My ATOS Medical - 11/02/15 - My Experience - ** PUT IN SUPPORT GROUP **

[AdamManc88]

Hi CAG,

 

Not posted for a while but decided I would share my experience of the ATOS Medical I had this morning.

 

Like I'm sure most of you have/will, I did a fair bit of research on what to expect and prepared myself mentally. I got very little sleep last night and was a nervous wreck on the way there as I suffer from severe anxiety in high pressure situations as well as the main issue I was there for which I won't discuss. I can full on understand people who don't normally have anxiety to be anxious as the day of the ATOS medical is one im sure we have all come to dread in the build up. Anyhow,

 

Location: Manchester, Albert Bridge House

Appointment Time: 10.00am 11/02/2015 (I went on to ESA in March of 2014)

Arrived : 9.45am -

Name Called: 9:55am - Was expected to be kept waiting but I wasn't...... Initially.

 

My first note is that the bloke on the reception desk seemed pretty rude. Didn't seem to care, very to the point, slid a clipboard under my nose to do with ID, i had to sign it and then show my ID's. He then disappeared in to the back room for a minute and I had read that they sometimes keep you waiting purposely to see if you can. As I was just about to go and sit down because I was sick of waiting he returned and told me to take a seat. Maybe he was just a bit of a rude person, maybe it was part of the game, or maybe it was a combination of both.

 

Now what my just be paranoia to me, but at an ATOS medical, I know you are pretty much judged from the minute you step foot inside, cameras everywhere, lots of staff wondering around pointlessly, but this is where I may have been being paranoid or misinterpreting something to be to do with me....

 

A few minutes after sitting down, the same bloke who dealt with me on reception popped out the back, looked me up and down breifly and then returned to the bit behind the reception. A few seconds later a female voice, said rather loudly "WHAT? HE'S FAILED THEN HAS HE? HAHAHA" Bare in mind I am the only person in the waiting room at this point, coupled with the fact the bloke had just come out and give me the once over and seconds after returning to the back office that was said, maybe it is paranoia but it just seemed an odd thing to hear when the day is simply about passing or failing.

 

 

I was called through to a room just around the corner, maybe 20m away. I was for some reason expecting a room with about 3 people in it but it was just me and her.. She made a swoop behind me as we got to the door, so i would have to open it. It wasn't overly heavy so I pushed it slowly open. (I had read that they walk behind you on purpose so you have to open doors). There was barley any time for small talk on the way to the room. I was told that seemingly innocent questions are all part of the medical, so I was expecting some seemingly normal questions to be part of the medical. There we're none. As I entered the room she asked "Have you been waiting long?" to which i replied "about 11 months). That's me not being a smart arse and trying to be funny, but my little way of confirming what we and they already know, that ATOS is a shambles. She watched me sit down and asked me 4 questions before telling me she wasn't qualified to deal with my condition and so she would get somebody else, who was, to do it. She sent me back to the waiting room, I asked how long i could expect to be waiting and she said somebody would be with me very soon.

 

To me this was all part of the game they play. From the most mundane waiting room I've ever sat it.. I've seen more atmosphere at the Etihad and that's saying something.

 

10-15 Minutes later I was called by another lady who took me to the room at the very far end of the corridor) most ofthe rooms on the way we're empty but I was taken maybe 50m to the far end, again, all part of the game i'm sure. This lady asked me the exact same initial questions as the first lady had and I immediately knew this was to catch me out or see if my story differed. I have seen enough detective shows to know this is how interrogations are often done. Thew first lady I saw was never going to do the medical, she was simply weighing me up.

 

I was in for around 30-40 minutes for my medical with the second lady during which she asked about my condition, my medications/treatments, how it affects day to day living and because my condition is much worse on some days than others i mentally put myself in the mind frame of my worst day. I was thinking back to a day last week where i was bed bound because of the pain. With every answer I used the words Reliably Repeatedly and Safely, which I had seen on this forum as well as various other guides to the medical.

 

Now the lady was very nice. She seemed understanding, she seemed to listen to my answer as she typed away. This could have been genuine but everything was telling me, it is this persons job to find me fit for work and I felt i was being lulled in to a false sense of security so she could try and trip me up, so after every question she asked, I paused, re-asked the question in my own head rather than just blurting something out which could and almost certainly would he used against me.

