Just been reading that the DWP told MPs that Atos, Capita and Maximus “consistently exceed” their customer satisfaction targets of 90% for PIP assessments and 91% for ESA assessments. They are figures which I find rather high considering everything you see/hear about peoples experiences.
I had a PIP assessment (Atos Healthcare) and was never asked for any feedback, just wondering if anyone here has actually been asked to provide any.
nope. taking d.w.p. to a tribunal and in the midst of writing to e.s.a. to complain about all the lies in my assessment.
I was lucky and got my PIP after Mandatory Reconsideration, my MPs Office gave me a lot of help. The majority of information I gave them in my questionnaire was completely ignored by the assessor and the assumptions made by the Decision Makers as a result were ridiculous!
Hope you can get yours sorted out.
They only give figures about people who complained directly to health assessment companies . Most people dont complain or are put off complaining and have to go through MR or Tribunal So in other words if you have to do an MR or go to Tribunal after having a health assessment and dont complain to Maximus, Capita or Atos directly that means then you were happy with your assessment .I know how hard they make it when you make complaint and also tell you they cant change the decision made by a DM in the DWP even though that decision is based on wrong information given by health assessor at your assessment. That is exactly was happened in my case.
It wasn't about complaints about decisions that the figures were about. The DWP has told the W&P Select Committee that their private contractors had high customer satisfaction rates regarding their assessments. According to the Benefits and Works site someone was given a feedback form by the assessor after the completion of their assessment - the assessor was standing over them while they completed it! The Benefits & Works team have put in a FoI request to find out where they get their stats from.
I was just wondering if anyone here had a similar experience.
No i was not asked for feedback after assessment. I am aware of the W&P Select Committee Report my submission to the Committee was published and used in evidence. Also, are you aware that a court ordered the government to reveal the findings of an impact assessment of universal credit. The government have appealed this as they do not want to reveal the findings. I wonder why?
There appears to be a lot they don't want folks to know, as you say, I wonder why - or rather I wonder what they are trying to hide! The submission about my husband's ESA assessment got a mention in the Select Committee's report.
Being asked to fill in a satisfaction form after an assessment not knowing what the assessor has wrote down should not be allowed. As in my case the assessor seemed to be a nice sincere individual. Unknown to me he wrote down all my medication wrong, omitted discussing the way my illnesses effected me on a daily basis. How would i have been aware of this until i got the assessment report? When i did and complained i got an apology, and consolatory payment from a manager in MAXIMUS. I would not have been aware of what the assesSor was writing, immediately after having my FtF assessment, until i got the report. So therefore, i was have been unable to complete a customer satisfaction form
I quite agree, there is no way claimants should be asked to provide feedback on an assessment when they can't compare what went on in that assessment to what the assessor has actually written about them. I think claimants should be able to see the report before they even leave the assessment centre so they can clarify what has been written about them.
At mine the Assessor was very pleasant, however, in spite of telling me how good the information was that I provided was, she then proceeded to ignore almost all of it when she wrote the report! Seemed fixated on the fact that I drove to the assessment (my other named driver had a stroke and couldn't take me) and lots of assumptions were made because of it. Nowhere in the report or subsequent decision was any reference made to the levels of pain I was experiencing even although she said she could see I was in pain during the assessment. Kept saying I was only taking moderate pain relief even although one of my meds was labelled on the repeat prescription form as being for "severe pain".
I was lucky at MR stage though, a short letter from my GP was enough for the DM to refer my paper to an Atos Healthcare medical professional (why couldn't they have done that in the first place) and my score for Daily Living went from 9 to 20.
No I wasnt asked either.. BUT I,d like to bet the people who gave good feedback were granted money!
Hang on a minute there's a herd of very pink pigs flying overhead closely followed by the assessors riding their unicorns 
Do they think we came down with the last shower of rain ?
Was that what it was..... and there was me thinking it was just a lovely sunset!!!
I know, how on earth did they find over 90% people who were really happy bunnies before, during and after going through their assessments.
When the Select Committee asked for peoples experiences of the assessments they had the biggest online response of any Select Committee. Needless to say the majority of those weren't good ones and DWP countered with these figures of happy people.
I'm sure if the DWP ministers had the guts to have a look at some of the MR or Tribunal submissions they would get a better picture of how satisfied people really are!
I was not asked for any feedback, although I recently had a home assessment and was awarded PIP afterwards. However just read on my e-mail from Benefits and Work about -copied and pasted below for info.... hope this is ok Hazel??
APPEAL SUCCESS RISES The latest figures from the Tribunals service show that the proportion of claimants who win their PIP and ESA appeals now stands at a staggering 69%. For PIP claimants this represents a rise from 65% in the first quarter of 2016/17. For ESA claimants it represents a small fall of 1%.
Hopefully, this will lead to more people being awarded PIP first time now - especially where people have actual hard evidence from their GP and Consultants etc. to show that they have the blasted condition!!
It was an article in the B&W newsletter that made me ask.
"MYSTERY OF GLOWING PIP AND ESA FEEDBACK
In the last newsletter we asked you if you had been intimidated into giving good feedback about your PIP or ESA assessment.
The DWP have told MPs that the private assessment companies Atos, Capita and Maximus “consistently exceed” their customer satisfaction targets of 90% for PIP and 91% for ESA. Which may surprise some readers.
But we heard from one member who had been asked to give signed feedback to a PIP assessor who stood over her as she wrote it. Not surprisingly she gave the health professional top marks.
We wanted to discover if this was a common experience.
However, far from providing an answer, all we have done is deepen the mystery.
Because out of the many tens of thousands of claimants, advice workers and support workers who read our newsletters, only two people contacted us to say that they had been asked to give feedback.
One gave feedback in person and one in writing.
Such a low level of response is very unusual for Benefits and Work and does raise at least a suspicion that the number of people that the feedback responses are based on is quite small.
We have now made a freedom of information request to the DWP asking how and when feedback is collected, who it is collected by and how many responses the latest statistics are based upon.
We’ll let you know what we discover."
I’ve read the Dwp are making this claim but can’t back it up...hardly anyone was asked for a review and most of those who did had the assessor standing next to them while they were filling it in so anyone would feel pressured into giving a good review incase it affected the outcome. I don’t know of anyone being asked to complete 1 so might be interesting to ask on here?
I wasn’t asked
No-one I know who has been through assessment, ESA or PIP, has been asked. It is certainly putting a lot of pressure on those who have been asked while at their assessment for their feedback - especially as they don't know if it could affect the initial outcome of their claim. Even worse the worry to me would be if a positive feedback given under the pressure of assessment could be held against if you go for a MR or a Tribunal.
Health assessment after PIP award?
PIP Assessment criteria
Pip telephone assessment 
Recording of ESA assessments
