PIP assessment and strange question

skylark555

Hello everyone.

I had a PIP assessment today. It was mostly exhausting because the assessor was trying to make me admit to things that I hadn't said, or when he clarified something it was completely different to what I had said. This happened too often to be coincidence or occasional misunderstanding and it became very tedious and really frutstrated me. By the end of it I was completely fed up and relieved to get out.

One of the first questions I was asked was "are you left handed or right handed", and it took me completely by surprise at the time of asking and it took me a while to process it before I could answer. It has continued to puzzle me since as I can see absolutely no purpose or relevance for this question.  I could have possibly seen a connection if I was there for a physical disbility relating to my arms, but I wasn't and it just felt bizarre. I thought maybe I am being tricked (I might just be paranoid about this as I read a lot of negative things about PIP before my assesment and was expecting to be tricked), but I have no idea how such a question could be used to trick someone. It was the only unrelated question I was asked and am wondering whether it could just have been like a 'warm-up' question to get me used to the idea of being interviewed? Any similar experiences would be very reassuring as it's just on loop in my head trying to work it out!

skylark555

ilovecats said:

skylark555 said:

Hello everyone.

I had a PIP assessment today. It was mostly exhausting because the assessor was trying to make me admit to things that I hadn't said, or when he clarified something it was completely different to what I had said. This happened too often to be coincidence or occasional misunderstanding and it became very tedious and really frutstrated me. By the end of it I was completely fed up and relieved to get out.

One of the first questions I was asked was "are you left handed or right handed", and it took me completely by surprise at the time of asking and it took me a while to process it before I could answer. It has continued to puzzle me since as I can see absolutely no purpose or relevance for this question.  I could have possibly seen a connection if I was there for a physical disbility relating to my arms, but I wasn't and it just felt bizarre. I thought maybe I am being tricked (I might just be paranoid about this as I read a lot of negative things about PIP before my assesment and was expecting to be tricked), but I have no idea how such a question could be used to trick someone. It was the only unrelated question I was asked and am wondering whether it could just have been like a 'warm-up' question to get me used to the idea of being interviewed? Any similar experiences would be very reassuring as it's just on loop in my head trying to work it out!

As a former assessor, I used to be guilty of this.

Assessors will sometimes have a crib sheet of prompts that they (shouldn't) copy and paste to give them reminded, normally for the social history. Sometimes they won't think and ask everything on it because they are on autopilot.

Mine looked something like this:

Lives in?
Lives with?
Adaptations?
Education / Work?
Arrival / Driving?
Interests / Housework?
Pets?
Left or right handed?

As you said, it's relevant for certain conditions e.g. strokes, arthritis but not relevant at all for most conditions, especially mental health. I got pulled up during my training on it and then always tried to leave it out unless it was relevant.

I promise you there is nothing sinister or anything to worry about with that question!

Hi ilovecats

Thank you very much for your reply. It is very helpul for it to be explained by somebody who has done that job. I was only there to talk about Asperger's Syndrome which I don't think is an official mental health problem but it's definitely more to do with how my brain works then any physical problems. I had spoken a about what I might need to speak about with my support worker before the assessment so I was ready to think and speak about my autism and then got really confused and distracted about which hand I use and why he needed to know even though it was one of the easiest and shortest answers I had to give.

It makes sense that he would have been on autopilot. I had not thought that they see lots of people with different things. Thank you!