 

She then told me we would do a physical test now. She asked me how far we had parked (my dad drove me) from the venue, which i told her about 100m and although I had walked it, I was already feeling the tension build in my lower back and was in discomfort. She told me I didn't have to do any of the things she asked me if I did not want to. The upper body stuff i was ok with because even on my worst day i can move my arms/hands. When it came to the lower half, bending over and anything involving using my back or legs i refused. She asked me to get on the bed, and again I refused as it was fairly high. Now there and then i could have, no questions i could have got on to that bed, but on my worst day there was not a chance i was getting on to it without screaming when i catch my back in an awkward position and feel the shooting pains up my back. My bed at home is at a height where it is fairly simple to just lower myself on to it when my backs in a not so bad way. The bed in the room she asked me to get on was certainly around 2ft higher and it was more of a climb on than a get in if you follow me.

 

As with all my questions on the spoken part of the medical I kept saying, most of the time I can do this but if you ask me to do it x amount of times there will be a point where the tension in my back and the spasms get so severe I just can not do it Reliably, Repeatedly and Safely.

 

She concluded by asking if there was anything i would like her to see. I gave her a letter from my GP stating all my dates, medications, treatments and referrals to specialists. I also gave her a copy of my MRI scan (dated 2012) and told her my condition is significantly worse now than when that MRI was done, and to include a note stating this when sending it to a decision maker. All of the GP's and Specialists I have seen since 2012 keep referring to the 2012 MRI scan results and it annoys me no end, that somehow now I'm assumed to be in that exact same physical state.

 

 

She told me that was the end of the medical. That it would take 2-6 weeks to hear from the DWP with the decision and it is not her that makes the decision, it will be passed to a decision maker. She told me to go and wait in the waiting room while she took copies of the GP letter and MRI scan.

 

Now on the way back up to reception (50m away), I noticed her walking much faster and I immediately knew that this was to see if i would try and keep up with here. She had told me that the medical was completed down in the room, but at all costs remember this. The medical is underway from the second you step in (reception staff are often, and i think in my case, all part of the game, and the medical will end when you leave the area, I still felt like i was being watched as I made my way out of the building and around the corner.

 

 

Now this little story of how my medical went is in no way to scare or unnerve you when it comes to your ATOS Medical. It is simply an idea of what to expect. I'm sure some medicals will be similar, and i'm sure some will be almost identical. There's no changing the fact that the ATOS Medical is a huge thing for us all, and we have all done some research. The key is to remember this research come the medical day. As i said earlier I felt like I was being set up to stumble but I just stayed focused, re-asked the question in my own head and stuck to the words of Reliably Repeatedly and Safely. with every answer.

 

To summarize:

 

1.) Reliably, Repeatedly and Safely.

2.) You are being assessed from the second you walk in.

3.) You are being assessed until the second you walk out.

4.) However nice they seem, be clear they are there to find you fir for work

5.) If you don't understand a question - ask them to repeat it.

6.) Re-ask yourself the questions in your head before answering

7.) If they keep you waiting at the reception upon entering, take a seat - they are testing you

8.) If you cannot open a door, do not try and open a door, make the assessor do it.

9.) Get the names and professions of all the people involved in your Medical - Use a voice recorder if necessary

10.) If you do not feel comfortable doing something, do not do it.

11.) Reliably, Repeatedly and Safely. (This isn't a dupe, drill this in to every answer you give if your condition fluctuates.

 

 

I am fully expecting to get 0 points for simply turning up. Yet if I hadn't turned up my ESA would have been stopped. It's a catch 22.

 

I hope in anyway this story can somehow prepare you and your answers and your general understanding of the medical.

 

I was a bag of nerves last night, felt sick through anxiety and got very little sleep, but if there was one positive to take from today, I felt amazing once i'd got out of there. Not physically, my back had already locked up on me from the walking, sitting standing, and I am in a fair bit of discomfort as I type this, I am pretty much written off for the day.. After the day loomed closer for the last 6 weeks (when i got my date for the medical) and the nerves and anxiety grew stronger I felt amazing that it was over and done with.

 

 

Adam

[AdamManc88]

Update (21/03/2015):

 

So to my utter suprise (not that i don't feel that I don't deserve it), I have been placed in to the Support Group for 2 years.

 

I scored exactly the 15 points required.

 

From the report i received in the post i think it was this descriptor that scored the points...

 

"(ii) repeatedly mobilise 50 metres within a reasonable timescale because of significant discomfort or exhaustion and therefore fifteen points are awarded for moving around”

 

I can on some days mobilise 50m with no problems at all, but on other days it either causes discomfort and pain, or i am simply bed-bound and i'm not walking any amount of metres.

 

Now having read other posts over the last few years on various forums, can i start to relax a bit now or are they going to keep sending for me? I know people have been asked to take forms of ID to the local JCP.

 

I hope if you're reading this then the Original Post can in someway help you in your Medical, and i wish you the best of luck with your outcome.

 

 

Adam