is not too large. If a massive File, as it will be if hours long, then just copy the Audio File to a USB Memory Stick, and send that instead.

For a Tribunal, just include a USB Memory Stick along with your Appeal Bundle of papers, or send it to the Tribunal ahead of time, and make sure they have it before any Hearing, be that on the papers, in person, or via Telephone or Video link.

It can vary, but a two hour Recording is likely to be around 200MB. So make sure your Device has at least that available to store the Recording, preferably many times that!.

Recording to a Tape Recorder is better than nothing but, it's then much harder to get that into a Format that you can send to the Tribunal. Transferring it to another Device later, is likely to degrade the quality, as it'll be a lossy process, unlike copying a Digital File from one Device to another, where the quality should remain identical.

Either way, practice using the equipment to make Test Recordings, well before the actual Call comes in.

Practice makes perfect!

Jorvick88

Hi Jorvick88, thank you. I will have to concider this at length.
I fully intend to ask for the assessment to be recorded by HAAS too, but also wish to have my own recording.

Many thanks

Something to bear in mind on an Android mobile phone is that Google has blocked it so that you can't use a recording app on your mobile whilst at the same time speaking to someone on the same mobile, even though you would have the mobile in speaker mode. I believe it's all to do with security of information or something like that! I'm not sure if it's the same on an iPhone.

Whichever method you use to record, as Jorvick88 says, make sure you test it all out beforehand.

If I have to have a WCA my son will be with me, I'll be using my mobile phone in speaker mode and he will be recording the whole thing on an app on his mobile phone.

TMD

Hi Bis.
I have been to tribunal in the past, 2016, complete farce to be honest. I would need an advocate if this does go as far as a tribunal, a solicitor would be a good advocate.
I also realise my hyper mentallisation is very active, my information gathering is from a really anxious perspective. It’s the very worst of symptoms for many people I would think.
BPD is a cruel, self-manipulator of emotion and response, dissociation is common
My GP is of the opinion, I could not work reliably or sustainably. There has been a great deal of negative media on the subject of benefits and disability in recent years. Having both psychological and physical issues, has made me really quite anxious about much of life.
Thank you for your reply